Purposely load a double ball

[MuskratMike]

I've been doing this for enough decades I should know but has anyone purposely double balled a load?
I ask because I actually did it at the range. I put the powder in short started a patched round ball then got distracted helping a shooter on another bench. Must have been having a senior moment because you guessed it I short started another patched round ball. Because I was at the range I was using a heavy range rod and the ball/balls slid right down to the powder. I was shooting at a new "splatter" target and was at first confused because there were two holes in the target almost touching each other. Not sure if this increases the pressure but if not would anyone consider doing this while hunting? Two balls in the same point in an animal would certainly be better than one.

[snapper]

I have purposely done this.  In a team match on who could cut a post in half the fastest.

Fleener

[Daniel Coats]

I used to do it on purpose shooting clay pigeons out of the air and winning bets

[MuskratMike]

Did either of you notice a change in point of impact over a single ball with the same charge at let's say 50 yards?

[Daniel Coats]

Light charges were ok but normal to heavy charging often fused the projectiles together. Civil war battlefields have examples of fused balls and miniballs that have incorrectly been assumed to have met head-on in flight. I know better from actual experience double loading.

[Daniel Coats]

I might add Mike that when shooting clay pigeons I didn't use a patch

[smylee grouch]

I did that a several times in cut the post off matches. A 570 ball with a 562 on top. We shot at 15 yds. It worked good but some times the balls printed atop or vertically.

[Darkhorse]

That old Lyman black powder handbook had a section on this but try as I might I can't find my copy. And of course I can't remember.

[recurve]

here you go





please note Herb here on our sight had worked up a  double ball load for one of his builds

[rich pierce]

Heavy charges will burn out a touch hole more quickly. Of course the stainless and yellow alloy ones are pretty resistant to burning out. I have a rifle I coned internally and I accidentally double loaded it. Kicked pretty hard and the touch hole had grown from that one shot. Guess I coned it too close to the exterior. A liner fixed it of course.

[recurve]

herbs build
https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=34051.msg327629#msg327629

[recurve]

and this is why we mark our range rod every time I go to the range ! black marker for empty and red for the load(marded when first load is loaded, if I change the load I use a Blue marker for the  new load) I can see these marks to see if I dry ball  or double load     

[Daryl]

Yes - in .69, 2, 50's, 2, .58's, .1 .45 and 1 .40.
The first time I tried it, I could not keep the top ball on the bottom one that was loaded with a patch.
The rod & patched top ball followed my hand up off the bottom ball to 1/2 way up the barrel due to the trapped air between the balls. I had to
pull that ball. From then on, I dropped the first one into the bore, then loaded the patched ball.
Lyman did a test on this back in their first Black Powder Handbook. Their photograph showed both balls obturated to fill the grooves, the top ball
being patched, as they exited the bore. The balls were no longer round, but flatted into one another.

[Waksupi]

If you have access to the old "Buckskin Reports", Sam Fadala did quite a bit of testing on this.

[alacran]

Well my question is, what is the point?
If you are planning to use it for hunting, you may want to read the game laws in your state.

[longcruise]

Well my question is, what is the point?
If you are planning to use it for hunting, you may want to read the game laws in your state.

Yes,  it's not legal in.my state.  I did try it at the range.  Fifty cal, both balls patched.  It was probably 70 gr of powder.   At 25 yards they consistently patterned one above the other about 3 inches apart.

[Daryl]

Some states, apparently, have a .40 cal. lower limit for deer, but have a weight limit as well, something in the range of 120 gr., thus, a .40 needs to be double balled.
2, .69's driven by 130gr. of powder should work, as long as the range isn't too far.

[Daryl]

If you have access to the old "Buckskin Reports", Sam Fadala did quite a bit of testing on this.

He also did a lot of "things".

[alacran]

In AZ you can only use a single projectile and a single barreled muzzleloader. In a couple of other states that I often hunt, double barreled muzzleloaders are allowed, but only a single projectile can be loaded in each barrel.

[Levy]

I cleaned out the bore of a shipwreck cannon once that had both a cannonball and a bar shot in it.  Does that count? I wonder what it sounded like going through the air?  James Levy

[Bill in Md]

Never....simply no reason to

[Kevin]

As a kid, way back in the mid-1970's, I was at a shoot with my parents and one of the matches was five shots with a double-balled option.  No idea how many folks shot it but there were some who thought it a bit questionable.  I was just plugging away in the junior match, one ball at a time.

Kevin

[Daryl]

Back in the 70's, I had a Hal Sharon barrel .36 cal. for my rifle. (had a number of barrels for it)  This was one of Hal's "deep Buttoned" barrels. I was in his in Kalispel when he was making it.
I don't know what the barrel steel was he used, but some of them split while he was pulling the button through them. Stress much?
Anyway, this barrel was 7/8" across the flats and 34" long. With the breechplug out, you couldn't look at a 60 watt bulb without hurting your eyes. It looked pretty wonky inside with tight & loose
tight/loose, tight/loose bore wavy marks reflecting the light. When loading a patched ball, or cleaning it, I can only describe the feeling as BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT. The entire shop vibrated/shook when he was pulling that button through the barrel.
At rendezvous at Chilliwack BC, maybe 1976, they had a target at 25 yards. High score in 1 minute of shooting. Might have been 2 minutes but I remember 1 minute.
I loaded 30gr. of 3F each time and just rammed a bunch of .375" balls down onto the powder (steel rod), capped and shot at the target. I think I fired 4, times. I had 27 holes in the target
& won first prize, 20 pounds of buffalo meat.
When patched those .375" balls turned in to short bullets, rounded on both ends due to the cupped end on the 5/16" steel rod. Had quite a chamfer on that muzzle. Normal round balls were grossly
inaccurate, but patched .375's shot quite well. It had a .360" bore - well wonky by maybe 2 to 4 thou.

[Hungry Horse]

 Hey, Waksupi; If old Dr. Sam’s Ideas start catching on again, I got some junk for sale. I got Moses poles, gun cleaning Thermos bottles, double patches, and double balls all stitched up in their own little patch package. The first Rendezvous I went to kept trying to put me in traders row, because I had so much junk. Thanks for the memory, I had blotted all of that from my memory bank.

Hungry Horse

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

HH:  there just are some things one cannot unlearn or unsee.