Not false muzzle, but guide bullet starter for shooting cloth patched picket balls.
The old style picket balls were slightly elongated projectiles, pointy on the nose and quite rounded or rebated boat tailed base, having
a very short bearing surface in the middle to facilitate using a cloth patch. Due to the short bearing surface on the elongated projectile
it was very difficult to load the bullet perfectly in line with the bore's axis, thus a centrally holed bullet guiding device that fit over the
barrel's muzzle was used to seat the bullet into the bore, straight. The rod could then push the bullet down the bore keeping it straight
as the end of the loading rod should fit the design of the bullet's nose. The guide starter is then removed from the muzzle, gun capped
and fired.
A false muzzle had rifling marks in it, not just a bullet guide. The rifling in the false muzzle aligns perfectly with the barrel's rifling, thus
the bullet is rifled in the false muzzle and presented into the barrel perfectly aligned and grooved.
False muzzles generally have 4 pins sticking down, that when placed onto the muzzle, the 4 pins enter 4 holes in the muzzle. An attached
blinder (disk on a post on the short starter) sticks up in front of the front sight to warn the shooter the false muzzle is still on the gun's muzzle
& not to fire until it is removed.
The use of a false starter allowed the muzzle of the gun to be perfectly sharp, which was thought to be the most accurate shape for a muzzle in
those days, and indeed, up until about 1990, whence an 11 degree muzzle shape was thought to be even better.
