Author Topic: Short starters and 3F/4F? from the Dubbs smooth rifle thread  (Read 11021 times)

rfd

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to the best of my knowledge, i don't believe that these "short ball starters" were ever found to be used in either the 18th or 19th centuries, and they, along with 4f and perhaps 3f powder are 20th century "inventions".  i don't use no steenkin' short ball starter.
« Last Edit: July 15, 2016, 11:32:12 PM by rfd »

Mikecooper

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Short starters and 3F/4F? from the Dubbs smooth rifle thread
« Reply #1 on: July 15, 2016, 11:35:32 PM »
4f and 3f are modern inventions?  What did they use for gunpowder back then?   Did they use the same size for both the main charge and the priming pan?

Offline Mike Brooks

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Short starters and 3F/4F? from the Dubbs smooth rifle thread
« Reply #2 on: July 16, 2016, 12:31:38 AM »
to the best of my knowledge, i don't believe that these "short ball starters" were ever found to be used in either the 18th or 19th centuries, and they, along with 4f and perhaps 3f powder are 20th century "inventions".  i don't use no steenkin' short ball starter.
That seems to be true. But, I have always expected my smooth bored guns to shoot RB almost as well as a rifle and the only way I have been able to do that is with a tight patch and ball combo. Once you get it started it goes right down with out a hitch. If you can get them to shoot extremely well with a loose patch/ball combo, more power to you. You know, come to think of it, I'm not sure if you can document a patch around the ball in smooth bores "back in the day". You could do some research and prove me wrong on that if you would like, it's been quite some time since I have worried about that sort of thing so I might be all wet.
 BTW, I have been reading some 18th and 19th century documents that mention the regular use of short starters and mallets in Europe (German countries). Seems odd they never crossed the ocean, but stranger things have happened.
 Also, there were some pretty !@*%&@ good sporting powders back in the 19th century, probably better than what we're shooting today...... I wouldn't suggest everything was $#@* before "our era". ;)
 This thread has now gone totally awry...... :P
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rfd

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Short starters and 3F/4F? from the Dubbs smooth rifle thread
« Reply #3 on: July 16, 2016, 12:49:55 AM »
4f and 3f are modern inventions?  What did they use for gunpowder back then?   Did they use the same size for both the main charge and the priming pan?

from what i've read by at least a few historians, what we would consider 1f today was it.  absolutely used for both barrel and pan.  i think i read where some folks wet ground 1f to perhaps 2f.  maybe some went even further, but that would take period records/documents to prove out and i dunno of any.  i have NO problem using swiss 1-1/2f for barrel and pan ... but yes, i can usually FEEL the added milliseconds of ignition lag whence compared to swiss 3f in the pan.  

to me, firing off flintlock rifles is a total experience.  i enjoy the loading process as much as the shooting and my guns.  i like not having to clean between firings and i like using just the ramrod to home the patched ball atop the powder charge.  if that - by not hammering the @!*% pb down it's throat - means i've lost some small measure of accuracy, so be it.  one less thingy to lug around the woods and i can be so much more, ah, "period correct". hah.

it's all good one way or another and perhaps blackjack can comment if any of this addendum jabber is helpful to him in any way.
« Last Edit: July 16, 2016, 12:52:14 AM by rfd »

Offline Ky-Flinter

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Re: Short starters and 3F/4F? from the Dubbs smooth rifle thread
« Reply #4 on: July 16, 2016, 01:34:38 AM »
Here is a link to an article Gary Brumfield wrote for Muzzle Blasts in 2002 that summarized his research on the use of priming horns.  The article also mentions powder granulations available in the 18th and 19th centuries.

http://www.flintriflesmith.com/WritingandResearch/Published/priminghorns_mb.htm


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Re: Short starters and 3F/4F? from the Dubbs smooth rifle thread
« Reply #5 on: July 16, 2016, 01:44:17 AM »
from what i've read by at least a few historians, what we would consider 1f today was it......

FFg was known and available in the mid-18th century.  From the Gary Brumfield article mentioned above, "In a 1758 letter to General Forbes, Col. Henry Bouquet requested “fine” powder for the riflemen and clarifies that by adding “FF.”"

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Offline heinz

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Re: Short starters and 3F/4F? from the Dubbs smooth rifle thread
« Reply #6 on: July 16, 2016, 02:22:41 AM »
Short starters are documented in use by the 1840s. You cannot shoot a picket bullet accurately without one.  But we assume the colonials were too stupid to load a tight ball in a rifle.

Denying priming horns requires assuming all those small horns were meant for something else. I have seen a priming horn from the early 18th century from India.  It has a metal spring operated valve and is very similar to larger powder horns in use in India at the time.

Large priming horns were used on early 19th century naval cannon equiped with flintlocks.

Priming from a small horn is much more convenient than priming from the large horn. I think it would be foolish to take a large powder to the line to prime in competition shooting.  The assumption that a priming horn would only be useful for carrying a different grade of powder is not valid.

The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence
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Offline Mad Monk

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Re: Short starters and 3F/4F? from the Dubbs smooth rifle thread
« Reply #7 on: July 16, 2016, 03:15:53 AM »
The last time I got into the subject of powder grains sizes I collected a lot of flak over the "historical" documentation.  At a time when I was sitting on a small room full of old powder plant records and military information.

Prior to 1836 there was no standardization of grain sizes.  They used the F designation but each powder maker had his own idea of what a particular grain size should or would be.

Then in 1836 there was a standardization with the U.S. powder industry on what a particular grain size should be.  Using specific screens for each size.  And the size would be within a range determined by the two screens used.   For instance.  A 2F powder would pass an 18 mesh screen but not a 24 mesh screen.  3F had its specific screen sizes.
Today shooters will eye ball grain size. You can have two lots of 3F powder that look a good bit difference in size visually.  I have seen lots of 3F where most of the grains were in the 20 to 30 mesh range.  Than another lot might be heavy on the 30 to 40 mesh size range.  Both are in the grain size spec but one will be finer than the other and look different in size.  Then if you have one lot that was very angular and poorly polished it will look a good bit different than a lot that is well rounded and highly polished.  Both will be 3F based on falling into the 20 to 40 mesh screen size range specified for that particular designation.

So in 1836 the industry "standardized" on the sizes we now use.  But in fact it was not that standardized.

You see mention of musket, rifle and sporting powders with no actual grain size designation on the container.  I had collected samples of 19th century powders.  Often in partial to full cans and then powders pulled from boxes of original bp cartridges.
When I had looked at the writings of Mordeci, at the Washington Arsenal, he described the grain sizing of some of the powders he collected as "even" and "uneven".

In my 8 to 5 lab job I ran numerous screen tests on granular PVC resins every day.  So I ran screen tests on powders I had collected.
If a can said rifle powder the screen test would show it to be an equal blend of our 2f and 3f.  The same was true if the container was marked "Sporting Powder".  The musket powders were generally an equal mix of 1f and 2f powders.  In fact.  When the arsenals were working on the switch to the minie ball they specifically stated that the musket powder for that round should be only 1F powder.  Not the granulation mix used in the round ball muskets.  The 2F in the musket powder harmed the performance of the minie.

In some respects the use of 4F as a lock prime in a flintlock is a step back.  When black powder picks up moisture from the air the amount picked up by a given amount of powder will be largely determined by how much surface area of powder is exposed to the air.  My experience with the "modern" 4F is that it is little more than process tailings from the powder screening operation. Powder dust down around 200 mesh.  In other words.  4F is no longer a specific grain size range.  If it fell through the bottom 3F screen it is 4f.  The exception to this is seen in the Swiss powder.  And the fine grain powder they produce specifically as a lock prime is awesome in performance in a lock.

To be continued.

Offline Mad Monk

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Re: Short starters and 3F/4F? from the Dubbs smooth rifle thread
« Reply #8 on: July 16, 2016, 03:30:23 AM »
This mixed versus single grain size again showed up when I Looked into early black powder cartridges.  especially the .45-70 govt. cartridge out of Frankfort Arsenal in Philly.

When i was digging through du pont writings I saw where du pont bought every pound of surplus musket powder they could get their hands on as the Civil War ended.  The entire black powder industry bought surplus powder simply to keep it out of civilian hands.  After prior wars the govt. auctioned off surplus powder.  That killed powder plant sales for several years.  And drove powder prices way down to where they could barely make a profit on what they did produce.

The du Pont info said that du pont bought the surplus powder and re-granulated it for sale.  Pure puzzle at that time!

Then I started buying boxes of Frankfort Arsenal 45-70s.  Pulling the charges and putting the rounds back together empty for various collectors.  Noting head stamp dates on each box.  Then into the lab to look at grain sizing and the particle sizing of the charcoal and sulfur to determine type.  Rifle or musket type/burn rate.

I found that the powders in all of them were a uniform blend of 2f and 3f.  But in the early loadings the charcoal and sulfur particle size was clearly musket type powder.  Then a year was reached when suddenly while the grain size was still the 2f and 3f blend the charcoal and sulfur particle size was clearly a rifle type/burn rate powder.
Ah-Ha!!!!  After the .45-70 had been in use for some time out west the soldiers began to complain of accuracy and bore fouling problems.  So Frankfort Arsenal had to do some changes to the cartridges to cut down on the problems.  When I looked at my data I had the guy feeling that when du Pont ran out of the regranulated surplus musket powder they simply shipped the rifle type powder in the same grain size mix.  It looks like they kept that info to themselves and Frankfort Arsenal was blissfully ignorant on the switch.  In essence.  Du Pont had made a double profit on that Civil War musket powder.  A good deal cheaper to buy it at auction and simply regranulate it then if it had been produced from raw materials rather than simply being reworked.


Offline PPatch

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Re: Short starters and 3F/4F? from the Dubbs smooth rifle thread
« Reply #9 on: July 16, 2016, 03:43:35 AM »
I love it when the Mad Monk chimes in on a subject. Thanks man, great info.

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Offline Mad Monk

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Re: Short starters and 3F/4F? from the Dubbs smooth rifle thread
« Reply #10 on: July 16, 2016, 03:55:48 AM »
I love it when the Mad Monk chimes in on a subject. Thanks man, great info.

dave

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Offline Dphariss

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Re: Short starters and 3F/4F? from the Dubbs smooth rifle thread
« Reply #11 on: July 16, 2016, 07:10:43 AM »
We have no idea what FF meant in 1758 or 1780. But by the time of the percussion revolver 1840 or a bit after, specialized granulations were being produced for all sizes of firearms from large Naval artillery to handguns. "Revolver" was a very fine powder, much like FFFF today. I have seen this size grains in a 38 S&W BP load UMC IIRC, before I found out about "Revolver" I figured it was FFFF, now I assume it was Revolver. It was very similar in appearance to FFFF Swiss or Null B, very shiny with no "black lead".
Short starters were is use and I am sure they were in use about as far back as the rifle..... But proving it is something else. I do know they and bullet boards were probably is use by the Rev War and surely by 1800.
Dan
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Re: Short starters and 3F/4F? from the Dubbs smooth rifle thread
« Reply #12 on: July 16, 2016, 03:26:45 PM »
Short starters are documented in use by the 1840s. You cannot shoot a picket bullet accurately without one.  But we assume the colonials were too stupid to load a tight ball in a rifle.

Denying priming horns requires assuming all those small horns were meant for something else. I have seen a priming horn from the early 18th century from India.  It has a metal spring operated valve and is very similar to larger powder horns in use in India at the time.

Large priming horns were used on early 19th century naval cannon equiped with flintlocks.

Priming from a small horn is much more convenient than priming from the large horn. I think it would be foolish to take a large powder to the line to prime in competition shooting.  The assumption that a priming horn would only be useful for carrying a different grade of powder is not valid.

The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence
You actually need a guide starter to shoot good groups with a picket. Just a short starter gives patterns. I even made a steel loading rod with brass collars to align it with the bore and a "cup" matched to the bullet nose to keep the nose centered.
For some reason people get invested in things. "No flintlock Hawkens", "no short starters", "no loading blocks" and then don't pay attention to what is out there to look at.

Dan
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Re: Short starters and 3F/4F? from the Dubbs smooth rifle thread
« Reply #13 on: July 16, 2016, 06:32:17 PM »
The British Army issued starters and mallets for loading their rifles - THAT is well documented.

There was some really excellent target shooting done in the 18th and 19th centuries with the rifles of the day, THUS starters of some sort MUST have been in use.  Accuracy as displayed in some of the tomes of the past, could not have been accomplished otherwise.

Remington was selling ML barrels all over the States in the 1800's that were already turned for the guide bullet starters Dan speaks of, for loading tight combinations and short slugs.  Remington did not invent that loading process, but did sell barrels specifically meant for starters as the demand presented itself.

There are 'original' pictures re-printed of shooting club members from the 1840's & 50's with these very barrels on their muzzleloading rifles.
Daryl

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Offline Mad Monk

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Re: Short starters and 3F/4F? from the Dubbs smooth rifle thread
« Reply #14 on: July 16, 2016, 07:43:26 PM »
Thought of something last night after I  shut this computer down.

Lock prime with flintlocks.

When you look at the use of the large caliber round ball muskets using paper cartridges.
The soldier would bite off the end of the cartridge and prime the lock with part of the powder that would then go down the barrel as the main charge.  Big frizzen throwing big sparks into the coarse grain powder.

It would be logical to assume that the same idea would be used with the smaller caliber guns with a smaller lock shooting a finer grain powder.  The finer grain powder being easier to ignite than the larger grain powder.

Offline heinz

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Re: Short starters and 3F/4F? from the Dubbs smooth rifle thread
« Reply #15 on: July 17, 2016, 02:28:36 AM »
Dear Monk,  ,when those lobster backs came to the ind of the day without firing a shot, did they pull their loads and dump their powder. If not, where did they get the next days prime? 

As to priming with rifle powder, I think that works fine BUT it seems much easier to me to prime from a small horn of rifle powder and not fight with the powder horn and strap with the rifle cradled in your arm. And I doubt frontiervrifleman pulled their loads at the end of the day. 
kind regards, heinz

Offline Mad Monk

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Re: Short starters and 3F/4F? from the Dubbs smooth rifle thread
« Reply #16 on: July 17, 2016, 03:58:12 AM »
Dear Monk,  ,when those lobster backs came to the ind of the day without firing a shot, did they pull their loads and dump their powder. If not, where did they get the next days prime? 

As to priming with rifle powder, I think that works fine BUT it seems much easier to me to prime from a small horn of rifle powder and not fight with the powder horn and strap with the rifle cradled in your arm. And I doubt frontiervrifleman pulled their loads at the end of the day. 

From what I read they did not pull the charges at the end of the day when setting up camp.  Plugged the vent and the muzzle.  From what I could find in some writings one of the troopers was entrusted with a small supply of powder and a powder measure.  The measure in the event they had to make up fresh cartridges in the field.

Some of this depends on the time in question.  The English black powder into the early 1700s was pretty bad stuff.  The English did not realize the need to purify raw saltpeter until about that time.  The powder made with raw saltpeter was very prone to getting damp.

If black powder is made with very high purity potassium nitrate it is extremely resistant to water in the form of moisture in the air.

When C&H produced their own potassium nitrate that had a simple purity test.  They placed a weighed amount in a pan and placed it in a humidity chamber on a scale.  Then slowly raised the humidity in the chamber.  As the humidity increased the powder would pick up only trace amounts of water.  At 92% R.H. it would suddenly begin to increase in weight from the water being picked up from the air.  At 99% R.H. the maximum acceptable increase was 1.6%.  If it picked up a greater weight it was rejected.

I almost hesitate to get into it this way but it is the only way to explain something.

We tend to judge historical writings based on our experiences with black powder.  When I first started flintlock deer hunting in PA, way back, I was upset at having to change lock prime frequently on damp days.  Then once I started looking deep into the black powder subject things began to make more sense.  For 25 years we dealt mainly with GOEX out of the old Moosic, PA plant.  They were stuck with single sources of potassium nitrate and charcoal.  They simply had to take what they could get and be glad they got it.  With the charcoal the ash content could vary from 5% to 15%.  The ash being the mineral content of the wood and the ash was hygroscopic above 30% R.H.  At high humidity it becomes deliquescent.  Meaning it can pull enough moisture out of the air to dissolve itself and form a solution.  Then the potassium nitrate had about one half of one percent of sodium nitrate in it.  Sodium nitrate being deliquescent.  When I extracted water-soluble stuff out of the powder and dried it to 0% moisture I found that at 99% R.H. it would pick up 16% by weight of water from the air and dissolve itself.  So the powder was hygroscopic far out of proportion to earlier powders made in plants where they purified their own potassium nitrate and used charcoal only if the ash content was 2.5% or less.

I recall seeing a little powder horn in a book from Holland.  A very old horn.  Inscribed with; "May an angel urinate in your touchole".  As close as the translation gets.  And if the powder was made properly that is about the only way the charge would get too damp to use.

Offline heinz

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Re: Short starters and 3F/4F? from the Dubbs smooth rifle thread
« Reply #17 on: July 17, 2016, 04:07:37 AM »
Thanks Monk. Very interesting info. When Dupont went out of the black powder business I had two pounds of 4f. When I tried using Curtis and Harvey 4f it seemed very slow and stubborn in the pan. But that could have been observational bias. Goex was better than C and H.  Never timed them so not too scientific.
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Offline Mad Monk

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Re: Short starters and 3F/4F? from the Dubbs smooth rifle thread
« Reply #18 on: July 17, 2016, 06:35:44 PM »
Thanks Monk. Very interesting info. When Dupont went out of the black powder business I had two pounds of 4f. When I tried using Curtis and Harvey 4f it seemed very slow and stubborn in the pan. But that could have been observational bias. Goex was better than C and H.  Never timed them so not too scientific.

C&H powder proved to be a mixed bag.
Up until about 1970 C&H (ICI) used Buckthorn Alder wood for their charcoal.  Harvested in Southern France.  Then around 1968 the French military took black powder off their must have list.  So the farmers in Southern France simply quit collecting the wood in the Spring of the year.  C&H could have gone to what is now Slovenia for the wood but those were the days of the Iron Curtain o that was out.  They then had to settle for two brands of commercial charcoal out of the Scandinavian countries.  Both were high carbon chars and from trees a powder maker would normally avoid.  You see this powder in the 1974 edition of the Lyman Black Powder Handbook.  Noted for being slow and dirty.  Then around 1972 the Ardeer C&H plant had a corning mill blow up.  Production ceased.  The machinery was stripped out of the plant and shipped to then West Germany to be set up in a plant owned by Dynamit Nobel.  That was some bad powder also.  That plant ran about a year before it blew up and was shut down.  ICI (C&H) then bought WANO made BP for sale under their label and a few other labels.

But as we saw with GOEX at Moosic.  Once you no longer process your own raw materials to your own specifications you must use what you can get and be thankful you got it.

The C&H powder made prior to 1970 with the good charcoal had few equals in the business.  If you look at how the Swiss powder is made today you see raw materials and processing that mirror C&H and the really good powders out of Europe in the latter half of the 1800s.  But that makes these powders higher in price.

Looking at powder prices in the 1800s.  A good rifle powder would cost about 10% more than a musket powder and a sporting powder about 10% more than a rifle powder.  A sequence of raw material costs and machine process time factor.

Offline hanshi

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Re: Short starters and 3F/4F? from the Dubbs smooth rifle thread
« Reply #19 on: July 18, 2016, 01:23:21 AM »
Short starters have been documented as far back as the 20th century.   ;D
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Offline heinz

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Re: Short starters and 3F/4F? from the Dubbs smooth rifle thread
« Reply #20 on: July 18, 2016, 02:34:44 AM »
Is that meant to be humorous or just to demonstrate ignorance?
kind regards, heinz

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Re: Short starters and 3F/4F? from the Dubbs smooth rifle thread
« Reply #21 on: July 18, 2016, 04:44:40 AM »
Short starters have been documented as far back as the 20th century.   ;D


Perhaps by one of the current B P writers who has been on a 40 year learning streak without really learning anything.
Otherwise starters are well documented by the British Army in the Very early 1800's.
Daryl

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Offline Candle Snuffer

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Re: Short starters and 3F/4F? from the Dubbs smooth rifle thread
« Reply #22 on: July 18, 2016, 05:59:02 AM »
Short starters are documented in use by the 1840s. You cannot shoot a picket bullet accurately without one.  But we assume the colonials were too stupid to load a tight ball in a rifle.

Denying priming horns requires assuming all those small horns were meant for something else. I have seen a priming horn from the early 18th century from India.  It has a metal spring operated valve and is very similar to larger powder horns in use in India at the time.

Large priming horns were used on early 19th century naval cannon equiped with flintlocks.

Priming from a small horn is much more convenient than priming from the large horn. I think it would be foolish to take a large powder to the line to prime in competition shooting.  The assumption that a priming horn would only be useful for carrying a different grade of powder is not valid.

The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

I'll just throw in here with this little tidbit about priming horns. I feel they were in use, and I also believe that many a small horns that were labeled Priming Horns, most like were used for carrying salt. Salt was a valuable commodity back in the day of Boone and Crockett, as well as before and after them.
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Offline heinz

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Re: Short starters and 3F/4F? from the Dubbs smooth rifle thread
« Reply #23 on: July 18, 2016, 03:49:57 PM »
I agree with candle snuffer.  Some small horns were used for salt BUT most salt was probably carried in containers with large openings. Salt draws moisture and clumps together. A small horn with the neck cut off to take a cork is far easier to pick the salt loose from than a 1/4 inch hole in a small horn. Learned that the hard way in the AMM early on
kind regards, heinz

rfd

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Re: Short starters and 3F/4F? from the Dubbs smooth rifle thread
« Reply #24 on: July 18, 2016, 05:55:22 PM »
... But we assume the colonials were too stupid to load a tight ball in a rifle. ...

nope, not stupid - i think very smart, and out of necessity for both smoothbore and rifle for speed and ease of loading/firing.  i think that a tight load with perhaps its better accuracy might be best for sustenance loads, but not for protection or warfare.  i'd guess.
« Last Edit: July 18, 2016, 05:56:05 PM by rfd »