Flintlock Measured Loads

Status
Not open for further replies.
TigerCreek

TigerCreek

Member
Joined
Sep 22, 2014
Messages
106
Location
Ousley, GA
I've just started shooting a .50 flintlock and enjoy the change of pace.
I'm shooting round balls with Pioneer Powder.
My gripe with the powder substitutes is the amount of time it takes to dispense into the gram measure and then transferring it to the barrel.
A lot of unnecessary shaking and tapping just trying to exchange the powder.
I'm considering making some premeasured paper cartridges that only contain the Pioneer Powder so I can just tear off the end and get the powder down the barrel.
Is this something that other shooters have done?
I'm not looking to reinvent the wheel, just make better use of my time when I'm actually shooting.
Any tips?
 
I use the commercially available powder flasks. Mine came standard with a 30 grain tip but you can purchase whatever size you prefer. I haven't because I generally use multiples of 30 when shooting and it is pretty simple and quick to load. I have a smaller flask with a push button valve with 4F powder for priming the pan. I think that is easier than building paper cartridges but to each his own.....
 
If you're shooting with cloth patches then the paper can be a bit of a pain since you need to hold onto it until you can find a garbage can.

One option for re-useable charge containers are glass or plastic vials with caps that hold just enough. If you set up your gear you can pull the vials from a "cartridge pouch" and just dump the empties into your possibles bag.

Another option for re-useable containers is brass rifle casings that hold a suitable amount of powder along with a handgun casing or some other form of slip on cap. Suitable options depend on what sort of charge you want to use. Here's a chart listing the approximate volume in grains of proper black powder for just about every cartridge out there.

What you use for a cap can vary. But between all the options for as fired, sized, flared, shortened or crimped you can pull the brass this way and that to produce caps that will fit closely to your rifle brass used for carrying your measured out charges.

Again a little dump bag to hold the casings would be a handy bit of kit.

http://kwk.us/cases.html
 
Paper cartridges go back to well before the Napoleonic wars. So do pre-measured charges. Those wee boxes you see on Sam Champlain and Co. are powder charges for their matchlock. Wouldn't use glass, too fragile for field use, but small pill bottles or film containers work. Have a how-to for making paper cartridges if you want it.
 
I shoot a .45 smoothbore. I make my own paper cartridges.
i use an 11 mm steel rod wrap paper around it (Art shop.....Buy cartridge paper!)
Glue the edge, fold the bottom fill with powder, wadding then shot. fold over the top and seal the top with a drop of wax.
I tear off the bottom. pour the powder in then just ram the rest home.
I am sure you could do the same with just the powder.
 
I made up 10 quick cartridges out of scratchpad paper.
80 grains of volume was equal to 67.4 grains weighed.
Tore the ends off and easily poured the Pioneer Powder down the barrel.
Sure made things a lot faster.
So far I'm only deadly out to 50 yds.
After zeroing at 25 they are dropping a foot at 100 yds.
I thought with this 50 cal and a ball that 25 and 100 would be on the same plain?
 
"I thought with this 50 cal and a ball that 25 and 100 would be on the same plain?'

TigerCreek, YOUR rifle doesn't seem to take to kindly to that load at 100 yards.
 
Thanks. That's a lot of good info.
The tubes are a good idea - but since I pour my own or purchase my balls in a box I would have to seek them out.
The reason I am shooting the Pioneer Powder in my CVA flintlock is because it is one of the few recommended replacement powders.
Black powder has been difficult to find around here and it wasn't until recently that my nephew found me some 4f - 3 1/2 hrs away.
I agree that the rifle doesn't seem to like the power made by Pioneer powder.
If I could find some black powder, what would be a good recommendation for my flintlock?
 
FFg is book recommendation but FFFg works quite well.

Sounds like you gun may want a 90 gr load.

Take the measure to the range and shoot varying charges til you find out what IT likes, not what you like. Rarely do any two front loaders like the identical charges.
You may have to play with patching as well.

Go hang around a cowboy match. If there are Frontiersmen there then they will have a source for powder. You might even be able to buy a pound from them. We shoot a lot of it.
I have seven pounds in stock and 13 on order. That will last me about a year. By the time I load 12 ga shotgun, 44 cap and ball pistols and 32-20 rifle for a match, most of a pound is gone.
 
Just a thought about the glass vials..... I know it's rare but how many have had a charge ignite while being poured down the bore?

I'm thinking that those lovely glass vials could well turn into a spray of glass shards if such a thing were to occur.

Of course for precision events where the bore is mopped out after every shot it may not be a concern.
 
glass vials...
Click to expand...
They are
EOH 16 X 125mm Plastic Test Tubes with Caps, 25 Pack

I've use[d] them (smaller version) for literally decades in loading N-SSA C&P revolvers
 
Last thing I want to do is offend anyone , but I gotta say: old school still works, real 3f black in a horn or flask, a sized for your favorite load measure, deer antler tip drilled with kind of a pitcher spout whittled or brass rifle case like a 45-70 filed to your load, NEVER pour out of the horn or flask. Your measure can dangle from your neck or your horn by a bootlace. You can prime your pan with the dregs of your measure in slightly more than one second. Plastic stuff is just asking for disaster, some of it is static proof, but how do we know? As for speed with safety, old school is best, out in this part of the West a stake shoot will commonly see two to four shooters mow down a fence post in a matter of minutes. Top flint shooters in a stake shoot will easily get two aimed shots off in a minute, trade gun smoothbores will get three shots. Go to a rendezvous. Friendly folks.
 
These water proof tubes are available from all of the black power shooting supply stores. Here is Cabela's on sale in .50:

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Shoo...701680&WTz_l=SBC;MM;cat104701680;cat104436180

I have not tried them and Flintlocke's point about static as the BP rubs against the plastic may still be a question to be considered but I have seen these for sale for a long time and have never heard of any problems.

In another thread, someone was giving away a bunch of them because he did not shoot BP.
 
I use a powder measure made from deer antler. Filed it down to hold exactly the correct amount. I carry it on a leather thong around my neck. On the same thong is my loading block with pre-lubed patches and the round ball. That works best for me when hunting, because there are not that many times I have to reload.

When I was freaked out about not having anything made of plastic when hunting with flintlock, I bought some wooden dowel rods and drilled them out. Kept individual powder charges in them. The bottom end was of course closed because I didn't drill all the way through. The top end had a cork in it. All natural and something that would have existed in the flintlock mountain man era. But still, I think the powder measure around the neck is best. My powder horn is attached to the possibles bag strap so that my bag and horn are one unit.

My notion of hunting with a flintlock is arranging your stuff so that you can grab it and go, move through brush without hanging up, and having items needed for reloading always in the same place and instantly available.
 
Short Barrel

If you look at pictures of early musketeers, you see a string of plugged wooden tubes hanging from a belt slung over one shoulder and across their chests. It sounds like your devises might be the most historically correct.
 
I have an antler that I drilled out to hold the powder charge. A hole is drilled in the tip for a leather thong with a knot in it to keep it intact. That thong is attached to the strap of my possibles bag. It is quick to fill with the horn and pour down the barrel. Followed by a PRB that is carried in a loading block that holds six patched balls that I simply place over the muzzle and start. The loading block is on a leather thong I wear around my neck. I prime with a small brass brass tube flask with the push type tube on the end to dispense a small amount of powder in the pan. It works okay for almost everything.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

B
  • Locked
How to load a flintlock?
Replies
11
Views
2K
4v50 Gary
4v50 Gary
Cliff6
not sure about load of American Pioneer Powder
Replies
10
Views
530
brewer12345
B
Dudemeister
  • Locked
CVA Flask 30 grain spout measurement
Replies
16
Views
2K
bonza
B
G
  • Locked
Use of Pydrodex/Black Powder Substitute in a Flintlock
Replies
14
Views
7K
robhof
robhof
arcticap
  • Locked
Videos - Firing India Bess with American Pioneer 3F
Replies
0
Views
500
arcticap
arcticap
Back
Top