Reloading while running?

[tenngun]

While I don't recommend this today, When your life is on the line anything goes. Charging from the horn, so what if it blows up, if captured it was going to be worse

Pretty basic. Someone is going to kill you, they are charging you. They come from a society that teaches no fear. As long as he can fight he will
Your guns empty but just maybe you have a chance to load and shoot.
your horn might blow upin your hand, your ball might not get all the way down and blow your gun , you might bust your wrist trying to seat it. But that man will kill you. What’s the worse that could happen?
I’ll take a chance

 

[shorthair]

So the story is Wetzel could load and fire while fleeing from Indians. He allegedly did so killing or wounding several Indians chasing him . This was an emergency procedure.
Wetzel was reported to place several round balls in his mouth, and to spit the ball into the barrel, after adding powder, slam the butt of the rifle upon the ground, and then turn and shoot one of the pursuing Indians.

Folks have experimented and it has been found to work BUT..., there are some special conditions. First, the frizzen is shut on an empty pan. Next the powder is poured into the muzzle from the horn. This is dangerous especially because after the first shot followed with a rapid reload the shooter is risking a premature discharge. Next, the ball is spit from the mouth but NOT directly into the barrel. Holding the mouth up to the barrel and trying to spit a ball into the muzzle was found to be a good way to knock out a tooth or two while running over uneven terrain. Usually the ball failed to go into the muzzle during testing. The solution was found; the shooters "off" hand is held at the muzzle and the ball is spit into the hand, and the hand then guides the ball as it drops into the muzzle. Then the rifle butt is tapped several times against the ground while continuing to run (hopefully not breaking the stock at the wrist or causing other stock damage) which then hopefully seats the unpatched ball on the powder at the breech. The pan on the lock self-primes at the same time because..., the touch hole is overlarge from use. The rifleman need only to cock the piece, turn, and to fire. Not a very far shot, but one can hit a man sized target in the chest at 25 yards and perhaps farther with an unpatched ball in a rifle.

Wetzel didn't carry ball all the time in his mouth, so he wasn't sucking on lead all day.

Another account is that some men would hold ball between fingers jammed where the fingers meet the hand, and over time the hand changed and it was possible to hold the balls in that hand without much discomfort.

LD

If the natives are chasing you with enough enthusiasm a person might try most anything to discourage them.

 

[oldwood]

I have read a half dozen books , one of which was by Doddridge. I would have to give much credibility to those books. Sensationalism is not a quality found in writings from those times. They are written in a dry and "matter of fact" manor and from book to book , the consistency of the facts lends the information to be very believable. Also , in defending Eckert's work , he inserts a little narrative licensed drama to the adventure, but in my opinion , it's a narrative ,and is ok to do. .....................oldwood

 

[hanshi]

Hmmm...Loading a rifle while running. Just speaking for myself it would depend entirely on what-the-heck was chasing me. I can't do it, hard enough loading while standing still. Now, if it "twer a bar" chomping at my heels I'd certainly give it my best try.

 

[Grimord]

Reloading on the run??? How about reloading on a running horse in the middle of a buffalo stampede?

 

[sawyer04]

Reloading on the run??? How about reloading on a running horse in the middle of a buffalo stampede?

I believe I would be lucky to escape with horse and rifle intact. Reload, not for me. YIH, HA.

 

[Jason Jablonski]

This has been a fun thread. Next time I am at the range, I may time myself and see how fast (Ha!) I can load just standing. Would be a good point of reference.
Which that would then lead into a consideration of colonial rifleman and their reload times, especially while being charged with bayonets.

 

[smoothshooter]

I find this very interesting. Jason J refers to "reading about ......."
I would like to know what is source is. I DO hope that it is not the Interent. It might well be from a book written many years ago --- which could well be recounting "scuttlebutt" (Google this term?) which over the years has become "truth" - or "perceived knowledge", as with so many things which have been plagiarised from earlier documents.
In like manner there are STILL people in the ML community who believe that what they saw in Westerns made in the '40s and 50's are actually what happenned. This even extends to "The man with no name" movies ;-)

Eckert’s accounts were the first I had read about, and his works seem to have been exhaustively researched, with references described in sometimes excruciating detail. IIRC, various of Wetzels exploits are mentioned in eyewitness accounts in some of the Draper Manuscripts.

 

[toot]

Awesome book. One of Eckert’s best researched works. I seem to recall he claimed Brady and Kenton could reload on the run as well but it was a skill few frontiersmen mastered.

his books, all of them by ALLEN W ECKERT, will make you feel that you are right there in the pages of his book's. they are just great!!

 

[beardedhorse]

There should be a disclaimer if someone reads this and tries to load and fire on the run gets hurt or killed. Such as Don't try this at home on the range.

 

[dragnetbill]

I was thinking about this loading while running idea last week while deer hunting. I was standing in the woods in the early stages of dawn, waiting for my sights to become visable; okay, as visable as they get anymore, so semi-visable. I heard a flight of waterfowl passing overhead; I turned at the hips, perhaps three degrees or so, lifted my head up to look at the flight, and damned near fell over..............now, back to the coordination required to load while running..........

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Which that would then lead into a consideration of colonial rifleman and their reload times, especially while being charged with bayonets.

A rifleman who is close enough that a bayonet charge will reach him is wrong..., That's the whole point of having the rifle.

There should be a disclaimer if someone reads this and tries to load and fire on the run gets hurt or killed. Such as Don't try this at home on the range.

You guys must be blessed with huge parking areas at your shooting ranges.
So the fastest folks doing 100 yards do it in just less than 10 seconds, on a perfectly flat piece of ground in special shoes, etc.
So lets say a fellow in good shape could do a cross country 100 yards over a meadow, in 30 seconds. BUT this loading procedure would likely take about 15 seconds or less, so.., that's half the time, or 50 yards.
So the testing shooter is going to need to start 50 yards away from the shooting line...,
Couldn't do it at my range...,

LD