Commodore Swab

One of the last and one of the first.

ok 85 and Im up here in Tybee, everybody who has seen it wants it . . .

The double buss was unable to be completed on time. It is 80% finished and will have it for display as a work in progress.

Yes it is a bronze double barrel blunderbuss

Some barrels are very poor and even cast, some have been proofed and are decent to good. Im almost finished reworking one now (it should be at tybee for sale) and ended up replacing the entire lock, what a vast improvement.

An updated sneak peak

My supply is finally starting to run low and it would appear it is no longer available? Any suggestions on where to find some?

Back to the topic of whether or not flash guards are to be required, I have a small group of about about 8 having 15 weapons. These include a Swivel Blunderbuss, 3 shoulder fired blunderbusses, 2 military muskets, and an extra long snaphaunce musket. Everybody also has their back up piece as well. The muskets all have flash guards and nothing else does. I do not intend on installing flash guards on the blunderbusses or side arms therefore if they are required the only weapons that may be used would be the muskets.

It wasn't a question just a comment. The only long guns listed are American Musket, Brown Bess, or Charleville as for pistols it is very open. Blunderbusses are left out completly, as are blunderbuss pistols along with an entire host of other arms. As they are not listed the fall back has typically been 10 grains per caliber.

As for the espignol eing classes as a cannon, I dont have a crew or implements. Loads though as per their estimates are 90 grains FF, or classed as a cannon (yes the piece has a swivel yoke) 2.25 ounces of F. as a rough comparison 1/2 ounce of F is about equal to 220 grains.

Doing the math classified as a swivel cannon the charge would be double my regular charge although being reduced by the 2/3 as per the FTPI suggestion it drops it down to only 1.3 times my load (close)

Doing the math as a small arm the load becomes .37 of my regular load.

Comparing a .75 caliber brown bess the listed load is 125 grains of FF, if this were a small cannon instead the load would be 330 grains (not taking into account the 2/3 reduction) of F. Even reducing it by the 2/3 yields 220 grains almost double. There is quite a difference in loads as you can see for the same weapon considering how its classified.

This math simply illustrates how small arms are loaded very light compared to cannon, don't fire expecting a bang.

I will be following their rules to the letter and if I am frustrated in either the ignition or bang I will elect not to shoot.

The maximum loads are something that I have been hoping to have modified as the posted maximums would only blow out smoke. My Espignol (largest piece) uses 240 grains of FFF (the FFF gives a slightly faster burn as no wadding is being used) with no wadding. Before you say no way, we have steadilly increased this from 200 firing at events with crowds that have no complaint about noise and if anything are very impressed. The espignol is a very large swivel mounted blunderbuss (weighs about 25-30 pounds) in a .90 cal. According to the black powder guidlines I can only hope they count it as a brown bess at .75 cal and let me use 125 grains of FF instead of using their guidlines of 10 grains per caliber allowing me only 90 grains of FF.

Flinters are to be primed with FF not FFF or FFFF.

And here my thoughts had been high that there was an improvement in sight. I will bring my small arms and have people to fire them on friday, if we are unable to get good ignition or a "bang" with FF we will not be firing on Saturday and Sunday

After reading thru

Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park -no flintlocks, all percussion

The other two are the same and don't specify they types of small arms used.

In short they allow for FFFF to be used for priming of all black powder weapons since there is no prime for percussion. As percussion are the only weapons allowed due to the time period (civil war) and do not rquire a prime.

Just playing devils advocate and I hope to not get hit by another box of pogs . . .

FFFF is allowed for use in friction primers by the NPS for civil war

Hawkyns, your points and suggestions are well taken. However, the plans for this year's battle have already been submitted for approval. The number of guns we have on the field depends on how many people bring guns down. I'm not sure how well those folks would take it if we tell them sorry you took the trouble to travel all this way with your guns but they aren't needed. Once the battery has concluded there will be opportunities for people to take up small arms, etc.

Perhaps the issue of their being a lacking of small arms is that someone brings a couple cannon but no crew, many people that have small arms may get "drafted" to fill in spaces on cannon crews.

On the bright side I was happy to see the use of FFF approved in place of FF on the black powder rules under load maximums even if the the load guidlines are equally light for small arms as they are heavy for cannons.

At the request of several individuals at the last event I have written up a bit on the reliability competition and if it is not too late Ive sent you a copy.

After having worked on some of these exact locks from India, I can guarantee that a simple hardening of the frizzen and a new main spring will only begin to solve the locks issues. I have one myself (just the lock) that I have been tuneing in preperation for making an early grenade launcher and after a fair bit of work she will now give 90% reliability for 20 shots without cleaning. Try to find out what types of guns your locksmith has worked with, there is a fair bit of difference between a percussion and english lock.

If you let me know your problems I can come better prepared.

Cutter would be better, since we don't really have anything relating to wreckers

Most definatly, my speciality you could say. Im going to try to bring some tools to work on stuff there is there is space and time.

Yes "ringing the barrel" is part of our inspection, I made a rod for this purpose with an old drill bit on the other end simply so that if it doesn't sound right I can reverse it and twist to see if Im coming up with any residue or find out what might be in the breech. Another bit of a safety inspection is actually measuring the bore roughly to see just where the breech is, it can be very informtive on some guns when you find the breech is sometimes as far as 1/2 an inch foreward of the vent hole.

"Original flash guards" that I have found are refered to as "pan protectors," no I haven't had time to scan any pictures yet.

The reason for so many flint shards more recently I would wager is the source of the weapons and not inferior flint. Many of the Indian built muskets have overy hard frizzen springs and shatter flints in making a spark. The only time I have been "hit" by pieces was in firing my own weapon which has a built in flash guard.

Most definatly a flash guard will send the sparks up and away, where they come down is another story make sure there is no open powder . . .

Snaphaunce Musket, note how many of the sparks are still travelling up

If possible this year our "group" would love to have a designated fire (roughly DB, Pearl, Jake, Wasabi, Cutter, and us) as we will more than likely be cooking quite alot (yes thai food).

Another question, what duties are to be expected this year?

sneak peak

I checked out the pictures, does everybody in the "group" shoot percussion?

I will be there with stuff available for trade/sell some of the larger things I may be bringing

Light dragoon pistol worked over with belt hook

Short India Blunderbuss

Short India Blunderbuss reworked

French Musket reworked

India Brass Blunderbuss reworked with sling

Bronze Miquelet Spanish Pistol (blunderbuss)

Bronze Espignol (Large swivel blunderbuss)

Double Barrel bronze Knee gun Blunderbuss (yes a double barrel bronze blunderbuss)

Various smaller items

original flints

treasure coins

early 18th century ballast rock

and more

My shoes are loyalist and Im very happy with them, still breaking them in (only 2 events so far) but they don't hurt my feet and if they become as comfortable as the boots I got from them I will love them for a very long time. The period construction adds to the looks as well.

This was the first year the festival was held in the fairgrounds and I think that there is much potential for growth. There was a large grass area where we had the beginings of a period encampment and a large area off to the side where weapons could be fired. Most of the vendors were under shelter with some even in air conditioning. Pleanty of food vendors and a stage setup in the shade where you could just hear the music in the encampment but was not a distraction. The bands were good.

As far as firing was concerned something new was tried. Instead of having everyone with weapons line up and just fire them off we showcased individual unique weapons and then individually fired them talking with the crowd. Weapons fired in the show case were a snaphaunce buccaneer musket, early spanish miquelet pistol, heavy dragoon pistol, spanish blunderbuss, and an espignol. On Saturday a duel was paced out which went very well and on Sunday we tried a new bit "Last Gun Standing." We gave 3 people 10 charges and allowed them to see who had the best gun, no cleaning between shots, once you misfire you are out. The scores were 4, 7, and 8. We also did a couple of reliability compettions giving people the chance to test their locks, scores ranged from 3 to 18 out of 20 attempts. Aside from the compettions every flintlock fired every time the trigger was pulled.