Bp multi ball loads

[T Bran]

Has anybody ever loaded two round balls in a 50 cal muzzle loading rifle. If so what powder charge would be adequate and how is accuracy. I know this may be an odd question but ive been reading some threads that have multi ball loads in smokeless rifles and just got to wondering.
Thanks
T

 

[robert garner]

I first ran across this,back in the 70's wondering about the phrase"Loaded for Bear"
Pre-Gore and the net, two schools of thought were kicked about.
1) A double charge of powder and a ball, which wouldn't make sense unless you got up that morning to go after Yogi.
2)A normal charge of powder and ball...pssst buddy, there's a bear over there,ram another
ball home, makes better sense as our fore-paters were a frugal lot for the most part.
yep, been there and done that... with your regular load, and two balls...at 20 yards,
one will print @2" lower that the other, not acceptable for long range accuracy,but then Yogi will be close and a reload may not be available in the allotted time.
YMMV and hope this helps
robert

 

[T Bran]

Thank you Robert I was hoping it was a load used in the past for something. Gives the term loaded for bear a totally different meaning. I will pattern it next trip might be a good close quarters hog load. A little penetration testing may be in order as well.
T

 

[Cosmoline]

I've done it with .54 and .50 rifles and with various smoothbores. It's a little dicey with the big BIG risk being that you fail to seat the balls tightly together. On a smoothy this is not as big a risk, since you stack the double balls like shot in a column--unpatched and with a wad below. On a rifle you will find a very stubborn air pressure build up under your second ball, and you have to ram quite a bit to get rid of this. If you go too fast the ball will "bounce" back up on the column of air and you'll have a space between them--WHAMO.

As I understand it, the double ball load was by far more common with musket and wall guns, which makes sense given the comparative ease of loading double in a smooth bore. It's a permutation on buck and ball, and loads the same. It was used for close defense of positions, to increase firepower. In my own testing out of smoothbores the balls will "group" within a few inches out to 25 if you do it right. From there, who knows. I'd estimate a foot ore more at 50, but that was the whole point--hit more targets.

As far as the charge, sanity dictates that it be dropped to reflect the increased weight of ball. And I've done so. But I've also read accounts of double ball double CHARGE loads out of blunderbuss during the F&I days. Specifically, the blunderbuss men would take up concealed flanking positions in ambuscade and load TWO FULL POWDER charges from Bess cartridges. Then drop both balls in! Recoil would be very high, but it was part of an 18th century shock and awe tactic which if done right would rake through several men in formation.

Double ball rifle accuracy was not bad in my tests, once I got things working right. Out of rifles the holes were often touching at 25, though not consistently (nothing about this load method is consistent enough I think). The only point to doing this from a rifle would be for very large game, but you couldn't do it easily on the fly with a rifle. And the effectiveness is doubtful, particularly given the risk of a kaboom. A "slug ball" (like two balls stacked with a column of lead between) or a modern ball-ette would be a much better choice. MUCH better.

 

[T Bran]

Thanks COSMOLINE ive always wanted a smoothe bore rifle anyways so it might be a good idea to wait a bit on this load. Kaboom is not on my to do list for today.
Any suggestions on a versatle flintlock smoothbore rifle that is still in production.
One more oddball question does anybody make an adaptor so that one might convert a modern single shot shotgun into a muzzle loading BP shotgun. Ive seen lots of stuff on using BP in shotshells but it is not allowed during muzzleloading season here it must be a muzzleloader. You can however use 209 primers as an ignition source which is what gave me the idea. I could easily make one on the lathe but will a modern barrel stand up to use with BP loadings.
Sorry for the ramble just thinking out loud so to speak.
THANKS
T

 

[AJumbo]

Played with the concept for a while, abusing my .54 TC Hawken and my shoulder; like most, I decided that while it would be a devastating load at smoothbore ranges, it wasn't a long-range load at all.

IF YOU MUST DO THIS, PLEASE PAY HEED- as Cosmoline noted, if you try to seat the second ball down on an already-seated first ball, you may encounter air compression severe enough to stop that second ball from seating. The result in my case was a blown-apart Douglas barrel. I won't tell that story here and now, but I was not the one who short-seated that second ball.

THE ONLY WAY I WAS ABLE TO MAKE THIS WORK SAFELY WAS TO SEAT BOTH BALLS AT THE SAME TIME. I would short-start the first ball to a depth of about one ball diameter, start the second ball on top of it, the drive them home together. This eliminates the the possibility of trapping a substantial volume of of air between the balls. It is not easy, and pretty much requires the strongest ramrod you can find. It is far easier, however, than removing the breech plug from your forehead, or growing a new hand. Or (in my case) explaining to Dad what happened to his spare tire.....

 

[AJumbo]

Fun historical fact- the explorer Samuel Champlain carried a blunderbuss loaded with 7 balls, and was once forced to fire upon a hostile band of Iroquois warriors. Six balls hit home, killing their targets. No word on what the powder charge or bore size were, or whether Champlain was compelled to invent Flexall as a result.

 

[T Bran]

Thanks AJUMBO the warnings are well received and apreciated. Looks like a smoothe bore is next on the list what is the most versitle for a 50 yard hunting gun using both shot and ball for deer sized critters down to rabbit sized. Also to keep weight down how much performance is lost in a carbine legnth barrel ?
T

 

[AJumbo]

,I was just asked "If that KA-BOOM story might prove instructive, why not tell it?" Accordingly, and as a public service to the readers of THR, I present The Sad Tale of BB and The Flattened Tire, Or, What Could Possibly Go Awry?.

I had introduced a school chum to black powder shooting, and he swallowed the hook. He saved for months, and lucked into a handmade .45 Kentucky with L&R lock and triggers and a Douglas Premium air gauge barrel. He was a good guy, but sometimes could exhibit a hardheaded streak. His friends called him BB, initials that stood in for his name and his nickname, Bonehead Buddy. He became obsessed with the notion of proof testing his new rifle's barrel. I told him- repeatedly- that it was totally unnecessary. I acquired a letter from Douglas that backed me up. I begged him to let it go. He would not rest until he had proofed that tube; until he shoved two .440 balls down on top of 180 grains of powder and busted a cap on it, his rifle would always be (in his mind, at any rate) a pipe bomb waiting to happen.

I had been playing with dual-ball loads, and hadn't blown my Hawken up even once, so I agreed to help him if it would shut him the heck up. My two hopes were to keep him out of trouble, and to be the first one to shake his hand and say "See? Told ya so!" We agreed to meet at our favorite rock pit that Saturday.

At the appointed time, BB came rolling up in his pickup truck with the cabover camper. I had borrowed Dad's truck, as my Dart couldn't manage the road to the pit. BB had everything needed to fire his new Kentucky. He had ever done some homework, settling on the 180 gr. charge as a suitable "double service charge." He even had some fireworks fuse to use in sparking the charge. His intention was to dismount the barrel and tie it down to his truck's spare tire so he wouldn't crack his stock. I wasn't really
worried- he'd shot my BP guns quite a bit and never had a speck of trouble. As long as he followed my lead, what could possibly go wrong?

The trouble started when we couldn't get his spare out of the carrier. No biggie, I offered Dad's spare for the experiment. Now, to load the barrel..."BB, this is IMPORTANT, hear? Pour the powder down the barrel first. Short start the first ball about an inch or so, seat the second ball ball down on top of the first, then drive the both of them down at the same time. The last thing we want is an air space between those balls. Got it?"

"I wish you'd get off my case about how to load this thing. If you told me once, you told me a hundred times, sheesht."

"Just do it, OK? I'm gonna get my camera out of the truck." I left BB alone, sure that he had a grasp of the process. More the fool I.

When I returned with the camera, BB pronounced the barrel ready to tie to the spare. We did so, inserted the fuse, and had a moment of clarity- perhaps we should move the trucks back a ways, and observe from a distance. Not that anything could go wrong, of course, just 'cause, you know? So we backed the rigs off 100 yards or so, changed the fuse to a length that would burn for 30 seconds or so, lit it and ran back to the trucks.

Thirty seconds later we were rewarded with a healthy KA-BOOM. More KA-BOOM, in fact,than we anticipated..... and would you look at that dust cloud? That's 100 feet in the air if it's an inch! Then we heard the THUMP. And another THUMP, this one only 30 feet from us. I wandered over to the scene of the THUMP and was rewarded with my first look at the inside of a Douglas barrel.

I had found a piece of barrel about 8 inches long. Picture a factory cutaway that involved just one flat of the barrel, with the rifling exposed. One end showed a definite stress break, while the other tapered off like a steel banana peel. It wasn't as hot as I thought it might be. It was the only part of the tube that we ever found from behind the blockage.

"BB, we should go look at that tire."

"Did that seem right to you?"

"No, BB, I think there's a problem."

"Like what?"

"Like the barrel exploded."

"No way!"

"Let's go look."

We drove to the scene of the crime. About three feet of barrel was still tied to the tire, and what I presume to be the top ball was still in place, just ahead of the break. The tire was in poor shape; the bead had broken, the rim was dented, and a fragment had sliced the sidewall open. I think the sudden loss of air caused the dust cloud, more than the explosion itself.

BB was distraught. It was a full half hour before I could ask him how he had loaded the balls; sure enough, he had tried to seat them one at a time, "just like YOU TOLD ME TO DO!" Uh uh, mister, think about it...... I told you.... no air space allowed.....

An argument ensued, and we parted on bad terms. BB took the two pieces of barrel (I never found any others), and I never saw them again. BB didn't speak to me for years. I never did take any pictures. Dad was spectacularly upset about that spare tire.

Lessons learned:
Just because you CAN do it, it doesn't follow that you SHOULD.
The "responsible party" should NEVER leave the loading to the newbie.
100 yards probably wasn't far enough. We were lucky.
Be you ever so intelligent, you can't outsmart physics.
Always use the other guy's spare tire.
Get pictures!

 

[T Bran]

AJUMBO
Thank you that was very enlightning and I agree allways use the other guys spare tire.
I hope you and BB are still on good terms. The only greatness ive found about todays modern age is the internet and especially THR . Sure is nice to learn from the mistakes of others instead of risking life and limb to test a theory. Seems that loading two balls is far to riskey for my tastes but id rather ask a dumb question than do a dumb thing.
Good story
T

 

[andrewstorm]

today i saw tri ball 12 gauge 60. cal ammo

Wow 3 ball 60 cal now thats loaded fer bare........

 

[arcticap]

This old TC Manual instructed how to load double balls, and it even mentions 100 grain powder charges with double balls in .45 & .50 TC Hawken guns.
However in many states it's not legal to hunt deer with more than one projectile loaded in a single barrel during the muzzle loader deer season.
BTW I'm not recommending these heavy double ball loads.

 

[Lunie]

This old TC Manual instructed how to load double balls, and it even mentions 100 grain powder charges with double balls in .45 & .50 TC Hawken guns.
However in many states it's not legal to hunt deer with more than one projectile loaded in a single barrel during the muzzle loader deer season.
BTW I'm not recommending these heavy double ball loads.

Why not? I don't see the word "MAX" anywhere. They list a 100 grain load. I'm sure it's only a coincidence.

 

[Busyhands94]

if i were to shoot double ball loads, i would only go with 50 or 60 grains of powder and two .490 lead balls. but that's just me, and what i would feel comfortable with. that chart that contains the ballistics info is kinda interesting, it seems a little off to me. is 50 grains of FFG really going to give you 1,357 FPS? heck i don't have a chronograph, but that doesn't seem right. anybody ever chronograph their .50?

 

[Smilin Jack]

Double RB

Have tried the double RB in the 58 cal Navy Arms, trying to work up a hunting load for elk. It was OK, but decided to try a minnie ball and it shot so much better. The barrel twist was designed for a slug, but shot RB pretty well at 50 to 70 gr of powder.

Tried a 50 cal TC slug (275 gr) in the Lyman Great Plains rifle. The gun has a RB twist 32" barrel. They shot fine, but spiraled pretty bad, so were high, low, left or right of the bulls eye, depending on the range. Sort of a cork screw flight path about a foot diameter.

My buddy gave me a hand full of the 350 TC slugs to try and they did the cork screw thing too, but only a few inches diameter. 90 grains of 3fff shoots very well, and this is my deer gun.

Lots of people told me the RB twist barrel wouldn't shoot slugs. They shoot well enough to keep all shots on a paper plate out past 100 yards. The gun has Lyman target peep sights.

Dave

 

[sid]

if your going to use more than one ball for close work only patch the last ball in.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

You must compare the mass involved. If I shoot a 70 grain load with a single .490 ball, that's 170 -180 grains of lead give or take the alloy and the mold I used, perhaps even lighter if I used wheel weights or linotype. Now if I add the second ball..., that is a mere 360 grains, which is not outside the realm of the Maxi-Ball or Maxi-hunter slugs. If you don't reduce your load when switching from round ball to conical, then why do it with two patched round balls? The two patched ball have less surface area contact with the bore than a conical, so there isn't increased friction compared to the conical either.

My .530 ball is 225 grains of lead and two would then be 450 grains, which is at the upper end of the conicals that I see on the shelf, but not too far off to give a person worries. I don't think you would need to up the powder charge to 100 grains, especially in a .45 using 2 round ball. The pair of bullets at .440 would only be 250 grains in mass.

If you used a patch/ball combination that was a thin patch and a pure lead ball close to the bore, then perhaps you would not need to patch the first ball? I mean at ignition, would the ball seated on the powder squish or obdurate enough as it fought the friction of the second ball and patch, to cause it to engage the rifling? I just wonder?

As for regulations, in my state one cannot load more than one projectile when hunting deer.

Also, as for the phrase, Loaded for Bear..., isn't it more of a sarcastic remark? Doesn't it refer to a fellow who loaded his gun way too heavy? Sorta like, "Stay well clear of Festus if he goes to shoot, as he usually goes loaded for bear." [laughing] That's how I've heard it used, and I am just wondering.

LD

 

[AJumbo]

My best results came with 100-110 grains of FFg and two .530 round balls, patched with .015 ticking, using Ox-Yoke Wonder Lube. (Yes, I am consulting the notes I made in the back of my T/C owner's manual.) The rifle still wore its original 1:48" tube; I have since replaced it with a Green Mountain 1:66", but haven't tried multi-ball loads in it.

Accuracy seems to have been quite good at 50 yards. Typically, one ball would cut the X ring and the other would land within 1 1/2" of the first; this was consistent enough that I now wish I had thought to mark or paint one of the balls so I'd know which ball was the POA ball and which was the "flyer". Only rarely would I see "keyholes" from these loads. The pairs would open up with charges of less than 100 grains, or above 110. At 100 yards I could keep both balls on paper plate, but the center of the target was usually safe. I think both balls would have been in the boiler room of a deer.

For short range, heavy cover, and a critter that could eat me (bear, Dachshund, boar), I think a double-ball load is viable. I like the idea of two wound channels.

 

[T Bran]

Thank you folks, how did you get around the problem of '' air lock'' between the two balls.
I have been giving this some thought and the best I can come up with is to drill a very small hole in the top ball maybe 1/32 inch. How much this will affect accuracy I dont know but it cant be to much. My typical shots are seldom over 50yds but occasionally as long as 75yds. Any thoughts on this or perhaps some one has found a better solution.
Thanks
Troy

 

[Rail Driver]

I don't know much about blackpowder shooting, but wouldn't some kind of filler powder such as corn meal or something work between the balls?

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Well, since the TC manual is talking about round ball, and as they don't mention the "air lock" problem, you should try it first to see if it is a problem. Also if the first ball was a greased patch, then the second patched ball may not need any lube, or spit patch would be fine, perhaps allowing air to pass through if air lock was a problem. Drilling a ball is not a good idea (imho) as you will be launching an off balance sphere, and you will defeat the purpose of putting two holes in the animal rather close together, in the vitals. The drilled sphere will likely fly like one of those gag baseballs that is hollow with a smaller ball inside. Also, nobody has mentioned which of the two spheres is hitting the X..., is it the first or the second that drifts off target just a tad..., so how do you know it's OK to alter that second ball?? Maybe the first projectile is the "money" bullet, and the second projectile, the first one you loaded, is the "insurance" bullet?

LD

 

[Curator]

In my younger and financially challanged days my only non-rimfire rifle was a .52 caliber precussion half-stock. Old-timers in the area (my age now) showed me how to load two balls for Black bear. 80 grains of Du Pont FFg then the first ball patched with thin cleaning patch. This was followed by the second ball patched with the .018 pillow ticking. This combination allowed the easy loading of the second ball since the air compressed inside the barrel would leak past the thinly patched first ball and out the nipple. Both balls would hit within a couple of inches of the other at 75 yards which is a long shot in the Adirondaks. Recovered balls showed the bottom ball was a bit more flattened but took the rifling fine. This was a very effective loading but had significantly more recoil than a single ball load.

 

[kBob]

Not that I know anything about the subject but..... isn't that before the illipse something that is scary?

I am curious if one could avoid the air space by not using a precut patch. You know use a short starter or mallet to seat the first bal into uncut patch material to a hair beneath the muzzle, place the second ball in direct contactwith the first and start it, THEN cut the patch and shove the whole afair down the tube at one time.

Am I just shooting in the dark here?

I have always heard "Loaded for Bear" as a phrase meaning ready for action as in "When the ramp goes down, you better be loaded for bear"

-kBob

 

[Cosmoline]

On rifle bores you get rid of the air cushion by prodding with the ram rod until the air seeps out. You will feel when contact is secure and the "bounce" is gone. I triple check it AND have my rod measured. There is enough air seepage under the ball along the grooves, so you don't have to drill a hole in the ball. And if there isn't, you can just move down to a slightly smaller ball.

On smoothbores the best results I've had have been treating the two balls as a shot column, and as such there is no air cushion. They ride between an OPW and another wad above them. The same method seems to work well with buck and ball loads. This doesn't seem to work well with rifles, though.

Also, nobody has mentioned which of the two spheres is hitting the X..., is it the first or the second that drifts off target just a tad

There's no way to be sure short of super high speed photography, but I would lay odds that the SECOND, lower ball is the less accurate. It's the one getting mashed between the gas and the top ball. So it's likely not to fly as true. Of course you do not want both balls going through the same hole. The point is to have a little spread. Or with smoothies quite a bit of spread.

I've also worked up double roundball loads for cartridge arms such as the .450 Marlin. They perform similarly.

 

[T Bran]

Some great replies here another reason I love this forum. Gives me a lot to ponder thanks for all of the great insight and experience.
Troy