Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Brown Bess at its Best

6 comments:

Earl said...

I have had fun, seeing both, then playing both at the same time so you really do understand that by the time the Brown Bess had three shots, the Ferguson Rifle was at five almost six --- now I want to see the target hits. Both shooters were holding high for some reason not clear to me.

Anonymous said...

That hangfire at the end seemed to catch him by surprise.

I think when they're going for volume of fire, they're not too concerned with accuracy...just with laying down lead.

Besides, being a smoothbore, the Brown Bess is exactly conducive to sniper level accuracy in and of itself.

Earl said...

I hadn't noticed the hang fire action, just that the musket wasn't on his shoulder when it went off. On top shot when they were firing the flintlocks there were many misfires. Looking over many of the videos on YouTube about flintlocks of that period, I found lots of reasons that I like living now, and not having to carry a tomahawk or short sword to use when "all else fails".

Anonymous said...

Another aspect of muzzle loaders that isn't considered when working for speed:

They don't swab the barrel before loading.

I wonder if he's ever had a load ignite on him while loading from a smoldering ember still in the barrel from the last shot?

Maybe the pre-packaged load helps keep that from happening?

I don't know, but I bet that would be dramatic, especially if it went off with the ramrod down the barrel.

Anonymous said...

I wonder if he's ever had a load ignite on him while loading from a smoldering ember still in the barrel from the last shot?

Holy poor grammar Batman.

How about we try that again, but in English this time?

I wonder if he's ever had a smoldering ember from the previous shot ignite a powder charge on him while loading?

There...I think that made more sense.

Old NFO said...

Sailorcurt caught the same thing I did, and yes, 3 rounds vs. 6 rounds IS a significant disadvantage...