Yesterday afternoon my son and I got out our flintlocks.  He wanted to test some bore size conicals in his Lyman deer stalker with a 1:48 twist.  He has been shooting a round ball but wanted a little more punch if it were accurate.  We set up at 50 yds and he shot three maxi balls to good effect.  We then tried some 350 gr maxi hunters but got only fair results.  After 6 shots he wanted me to shoot.  I have an RMC Accusporter with a 1:28 twist that I normally shoot a 300 grain Hornady XTP in a Harvester crush rib sabot but had not tried a bore size conical so I loaded up with a maxi ball and shot three shots the first two were fine but the third shot was well out of the group.  I normally swab between shots but did not do so with these three.  We were using 3f goex with an 80 grain load and 4f in the pan.  Being flintlocks both rifles sport open sights.  After my shots my son wanted to shoot the maxi again after moving his sight.  He swabbed the barrel and loaded.  His shots at 50 yds overlapped each other just below the aim point and he is convinced he has a replacement for his round ball, one with a really big punch.

We also used for the first time a boyd shooting rest.  It is shaped a bit like the lead sled except it has a leather pouch to hold the rear of the stock instead of  a solid metal cup.  It seems to support the rifle quite well but we still got some effect of the recoil and with these light rifles and big slugs it was noticable especially if the butt was not perfectly in the shoulder pocket.

As you saw, you only get about 3 shots with black powder and lead conicals before fouling throws velocity and even the rate of twist off.  The faster the twist the worse this is.  You can get perhaps 7-8 shots with the really slow 1:72" rates before you start having a lot of problems with accuracy, which is why the packages of 10 Minie' bullets back in the day had 9 Minie's and 1 cleaner/Williams.  I have to get mine back out here in the next few weeks and do some practicing.  I have neglected my hunting ML all year. (I know, I'm a loser!)

Now Now don't fuss about what you didn't get done but reflect on what you did do. My son and I have been going to do this all summer but it didn't work till Monday. I agree that about 2 or three shots with real bp is all you get. Since I prefer to hunt with a clean barrel I usually swab between shots but wanted to see how three shots would work with a 1:28 twist guess I found out. Two good ones and it goes south after that. That is ok though because I have only got more than that in one day once.

Shiloh,
Tell me more about this "Cleaner" shot. You got my interest peeked.

It sounds like a lot of fun shooting there PA Ridge Runner. Shooting black powder is one of my favorite past times. Nothing I like more then sitting at my range and shooting, watching the cloud of smoke fill the back yard for a few moments, and see the target with a new hole. I have been shooting a lot this summer, but now its time for a little work to get done before the snow comes. So I am cutting firewood, hauling firewood, stacking firewood... man I hate firewood. But when there is a foot of snow on the ground, I can throw a couple logs in, and then go shoot in the snow...

Good luck hunting this season to you and your son.. And all the members here. Be safe! And shoot a big one.

The most common type of clearner buttlet were the "Williams" patent.  Like the Minie' it was loaded from the muzzle but instead of having a hollow lead base that expanded to grip the rifling upon firing, it had a zinc washer held in place by the back of the lead bullet.  Upon firing, the soft lead base fo the bullet moved forward which swaged the zinc washer out to grip the bore walls tightly.  The zinc washer then scraped the bore all the way out to remove a lot of fouling.  Accuracy was terrible with them, and velocities were wildly fluctuating, so many men inthe heat of battle when they pulled 1 from the cartridge box simply dropped them and went back for a Minie' to load.  They'd rather deal with fouled bores than "waste" a shot on a cleaner when action was hot and heavy.  Today, a lot of the "drops" we find are Williams or the CS version.  The lead slugs remain but the zinc washers have long ago corroded away.

Each package of 10 loaded cartridges was to have 1 cleaner in it.  Early on I have read that the paper was a different color, blue for instance in the case I read about.  These were discarded easily as soon as the man reached back, grabbed a cartridge and saw the blue paper - as wasted load (blue balls) so later on they just started using the same paper as the rest so the men would actually have to go through the loading process before seeing a cleaner in their hands.  Whether or not they worked very well I can't say having never tried one.  I don't know of anybody making them today and the only people today that'd be interested in using them would be the N-SSA teams.  You'd not want one for hunting or even the range.

I seriously doubt that I want to shoot a zinc washer down the rifled bore of my current rifles. Of course I am not in the heat of battle either so I will just swab and shoot again thank you. Besides if in the heat of battle I think I would prefer a bit more repetitive firepower and possibly to the point of a gun that is towed to position.

Yep, the men tossed those things a lot when it was fast and furious which is why so many "drops" we find are the cleaners.  The velocity was so lacking that often times hitting a man even at fairly close range only bruised him.  Tod Carter, hit in the head virtually in his front yard during the battle of Franklin, had the ball lodged in his skull over an eyebrow, and it is said that when the surgeon plucked it out it was a Williams.  Still killed him, but at the ranges they were engaged a Minie' would have probably had a complete pass-through.  At the really close ranges, say inside 100 yds, the smooth-bores firing buck-n-ball were superior to rifles.  Artillery was awesome except that inside 100 yds it was no longer trying to fight but was trying to limber up and escape.  A crew could get 4 shots a minute on a cannon, but a dozen or so men could charge it and with rifles could take out the horses or enough men to stall the guns into submission.

Shiloh that is why I spent my career in the Air Force. There it is preferential to call in B-52s eight countries away. Lol

LOL!  Yeah, a guy in my unit is an AF vet and spent several yrs in the early 80s as a B-52 navigator.  He says he saw the world - on a digital map flying around day after day.

Got many years working on the B-52H. My son "sees' the world through IR as a pilot on the AC-130. In BOTH cases, they are what puts the FORCE in Air Force.