Shooting Round Balls Without Patches

[GregLaROCHE]

There are people shooting round balls without patches. I have heard you can roll the ball between two rasps to raise points on it, so it stays tight in the bore. I’ve also heard that what counts is that it rolls down the bore when fired. I guess this is to start it spinning to give it more stability. I would like to know what others think about these methods.
I’ll be shooting a .69 cal smooth bore.
Thanks

[Edward]

[QUOTE=GregLaROCHE;4719705]There are people shooting round balls without patches. I have heard you can roll the ball between two rasps to raise points on it, so it stays tight in the bore. I’ve also heard that what counts is that it rolls down the bore when fired. I guess this is to start it spinning to give it more stability. I would like to know what others think about these methods.



I’ll be shooting a .69 cal smooth bore.
My .610 was not accurate bare ball ,needed tite patch @ 50yds .Group opened up without and dimpled was a waste of time. Your gun might be different but I hunt with mine and a lubed patch works for me/Ed

[Maven]

Greg, I've tried patched RB's and bare RB's, albeit of different diameters in my 20ga. smoothbore and found the patched ones to be more accurate. Others, however, find the opposite to be true. Also, I've also rolled the larger RB's between 2 coarse files and found them to be no more (or less) accurate than the unroughened ones. Btw, whether the roughening thing -> more accurate shooting is open to debate. One thing about it is certain though, it allows you to dip lube the balls for "bare ball" loads. Lastly, the bare ball loads, as cast and roughened, I used shot to a different point of impact than the patched ones and required a larger powder charge to hit the target center.

[toot]

DUELIST 1954, MIKE BELEIVIEW, did considerable testing on dimpled balls. most impressive.

[sghart3578]

I like to read old accounts of shooters of long ago. One thing that stuck with me is the guys that would chew round balls with their teeth to dimple them.

I shoot a lot of round ball but I have not worked up the nerve to try this.

Best of luck,


Steve in N CA

[waksupi]

Something of interest.

From the Muzzleloading Forum. This make sense to me, as I never gained any appreciable accuracy from a dimpled ball.

My interest in the chewed ball comment was that it seemed to be implying that the old boys used rough/chewed balls to increase accuracy, and I don't believe that is the case. I have several items mentioning chewed balls from the period, but they all are concerned with "poisoning" the balls or otherwise increasing the injury they cause.

“For though the law of arms doth bar
The use of venom’d shot in war,
Yet by the nauseous smell, and noisom,
Their case-shot favor strong of poison,
And doubtless have been chew’d with teeth
Of some that had a stinking breath,”
“Hudibras”, in _A complete, Edition of the Poets of Great Briton_, Volume the Fifth, Robert Anderson 1795

The Guernsey had sixteen Men kill’d, and three wounded; among which was the Lieutenant, who died the same Day of a Wound he reciev’d in his Thigh, with a Musket Ball chew’d, which made the Wound mortal.”
The Voyages Dangerous Adventures and Imminent Escapes of Capt. Rich. Falconer 1784

“This day the Lord Fairfax sent a Trumpet, complaining of chew’d and poisoned bullets being fired from the Town, and threatening to give no Quarter if that Practice was allow’d…”
A Tour thro’ the whole Island of Great Britain, divided into Circuits or Journeys. By a Gentleman 1724

“Bullet chew’d, why does it wound incurably”
Q. What’s the reason that a Wound in any part of the body by a gnawn or chew’d bullet, proves incurable?
A. If it be really so, the reason may be, because the roughness of the Bullet, and its many unequal edges tare and Jag the Flesh in such a manner, that ‘tis impossible it should ever close again, or admit of any Cure besides Amputation.”
The Athenian oracle, an entire collection of all the valuable questions and answers in the Old Athenian Murcuries. Printed for Andrew Bell, Cornhil 1706

[StrawHat]

Several decades ago, I received “Muzzle Blasts”, the magazine of the NMLRA. Often to fill space there would be snippets of information from one of the ODG diaries. I do not recall reading about chewed or dimpled balls but going the opposite way. I recall mention of two thin patches. When loading became tight, just use one patch.

Never tried it myself.

Kevin

[pwc]

I know that golf balls are dimpled to give xtra range. Don't know why this works as it interrupts the laminar flow over the ball. I have heard that hollow point pistol rounds were packed with garlic, and that made a mortal wound no matter where struck. Remember in JAWS, the sheriff was putting poison in his bullets and sealing them with wax.

[LAGS]

And I have to pack my Hollow Point Bullets with Salt, because I hunt at such a long Range, I don't want the meat to Spoil by the time I retrieve my game. LOL

[dave951]

I shoot in the smoothbore category in the North South Skirmish Association. We aren't allowed to patch in smoothbore.

As for the method, ask 5 Skirmishers, get 12 answers. Some use a fariers file to raise whiskers on the ball, some use a custom made "dimpler", some (like me) do absolutely nothing. My load- 65g 3f Old Eynsford with a .685 ball dipped in the same lube I use in my rifle musket and I do not so much as remove the sprue. In my 42 Macon with .690 bore, this load will put every shot into a playing card at 25yd and hold 4in at 50, assuming the nut on the stock does his part.

I've tried the other methods and searched for a while before stumbling onto this load and it just plain works in my gun. If I had to guess what the most important factor is, that'd be the size of the ball relative to the bore. I have only .005 windage, others who use the file/dimple method, much more. I tried the file method and alox dip and it wasn't satisfactory. Fouling got really hard and accuracy fell off rapidly. I've tried the dimple method and the groups opened up. Again, this is in my gun with a .685 ball. A slightly smaller ball may respond better to the file/dimpler, but with my gun shooting as well as it does, I'll just keep that stuff in the "for later experiment" category.

As for why the dimpling/file method working in some guns, my guess it has nothing to do with aerodynamics, but more with keeping the ball centered in the bore. Think of it this way, if the powder charge causes any obturation at all, any whiskers and dimpling just got squashed. If the ball doesn't obturate, then maybe the centering effect is the ticket. Either way, no way to tell without experimentation with your gun and ball size and good luck in retrieving any ball for post shot analysis. I also suspect that occasional occult style rituals and howling at the moon can also help improve accuracy in a smoothbore.

[Handshaker]

Chewing on Lead? Now that's a long painful death and a brutal way to commit suicide, lol. Remember how the people in old sailing ships ate from lead lined cans? They went mad from lead poisoning and died.

[Maven]

I just returned from the range after testing "bare," i.e., unpatched RB's in my 20ga. Green River Forge trade gun (flintlock). The particulars will follow in a moment, but the verdict, at least for my gun, is that patched RB's are significantly more accurate than the bare ones, and those results are repeatable.

Today's frolic involved .618" - .619", i.e., bore diameter, weighed RB's (Tanner mould), seated over 80gr. Graf's Schuetzen FFFg + a grease wad. No OP or OS wads were used as those RB's are a tight fit in the bbl. I also swabbed the bore after each shot for loading ease and consistency. In this test, the balls were rolled between 2 coarse files and dipped in melted Crisco + beeswax. From a rest @ 25 yd. I could keep most of the 7 in an 8" bullseye, with some (2) near each other, but not touching.

Test #2 involved RB's cast (and weighed) from the same Tanner mould, but not rasped like the others. These were also fired with 80gr. of Graf's Schuetzen FFFg, but with the addition of a proper OP wad (~1/8" thick), a felt grease wad, and a thin OS wad to hold the unrasped but slightly looser fitting balls on the powder charge. The results? Better than the rasped RB's, but my 7th and last shot (high at 11 o'clock) really opened the group. This one is worth retesting, but it's still not as accurate as a patched RB in my gun.*


*My trade gun will shoot either a .014" or .018" pillow ticking patch + a .598" (Tanner & Lee moulds) or a .603" RB (Lyman mould) quite accurately @ 25 yd. with as little as 65gr. Graf's Schuetzen FFFg.

[Maven]

Here's another patched RB pic (same gun, etc.). Btw, I'm also trying to reduce the file size for a photo of the bare ball with wads target I shot earlier today.

[Maven]

OK, I think I've got the downsized, bare ball + wads (7 shots @ 25 yd.) photo to attach:

[725]

in re: chewed balls. I can't comment on the affects & accuracy, but surely bacteria from the mouth does nasty things to flesh. Human bites cause terrible injuries, even today. The medical treatments of yesteryear were, I can only assume, inadequate. If mortality increased with chewed balls, I'd be looking at infection from the bacteria, in addition to the nature of the wound, from one of those things.
Even today, folks loose arms and hands from human bites. Nasty business.

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Nice shootin' , Maven.

[carbine]

In the N-SSA we shoot round balls in Smoothbores w/o patching. Those are our rules. We shoot at 25 and 50yards. Some folks dimple the ball, some rasp and some do nothing. They are very accurate. Requires work up. Eric Fritz shot his .69 at 100 yards and scored 40/50. Most inmressive. More info at N-SSA.org.

[Maven]

Thanks, Mountain Hunter!

[bigted]

I just returned from the range after testing "bare," i.e., unpatched RB's in my 20ga. Green River Forge trade gun (flintlock). The particulars will follow in a moment, but the verdict, at least for my gun, is that patched RB's are significantly more accurate than the bare ones, and those results are repeatable.

Today's frolic involved .618" - .619", i.e., bore diameter, weighed RB's (Tanner mould), seated over 80gr. Graf's Schuetzen FFFg + a grease wad. No OP or OS wads were used as those RB's are a tight fit in the bbl. I also swabbed the bore after each shot for loading ease and consistency. In this test, the balls were rolled between 2 coarse files and dipped in melted Crisco + beeswax. From a rest @ 25 yd. I could keep most of the 7 in an 8" bullseye, with some (2) near each other, but not touching.

Test #2 involved RB's cast (and weighed) from the same Tanner mould, but not rasped like the others. These were also fired with 80gr. of Graf's Schuetzen FFFg, but with the addition of a proper OP wad (~1/8" thick), a felt grease wad, and a thin OS wad to hold the unrasped but slightly looser fitting balls on the powder charge. The results? Better than the rasped RB's, but my 7th and last shot (high at 11 o'clock) really opened the group. This one is worth retesting, but it's still not as accurate as a patched RB in my gun.*


*My trade gun will shoot either a .014" or .018" pillow ticking patch + a .598" (Tanner & Lee moulds) or a .603" RB (Lyman mould) quite accurately @ 25 yd. with as little as 65gr. Graf's Schuetzen FFFg.

Here's another patched RB pic (same gun, etc.). Btw, I'm also trying to reduce the file size for a photo of the bare ball with wads target I shot earlier today.

Maven, your results mirror mine. Looks like your bare ball load hangs about 3 to 3.5 inch ... mine do practically the same, I get ball's stacked through the same hole for two ... then a flier that opens up my group ... then a couple back in the little group followed by another flier or two.

My patched ball load is .595 ball dia. Wrapped in a .015 cotton tick lubed with bee wax/Vasoline mix. These are very dependable for up to 8 or 10 before swabbing is needed. Then I load a smaller load with patched ball and run a couple ballistol/water patch's up n down to clean the crud ring down by the breech along with the rest of the bore.

My powder is OE 2Fg powder. This is by far the cleanest powder I have ever used. I shoot it in about everything nowadays. I have 1.5F and 3F powder but by far my favorite is the 2F

I used some 1F GOEX the other day and my goodness ... what a mess. Shot 2 rounds outta the 20 and it was so sooted up I had to stop and clean rite down to the breech plug. Do not know how I shot that stuff for so long.

[dondiego]

Good shootin'! Good write up!