Light Dragoon flintlock

[matdoodson]

Morning all,

I've got a Light Dragoon flintlock pistol c.1790 here, which I'd like to shoot. I was trying to find some information online regarding the balls they'd have originally used, but I can't seem to find anything with my old friend Google.

Does anyone have any experience shooting these or a resource that might tell me what I need to be making for it?

Cheers,
Mat

[WelshShooter]

Slug the bore and see if there are any ball moulds to make that size. Are there any calibre markings on there at all? That might give you some indication of where to start. For example, when I had a Pietta 1858 it was a .44 but mine preferred the .454 ball whereas another club member had better results with a .451 ball with the same pistol.

Once you figure out what size ball you need you can then either buy the ball mould and cast your own or buy them pre-moulded. Hornady sell the lead balls if you need them.

Awaiting comment from Dromia, he seems to know his stuff on blackpowder firearms.

[matdoodson]

Howdy, thank you for the suggestion, and sure slugging would give me a measurement to go off.

However, I was hoping to find some reference material that told me what they used back in the day. I'm sure I've read that typically the Light Dragoons were .65 and my crude measurement of the bore using the vernier calipers appears to be somewhere close to this. Am I being naive to think that there would have been a standard sized ball issued with these pistols? And that men in the field would not have been slugging bores and making their own specific sized ammunitions?

[saddler]

Yes...ammunition would have been standardised & official WD cartridges issued.
Will dig out some reference books tomorrow for your specific pistol.

[dromia]

I shoot an Indian Dragoon copy, its lock time is amazingly fast.

Away at the moment so can't check exact measurements of the muzzle but I use a 0.600" cast round ball from a Jeff Tanner mould.

The trick of getting smooth bores to shoot is to have the ball centred in the barrel for its duration of travel to the muzzle. A tight fitting patch is the standard approach but my dragoon works well with a good wad of wasps nest ( I have a plentiful source) or good old tow pressed gently down onto the powder, you want at least 1/2 an inch, drop the ball in and bed centrally on the tow/wasps nest and retain with some more tow about 1/4 of an inch when compressed.

Don't ram the load home as flintlocks prefer the powder to be loose and not rammed tight, gentle tamping to seat wads and ball is all that is required.

I find smooth bore like to be driven hard so usually a goodly charge is needed, 25 gns of 2f with nothing B powder in the pan does it for me, holds the black at 25yrds if I do my bit.

The original guns were meant to be shot at point blank range at man or horse and power was more important than accuracy.

What the original load equivalent was is anyone's guess as we have no real idea as to what the contemporary powder was like, it also probably varied wildly depending on source and availability.

[matdoodson]

Wasp nest! Love it...

Thank you for the responses everyone.

So far I've only shot 20 gns with a paper wad through it, but the chaps at the club commented on the fast lock time on mine too.

One of them also found this information in a book over the weekend:
This is from "British Cavalry Carbines and Pistols of the Napoleonic Era" by Barry Chisnall and Geoffrey Davis.
"The bullet at least four gauges smaller than the bore of the weapon itself"
"16 bore pistols of George 3rds reign being used with a 20 bore ball.
16 bore is .662 which is yours I think, and my New Land pistol.
20 bore is .615 so it is a very loose ball and would have been in a paper cartridge, the paper being used as wadding and patch

So I'll be ordering myself a .600 and .615 mould from Jeff Tanner's and see how it goes.

ps. Dromia - it'll be the first time I have a go at producing those Enfield P53 Prichetts with the NOE moulds this afternoon!

[dromia]

Good luck with the Pritchets, get the mould well seasoned as per the instructions and keep everything, especially the base pin, HOT!

Surprised that you are using the paper as a patch, from what I have read about the original practice was that the ball was torn off, the powder priming the pan and then the remainder went down the muzzle with the paper going down after it to form a seating wad, the ball was then put down on top and the paper that was around the ball usually with the tied end was rammed down on top to act as a retaining wad.

To me paper patching seems a bit futile with a round ball unless it is giving a tight centred fit like the cloth patch, but this would defeat the ease of loading criteria required from the military round.

[matdoodson]

HOT... got it... .

I'll check later about the paper patching, that might be Chinese whispers. I'm up for the wasp nest if I can find some...!

[dromia]

Now is the time to get the old nests before the wasps become active and start nesting.

In one of my sheds in Scotland there are four large nests every year, I wait tilt the wasps die in early winter and the queen dicks off into hibernation and harvest the nests then. The queens come back each year and build me new nests, can be a bit of a bugger getting in and out of the shed during the summer but what is life without a little risk.

The nests give me just about a years supply, crumble up and treat like a semolina buffer. It doesn't burn, doesn't seem to soak up moisture, is light and just works.

[Maggot]

So Dromia...you are a wasp farmer eh?

Do you get an EU subsidy for wasps??