ANTIQUE LEATHER PATCHED BALLS

[louieparker]

I have had since the 80's some leather patched balls. At one time I knew what rifle they were made for.  But like a lot of things from the past, they have slipped into a bottomless black hole. As I recall they were for an English rifle. They are patched with one piece of leather that is cut with four ears. From one side of the ball it looks  similiar to the cover of a baseball. They measure about .690 .
Who can give me the name of the rifle ??  Louie

[Dennis Glazener]

Louie,
I can not name the rifle but I saw one demonstrated at Dixon's several years ago. Here's what I remember about it. The English wanted to develop a rapid loading highly accurate rifle (I think to compete with the American Longrifle except faster loading). As well as I remember they had some German make the prototype. It had the captured swivel steel ram rod (like you see on some English Military pistols). They (Germans's?) came up with the leather cover ball that had leather cut like a baseball jacket. The English re-enactors showed how fast the rifle could be loaded with the captured steel rod, it was FAST. Throw powder down barrel place leather covered ball on muzzle and drive home all in one fast swoop.

It also seems to me that they chose to use 3F powder rather than the normal musket powder, I believe it was supposed to produce the same velocity with a lighter weight  charge but I can't remember why that was important.

If I remember correctly the English copied the German prototype and it became a production English army rifle. For the life of me I can not remember what it was called.
Dennis

[Dennis Glazener]

This probably was the rifle I was trying to describe. It looks like the one I remember but it does not describe the leather patched balls that were used in the demo I saw. See how bad my memory was after a few years!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker_rifle

Found this at this site: http://militarygunsofeurope.eu/listing/british-baker-rifle/
 

The barrel is fixed to the stock by a hooked breech and keys, making barrel removal relatively easy. The barrel is 762mm long (30”) and rifled with seven grooves, the bore is 15,8mm calibre (0.625”), which was then the “carbine bore” in use in the British army. The sights consist of a fixed rear sight with an addition flip up sight leaf and a fixed front sight. The patch box would have contained cleaning tools and greased leather patches for when time allowed for precision loading and shooting. If rapid shooting was called for, the riflemenn used paper cartridges. Later in the rifles’ carrier, lead balls covered in a thin greased leather patch were also produced.

[4th La.]

Louie, the early British Baker rifle used a leather patched ball. It was loded with a mallet .

Bob M.
Louisiana

[Elnathan]

Louie, the early British Baker rifle used a leather patched ball. It was loded with a mallet .

Bob M.
Louisiana

Per De Witte Bailey, the mallets were only issued to every second soldier, so I don't think that they were using the mallets as a routine procedure. Also, some units were initially deployed without the mallets at all. I suspect that the mallets were employed when a rifle became too fouled to load by ordinary means.

Dennis,

I think you are thinking of the M1776 rifle, not the Baker rifle. The M1776 had a captured rod and a coned muzzle. The section in Bailey's book matches your description pretty closely, including the fact that the first two hundred or so were made in Hanover.

[louieparker]

Thanks for answering my question. Thats been bugging me for awhile .  I was sure it was English but nothing else.  Thanks ......Louie

[Dennis Glazener]

Elnathan,
I think you are right, that one fits what I remember about the one in the Dixion's demo. Here is some info on it but it still does not tell anything about the leather covered ball. http://www.thayeramericana.com/back/research/research12.pdf

[louieparker]

Some of the Bakers were used at the Alamo .  Awhile back a collector ask me to find him one. But I never did.   I turned up a few Bakers but not the right one. LP

[Mike Brooks]

Here's one of the M1776's I did some years ago. They are indeed fast to load with that big steel rod. You just pull it out, swivel over the ball and slam it home with your palm against the big mushroomed end, re draw, swivel over the RR pipes and slide it down. No flippin' the RR over or nothin' like that, it's real easy and quick. Don't know nuthin' 'bout no leather covered balls though.....
http://www.fowlingguns.com/militarygun1.html

[Hungry Horse]

A couple of buddies and me, decided to try buckskin patches about thirty years ago, in our trade guns. We precut some nice thin buckskin, and lubed them with melted tallow. We took them to the range and tried to work up a load. They were awful, they slung balls everywhere. We tried different lubes, different charges, and different sized balls, nothing worked. The recovered patches were stretched into the shape of a hotdog.

  Hungry Horse

[hammer]

East India Co. records show Baker rifle balls to be pre-patched.   A thick cloth patch with those four ears.  Where the ears met on top of the ball they were tacked together with a stitch. 
I don't recall the precise lubricant.  I think it was a mix of linseed oil and beeswax.

Again, from recollection, the Baker rifle armed soldiers dispensed with the mallet soon after the first issue.  Later in the Peninsular war they also dispensed with the patched ball and retained just the paper cartridge.
I have seen nothing that explained the rationale.  Military decisions are usually make to meet a changed environment.   Did the special advantages of the patched ball become fewer with more pitched battles between larger number of combatants?   Where more rapid fire at close range became more common?

[heelerau]

Baker rifles could be loaded with leather patched balls,  I am pretty sure that they were sewn on.  I have seen some originals on the Britishmilitariaforums.  The Bakers were a derivative of the jaeger, with some army bits added.

[louieparker]

These balls are original,but no stitching....LP

[Dennis Glazener]

These balls are original,but no stitching....LP

Louie,
Just curious are/were the leather patch glued on?
Dennis

[louieparker]

Dennis I assume they were. The leather fits well to the conture of the ball. I can think of no other way to accomplish this. But I am no leather worker....LP