This is a great post. A lot of us who trek up here in the northeast....especially in winter...prefer smoothbores tailored for weight, sight picture and ease of loading or cleaning. I used to go out every winter by Ticonderoga, Lake George and Rogers Rock with Fred Gowan and Bob Bearor, and we eventually worked our way to our loads as follows;
We found a ball size that fit snugly...not too tight... with the paper we used for our cartridges. I think I was at a .66 ball and copy paper. My early Charleville ( 1976, four digit serial number) was not even close to the posted .69 cal. Fred taught me to actually fold the ball into the cartridge at the bottom of the copper tube, and then dip the end just past the ball in a mixture of grease and the more solid cleaners. I took to one third beeswax, one third tallow and one third the first gunk like bore butter...the one you have to get out of the tube with a jack hammer. I dunno what the name of the stuff was at that time. Then we filled the tube with measured FFG and sealed her up normally. I could never bring myself to use scales, so I figured out the load, sliced the end of the deer bone measure, and never varied.
Anybody who has tried to load in the dead of winter can tell you that managing the gun is a chore in itself, but this combination made for easy loading. We were into finding the French War Snowshoe battle sites up there, so the practicality of gear and its operation under constraints was a big topic. No, we never tried to prove whether or not Rogers slid down the rock in 1758, but anybody who tells you he did needs to hike up there in the winter and peer over the edge. Anyway, I was very surprised to find the fowlers and muskets were easier to clean by the fire.
I can't speak for today, but twenty years ago in the woods around Lake George we had about ten or fifteen Rogers Rangers and Courier Du Bois fans on a canoe trip with a contest where we poked the suit symbol out of the center of an ace at thirty to fifty yards. The tie breaking took longer than the match. I used to take my Charleville and fowler up to about 75 yards with this type of load and got the old eight-of-ten-in-the-paper-plate thing regularly. I never had trouble cleaning.
Now being a Cowboy shooter who vowed never to sleep on the ground again, sometimes I wish I could get back out there for a day, freeze my buns off and touch off a round or two with my friends.
Don't shoot yore eye out, kid,
The Capgun Kid
