Spraying water into the muzzle

[RAEDWALD]

I came across a reference to the Wild muzzle loading system that was put into service by some of the german states in their 1842 rifles.

The user, after loading the dry patched bullet, poured a small measured amount of water down the barrel from a special brass bottle. The purpose being to soften any fouling and allow the bullet to push it out.

Does anybody know anything more about this or tried anything similar? How much water?

 

[Little Wattsy]

Sounds like reason #32 why they lost the war.....
:grin: :grin: :grin:

 

[George T.]

I have never heard of that. It sounds as though useing a damp patch would be easier. Geo. T.

 

[Rifleman1776]

I came across a reference to the Wild muzzle loading system that was put into service by some of the german states in their 1842 rifles.

The user, after loading the dry patched bullet, poured a small measured amount of water down the barrel from a special brass bottle. The purpose being to soften any fouling and allow the bullet to push it out.

Does anybody know anything more about this or tried anything similar? How much water?

Someone elses wild idea. Are you sure they used a brass bottle and not a plastic bottle from Wal-Mart? :wink:
I fear you may have started something........ :shocked2:

 

[DOUBLEDEUCE 1]

I doubt if there would be any added benefit to doing that. Swabbing with a damp patch before loading helps. Also, the lubed patch used during loading helps soften and wipe away the fouling as the ball is being pushed down. :hmm:

 

[cynthialee]

thats about a dumb idea

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Not trying to be silly, but if you ram a patched ball down on a really dirty barrel, aren't you moving a bunch of fouling, and aren't you running the risk of a stuck ball... plus after you load a dry, patched ball, and add water on top..., how do you pull out the patched ball?

I'd think it would be simpler to ram a properly fitted jag with a patch to the breech (though that is cleaning the bore a bit), then add some water by pouring it between the muzzle crown and the cleaning rod shaft, and let it sit for a few minutes, then extract the jag on the end of the rod thus pulling softened crud with it...and in 1842 they were using metal rods in the muskets, so no worries about harming the rod.

Us Germans do have a tendency to over complicate mechanical stuff.

LD

 

[gearheart]

Das ist verruckt. Alle Kunst ist Dunst wenn ein Engel in dein Zundloch brunst.

 

[Flint311]

I don't wanna try it. It may freeze the patched ball down the barrel or I may shoot a deer with an ice bullet (hard to recover)! :rotf:

 

[RAEDWALD]

And yet several states did put it into practice.

At not inconsiderable expense and must have issued at least hundreds, almost certainly thousands, of troops with this and it must have served them for several years.

Breechloaders came along and it died away, but it must have been more than some idle whim. These sort of things were subject to quite some testing before being chosen as the way to go in these armies.

The balls came ready patched with the patches gathered such that the folds aligned with the rifling. Presumably a light thread held the dry patches in place. The powder was in a separate cartridge, poured in and discarded.

Had it been 'someone on the net said...' I would have discounted it but this was a genuine and militarily used system.

Nadelik Lowen ha Bledhen Nowyth Da

 

[khavell]

On my firearms safety course they recommended placing o piece of thin tape over the barrel to avoid water getting down the barrel. The safety point being that water in the barrel can cause compression of the gases and the barrel to explode. Now the lower compression in a black powder muzzleloader may be less than a modern centre firing hunting rifle. I just swab with a damp patch after I have loaded but not primed. Some guys will swab as they ram.

 

[Roguedog]

I try pretty hard to keep water OUT of my barrel.

Jeff

 

[S.Kenton]

I'm curious as to how this worked..Done a google search and came up with nothing.

 

[RAEDWALD]

When I was on the Gautemalan border in Belize we put condoms on our M16s to keep the mud and water out.

 

[RAEDWALD]

Here is an practical update on the subject.

I am a little diffident about advocating this as many folk here are more knowledgeable than I and it may be common knowledge to them.

I smooth bored my rifled flintlock .44 to an undersize .45 so that I could use it in competitions. I then bought .435 balls instead of the .43 I had previously used. For the first time I found that fouling was a problem. Needing cleaning every 4 shots or so. Probably as there was no room for the normal tallow lubricated patches so I was firing a bare ball above a carded wool wad.

Then I recalled the Wild rifle system of Johann Wild, which involved squirting a small amount of water into a dry rifled bore after loading, and thought it might just automatically clean out the bore on firing.

Last month I went down to the range armed with my wife's trigger operated water spray and gave the pistol a single squirt down the barrel after each loading. Magically all the fouling problems disappeared and I could fire without cleaning.

The pistol and my Remington rifle musket are sold and a cheap Brown Bess replica will probably replace them and I intend to make this a regular part of my routine, following paper cartridge loading with a water squirt.

No harm was done to the accuracy, if anything it may be slightly better with a consistent bore after the first shot of the session.

I do not claim that this is a universal panacea to be adopted by all. Only that I felt that I should report my experience in case it might be of use to anyone else. I dare say someone will now tell me that this has been tried and rejected in the past or that it is in common use, but it is all new to me and the late Johann Wild should get any credit going.

 

[roundball]

However uncommon that practice might be, its a vary valid concept, simply softening the fouling so it can be wiped off the bore as the patched ball travels back up.

AND...same concept...using wetter lubes like Hoppe's No.9 PLUS Blackpowder Solvent & Patch Lube on patches results in the same exact thing happening...its just that the wetter patch wipes the bore clean as the PRB is seated down.
The little trace of fouling build up on the patch from the single previous shot actually helps seal the bottom side of the ball's circumference against the bore.

When a shot is fire, everything is expelled, and there is only one fresh shot's worth of fouling on the bore walls again...and that cycle repeats every shot.
Shoot 50 shots and the 50th PRB loads just as easy as the fist PRB did...done many, many a range session that way...its all about keeping the fouling soft.

 

[George]

Does anybody know anything more about this or tried anything similar?

The same idea was put into use routinely by the old BP shotgun guru V. M. Starr back in the 1950s-60s. Here's part of his instructions for loading, after the powder, overpowder wads and shot are in:

"Now do what I tell you and no fooling__pucker up and spit down each barrel after the shot charge before you put in the wads the spit will soften up the fouling from the former charge and the wad will act like a squeege and clean the barrel each time you load and you can shoot all day without fouling troubles as long as you spit each time."

Spence

 

[FishDFly]

I know one very proficient trap shooter who gave a squirt of water on top of his shot from a plastic spray bottle prior to seating his over the shot card.

With such a stupid idea he was a winner at Friendship and Phoenix on the trap line.

Maybe V.M. Starr may have known something after all.

This idea is no dumber than a lot of others that are presented here is it?

 

[M. De Land]

I think the idea has potential on the shooting line but would be a rust incubator in a fouled hunting rifle.
Personally I think I would just use a damp patch on the range rod after short starting the ball onto the powder and push the whole kit and caboodle down together. The following damp patch would come back out on the loading jag I use. The previous fouling would go down under the patched ball and be on top to the powder column providing a buffer between the damp ball patch and clean new powder charge. Mike D.

 

[FishDFly]

I agree, there is a difference in the two shooting disciplines, line and hunting.

I tend to drop shooting into difference buckets, depending if it's line, which type of line shooting, (pistol being the most unsafe) and hunting, all are different and need to be approached differently.