I have a 69 CAL. CHARLIEVILLE flintlock pistol. question, what DIA, RB, do they take and what thickness of a patch if any, and what powder 3 FG, or 2FG, black. and how many grains of powder? thanks any and all information will be appreciated. TOOT.
I have a 69 CAL. CHARLIEVILLE flintlock pistol. question, what DIA, RB, do they take and what thickness of a patch if any, and what powder 3 FG, or 2FG, black. and how many grains of powder? thanks any and all information will be appreciated. TOOT.
Rappelez-vous une balle ronde patchee dun smoothbore danserva comme une princesse feerique.
It was a little rude to post this since many N-SSA folks don't speak French. It's from the 1775 manual - "Manuel de Poudre Noire." In essence it says if you fire a patched round ball out of a smoothbore it will dance like a fairy princess.
Well I never fired mine because it had a trigger pull that was actually painful (really!) but it's down to something acceptable now so I guess i need to cast some balls. I would recommend checking the bore size which is easy to do with a smoothbore, just use a set of calipers. Decide whether you will be primarily shooting it with a naked ball, paper cartridge or a patched ball and check to see what's out there for molds. That's a fairly hefty pistol so recoil wouldn't be much of an issue and that's a heavy ball too. I would think 30 grains of 3f would be a starting point and 50 would be too much. 2f would probably work fine too if that's what you have
I just checked 2 things, first I don't have a mold, thought I bought one years ago. Second the bore diameter is .692". If you work up a load keep us in mind and post it over on the Muzzleloading Forum too. It might actually encourage me to round up some balls and shoot mine.
Moose Molds has about the best selection of .69 caliber molds, see this page: https://moosemoulds.wixsite.com/mm2013/moose-balls
Based on Hawkeye's measurements you may want to give the Lee .690 round ball mold a try. Very economical and very high quality.
hawkeye2, thank you and all of the others that helped with my query on the CHARLEVILLE PISTOL.one question what is meant by shooting a bare ball? just the ball setting on the powder, no patch or wad?
MUZZLE LOADING FORUM, will do.toot.
Bare ball: no patch, just the ball. You might want a wad below and above the ball to seal and to hold the ball in. That's a lot of trouble when a patched ball is faster and easier.
Toot - Yes, "Bare Ball" means no patch, but this requires some caution. You should have a ball that fits the bore fairly well because if the ball happens to roll forward before the charge ignites, the ball then becomes a bore obstruction.
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