Brown Bess Fodder

[shaman]

I recently purchased a Pedersoli Brown Bess. To feed it, I bought a .735 mold from Dixie Gun Works and a .69 Lee Mold. I did my first bit of casting this week and compared my results. The .69 bold produced dead-on .69 balls. The large mold produced balls from .75 to .76.

I know I'm pretty well set with .69 if I use a paper cartridge. However, the question remains as to what I can do with the larger balls.
Is this a non-starter? I've not mucked with smoothbore before, but I figured with .735 balls I could probably fit a .010 patch. I'm hesitant to start pounding .76 balls down the bore without someone with experience telling me that's how its done.

[Bigslug]

If a mold advertised as .735 is dropping at .76", you need to be on the phone with Dixie sorting out how to get it replaced. I think even if you had a mental lapse and put linotype in your pot instead of pure lead, you wouldn't be THIRTY THOUSANDTHS OVER SPEC :shock:

For sure give it a hard look and make sure the cavity is closing correctly. . .cuz that ain't right.

I'm no Bess expert, but the whole musket process was about quickly tearing a "cottage industry" paper cartridge open and using it's randomly torn remnants as a wad and to some degree, a fouling mitigator as it rubbed against whatever deposits on its way down to the breech. "Accuracy", such as it was, would have been best obtained by a more careful, deliberate loading process with what was on hand - - maybe up to including replacement of the paper with a tight fitting cloth patch, but that probably would have been the extent of it. A ball that's basically the diameter of a clean, unfired bore is not going to give you a good time.

[waksupi]

If the larger balls can be patched, they will most likely be more accurate than the paper cartridge.

[shaman]

I A ball that's basically the diameter of a clean, unfired bore is not going to give you a good time.

10-4. I had a feeling this was not going to work. Back to Dixie it goes!

[Steppenwolf]

I plan to try these in my India Pattern, .724", 617 grs. Load them in a paper cartridge.
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