What to load with

[Parault]

I have been looking in the search and other places and I cannot find out probably some very basic information, of which I have wondered. I have tried the search with no results.

I own a 1840 reproduction Springfield Flintlock. I have not carried this weapon out in the reenacting field as of yet. I have, however, done some live fire with this so I could carry it hunting this past deer season. No I didn't get one. Anyway, I would like to know how the soldiers of the pre percussion era loaded the flash pan? Did they use powder flasks? Did they use part of the cartridge load to place powder in the pan? I am getting ready to go to an event that I can carry the flintlock to. I would like to know if I need to purchase a powder flask or not. If I need to purchase a flask, what kind, and where.

[Bob 125th NYSVI]

Re: What to load with

The military generally issued cartridges not lose powder.

From their point of view it facilitated the speed of laoding and also controlled expensies (they knew exactly how much powder was being used per round.

Were there guys using horns, probably, but for the most part they used cartridges.

Part of the powder load in the cartridge was intended for priming.

[BrandonEnglish]

Re: What to load with

Part of the powder load in the cartridge was intended for priming.

Out of my own curiosity would they have put a finer grade powder on top for priming? That may seem like a silly question I know, but I know FFFF is really used for just that purpose in flintlocks.

[LeftCoastYank]

Re: What to load with

In the past, to add a little flavor to my reenacting experience, I've done some Napoleonic era.

While it's from a few decades before and another country, the French drill book had a similar procedure to "Load in nine times" from Hardee's. Either deux or trois - I can't remember which - specifically called for the soldier to bite the cartridge and then prime the pan.

I would hazard a guess that sure a drill movement would be fairly standard. Perhaps someone who does War of 1812 or Mexican-American War could chime in about the American practice.

Dave Schwartz,
A Fed who was once confused by another blue uniform

[ajroscoe]

Re: What to load with

Lieutenant General Winfield Scott's 1835 "Infantry Tactics" includes in the School of the Soldier, Part II the 12 steps for the "Load" command. The steps are:

Load
Open Pan
Handle Cartridge
Tear Cartridge
Prime
Shut Pan
Cast About
Charge Cartridge
Draw Rammer
Ram Cartridge
Return Rammer
Shoulder Arms

The "Prime" command is:

"5. PRIME.

One time and one motion.

196. Drop the head a little, fix the eyes on the pan, fill it with powder, press together the top of the cartridge with the thumb and fore-finger, raise the head, and place the last two fingers of the right hand firmly behind and against the steel."

Both Heavy and Light infantry, armed with Muskets, were issued paper cartridges only. Rifle-armed regiments also received a powder horn with finer powder for times when more accurate shots were required. Instead of using a pre-made cartridge, the soldier would load with the horn, pick out a ball from his pouch, wrap it in leather, ram it, and then prime from the horn. Shots loaded thus could be very accurate with the right rifle in the right hands. A rifleman with the British 95th Rifles in Spain shot a general at 700 yards with such a load, and then to prove it was not a fluke, shot the general's bugler.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: What to load with

Hallo!

The prevailing (line) infantry concept was for the pan to primed from the cartridge before the main charge. (Yeah, it drives modern safety officers crazy...)

And no, there were not two grades of powder in the cartridge.

By and large, the 4F "priming powder" in a separate "priming horn" tends to tends to be a modernism versus an era when there was "musket" grade (nominally a coarse "2F") and a "fine" or "rifle" grade (nominally a coarse
"3F").

Musket locks tened to be large, with often 1 inch or up to 1 1/2 inche or so flints that produced a decent shower or sparks. And with thin barel walls, and larger-than-modern tough-holes, ignition was relatively "sure" even with
"2F" primer.

I have loaded and primed flintlock muskets as well as flintlock rifles with only their respective "2F" and "3F" powders. The only difference I could say is that the modern "4F" priming powder makes for a perceptively faster ignition. (Which is why the U.S. Muzzloading team had experimented with "8F" as priming powder...)

Others' mileage will vary...

Curt

[RCD35thTENN]

Re: What to load with

Mr. Parault,
I was just reading "Eyewitnesses at the battle of Shiloh." Pg.#10
English immigrant Henry M. Stanley, 6th Arkansas, Shaver's Brigade (CS).
"We loaded our muskets, and arranged our cartridge-pouches ready for use.
Our weapons were the obsolete flintlocks, and the ammunition was rolled in cartridge paper, which contained powder, a round ball, and three buckshot.
When we loaded we had to tear the paper with our teeth, empty a little powder into the pan, lock it, empty the rest of the powder into the barrel, press paper and ball into the muzzle, and ram home." (Book compiled and edited by David R. Logsdon.)
RC Defore

[10TnVI]

Re: What to load with

To add a little controversy for fun-From the William G. Christie and Thomas D. Christie Letters( avialable at www.mnhs.org
Christie served in the 1st Minn. Battery

Letter written from Corinth, July 10, 1862

"I am becoming quite savage and chivalrous in my apperence lately, having recently become the possessor of an excellent rifled pistol and regular Mississippi Bowie knife with edge like a razor and silver mounted horn hilt...
[discusses the pistol, a small caliber Allen and Wheelock]... I hope to take these things home with me, together with a beautiful little powder horn that I picked up at Shiloh from beside a dead rebel rifleman whose flintlock rifle was grasped in his hand even in death, this horn had been used for priming with being entirely too small for loading purposes.

[cprljohnivey]

Re: What to load with

Doing F&I Inf. I can add a little advise. I carry no horn to prime my pan but I do carry a blank cartridge in my pouch just for priming if I get a mis-fire. Once you have just a flash in the pan and no ignition, you are stuck. Thats when you whip out the priming cartridge, re-prime, and then off you go. Hope this helps.

[DocReynolds]

Re: What to load with

Scott's says it all....And Scott's was derive from von Steuben....Even the Continental regulars in the Rev War had cartridges, (unlike local militia units) and when the "Blue Book" was published in 1778, the commands that were outlnmed in an earlier response quoting Scott's, (with the priming being accomplished directly from the cartridge...) were identical to what was quoted above.

Pete Bedrossian
150th NY/3rd NC

[fedguy]

Re: What to load with

The standard military cartridge charge for a .75 calibre Brown Bess of Revolutionary War era was 120 grains of what we would call FFg. The pan holds about 15 grains (from my own experiments), the rest goes down the barrel. The pan was primed first. Rifles were loaded differently, since they generally loaded from a block which held the patched balls. These would load the charge and ball first, then prime the pan from a small horn.