Muskets - drive you potty!

[Jamie]

I went to the club on Sunday and tried the 'bare ball and wads' approach with the harpers ferry. The first few were low and right - the musket seem to shoot all loads down there - so I aimed high left and the next three were in a group about 3" across and in the black. Woohoo, thinks I, i've cracked it. Nope. The last 4 shots were good for height and reasonable for group but right on the left hand edge of the paper, so with the same POA the POI was probably 18" left of the three shots before. At that point it started to rain so I said some rude words and went home!

Any thoughts as to why the POI would shift so drastically?

Thanks in advance, Jamie

Any t

[WarrenC]

Could be load, ball or fouling or the fact muskets were put on this earth to shatter your dreams and test you will. Reason I enjoy shooting them lol

[tacfoley]

I went to the club on Sunday and tried the 'bare ball and wads' approach with the harpers ferry. The first few were low and right - the musket seem to shoot all loads down there - so I aimed high left and the next three were in a group about 3" across and in the black. Woohoo, thinks I, i've cracked it. Nope. The last 4 shots were good for height and reasonable for group but right on the left hand edge of the paper, so with the same POA the POI was probably 18" left of the three shots before. At that point it started to rain so I said some rude words and went home!

Any thoughts as to why the POI would shift so drastically?

Thanks in advance, Jamie

Any t

1. Coriolis effect.

2. How loose are the bare ball?

If they are REALLY loose-fitting, then your 'group' may have been the fluke. I'm betting that there is more than a little 'windage' in play there - that's the clearance around the ball that allows expanding gas to go around it - wads or not.

tac

[Jamie]

The balls won't drop down the (clean) barrel under their own weight - I think if they were any bigger they'd not fit at all!

[airgunnut]

its black powder! you should be happy it goes bang when you pull the trigger!



been there done that, don't care about groupings any-more, just thankful i hit the target broad every time

[WarrenC]

Black powder brings back 'civil' into war lol

[tacfoley]

I'm interested to know why you've changed over from shooting a patched ball to shooting a wadded load. I assume that you have a wad under AND over? TBH, from your description of the bare ball not going down a clean barrel, I'm inclined to opine that you are shooting too big of a ball and that you need to go down a bit so that you can shoot it with a 15-18 thou patch and suitably sized ball.

Mind you, you don't mention which model of HF musket you are shooting - it would be great to know before we go any further, right?

tac