UK DETECTOR NET Forum

Some more info;

http://www.heritagescience.ac.uk/Resear ... Appendix_3

Thanks for posting these items.

I have found that diameters (bore size) can be misleading, in identifying the weapon, if one is not aware of 'windage'.

An example of this is the 'Brown Bess' bore size and the size of the balls that it fired. 'Brown Bess' bore was 0.75 or 10 Bore. The balls it fired were around 0.68/0.69 and weighed 28 to 30 grams, which is 15 or 16 Bore.

In modern rifled weapons, the bullet is slightly larger than the nominal bore whereas in muzzle loading smoothbores, there was significant slack or windage.

On one of our sites we have mainly 'Brown Bess' balls with a small number of 0.605 diameter balls found too, weighing around 21 grams. We think possibly carbine or pistol but not sure. On that particular site, we do not yet have sufficient evidence of whom was doing the shooting, so could be post Napoleonic target practice by civilians ? We do have one button from the Fourth Queens Own Dragoons, but one swallow doesn't make a summer. We keep looking.

Thanks Wigeon

I just Googled windage and it said it was 0.05'' on a Brown Bess.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=W18 ... ge&f=false

Great info thanks

Cheers Evo

PhilD wrote:Thanks Wigeon

I just Googled windage and it said it was 0.05'' on a Brown Bess.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=W18 ... ge&f=false

That's interesting, however the weights and measurements that I quoted above are from more than 600 balls recovered from a Napoleonic militia musket range, so it seems they didn't read the book
I have weighed every ball and put them on a spreadsheet too. If I remember correctly the extreme heaviest is 31 grams and the lightest 24 grams. Most are around the 28 to 30 gram mark, which is considerably lighter (by 9 or 10 grams) than a 10 Bore ball, less 0.05''.

0.05''is not much 'slack' when a soldier is trying to speedily load a musket, with a fouled barrel in battle conditions. It would appear that estimating the bore of the weapon from a recovered ball is not an exact science, which is a shame, as it would make it so much easier for us.