Charleville 69 caliber musket

[BPSharps]

I just picked up a .69 caliber Navy Arms Charleville musket. Anyone here shoot one? I think I need a .680 bullet mold for round ball. Anyone got any tips or advise?

[Good Cheer]

Congrats on your purchase.

Not much help really but tidbits to ponder, most or all of which you probably already thought about!
Usually you can go with tight cloth patched ball, loose cloth patched ball, paper cartridges or bare ball sitting on the powder with a wad of paper, cloth or fiber on top to keep it in place. Which one ends up working best for you depends upon your piece and loading practices.

Do you have a means of accurately measuring the bore diameter? Reason I ask is that I've got a smoothbore .69 (it's .690" bore) and a rifled .69 (it's .696" bore), so as to what a .69 may be, I wouldn't assume anything. But then again, if you get a .680 ball mold the chances are you can get a workable load together.

Picked up a mold that drops at .653" a while back that I've been meaning to try patched in the smoothbore just to see how she does.

[toot]

great score. they don't turn up very often!

[BPSharps]

I believe it is a true .690 caliber I dropped a .680 lee key drive slug in the barrel. Looked like it would be perfect with a patch.

[Maven]

BPS, Once you're certain of the bore diameter, look up https://www.ballmoulds.com: Excellent service, reasonable prices, fast delivery.

[BPSharps]

Thank you Maven

[toot]

yes a .680, in a .69 CAL. gun. in a paper cartridge.

[Maven]

You're most welcome, BPS.

[bedbugbilly]

Congrats on your new Charleville!

I am currently working with a .69 Armisport Model 1842 “Macon Rifle” (think ‘short rifle – 2 band – longer than a musketoon but shorter than the 1842 Model smoothbore / rifle models).

When I was searching for a RB mold for it, the only .680 that I found was listed by TOW and they show it in a “bag mold”. I wanted something different – easier to cast with. Ideal/Lyman made/makes? A .678 RB mold that was intended to be used in the .69 caliber smoothbore muskets. It took me a while to find , but, they are out there. I haven[t cast in it yet but hope to this next week sometime. Maven shows a link that may be your best option if you are looking for .680 RB blocks. I also purchased a set of blocks for the .685069 .69 caliber “minie ball” from a member here as I want to do some tests with that out of my .69 rifled barrel – but for most shooting, I prefer to use a patched RB to conserve on the soft lead consumption – I don’t want to really throw a 700 + grain minie ball down range all the time but wanted to have the minie avaialbe for occasional use – but that doesn’t pertain to a smoothbore. I don’t know if that is any help but that has been my experience when looking for molds for my .69 rifle. It seems like with the number of repro .68 cal. Muskets that have been made over the last decade or so – both flint and percussion – that the mold makers would add a .678 - .680 round ball mold to their line up for those that want to shoot a patched ball from them but evidently not.

As an added note – I want to duplicate the original paper wrapped RB and Buck and Bsll loads to try in the .69 caliber. In looking at the original U.S. Ordnance specs – the govt. utilized a .650 round ball in the paper cartridge for RB and Buck and Ball loads for .69 caliber muskets. One has to remember that, 1. The paper was introduced into the bore with the ball or buck and ball as “wadding” to hold it in place, and 2. Repeated shots built up fouling which the smaller ball and paper compensated for in repeated loadings. I looked high and low for a .650 round ball mold with no luck but finally found a .648 Lyman round ball mold which I am going to substitute for the .650 round ball spec. Even though my barrel is rifled, with the shallow three groove military style rifling it should shoot the paper wrapped cartridge very similar to a smoothbore bsarrel.

On my 20 gauge Fusil-de-Chase (.620 bore) – I normally use a patched .610 round ball with good results. I also have a .600 round ball mold that I use with it once in a while – especially when I used to hunt with it. I just used a little thicker patch with the .600 ball and it allowed for easily loading a second or third shot without having to wet patch the bore between shots – and it gave good results as well.

Good luck with your new musket – they are nice and you’ll get a lot of fun with it!

[Good Cheer]

Anybody tried a loading sequence of powder, cornmeal, bare ball?