🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <bakc.271.726737113@giraffe.ru.ac.za> bakc@giraffe.ru.ac.za (MR KR COMAN) writes:
#
#	Conversely, using my brother's Hawken replica with round ball and 
#patches was another story.  Here, loading became increasingly problematic 
#due to barrel fouling after a short a period as 5 or so shots  -- cleaning 
#out between shots (or at most two shots) was literally mandatory to prevent
#incipient problems and frustrations.  (I imagine that a smoothbore equipped 
#soldier would be very careful to fill his cartridge box only with radically
#undersized ammo -- stuff accuracy, I want firepower in a prolonged fight.)

There is some evidence that serious bore fouling may be more related to
the composition of lubricant than to blackpowder per se.

Apparently, petroleum in the lube is a no no.

An outfit named Ox-Yoke have come out with a lubricant that they claim
allows essentially an umlimited number of shots before cleaning the
bore becomes necessary.  Some other blackpowder suppliers offer the
same stuff under their own names.

Some 19th-century publications hint that different makers' blackpowders
might have an effect on fouling rates, but it's a little hard to test out
these allegations since most of the mentioned companies aren't around now,
and out here we mostly have a choice between Goex blackpowder and Pyrodex
which isn't blackpowder.

Oh, yeah:  while your gun's bore might not be fouled badly enough to
require cleaning so you can shoot again, corrosion might be doing it more
harm.  Clean it anyway when you're done for the day.

##didn't eliminate it.  Trap-door Springfields were known to pull the
##heads off of cases upon extraction when the chamber was too badly
##fouled, and I'm told this took many rifles out of action at Little
##Big Horn.  
#
#	Wasn't this largely due to the poor quality ammunition issued?  I
#understand that Custer's men had recieved a consignment of ammo with 
#an excessive copper content in the case-brass alloy.  

Early .45-70 cases were made from copper (softer than brass).  The Army
tried to fix the problem by plating the cases with zinc.

In 1881 they switched to brass cases, which made things a lot less bad.

#stick.   (Did Custer's men carry cleaning rods?)

Infantry normally did...cavalry maybe not.  (It couldn't be much fun to
try to clear the remnants of a case out of your rifle/carbine with a
cleaning rod with hostiles of one sort or another being so rude to not
call for time out while you worked.)


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