Brown Bess

[shaman]

I am close to pulling the trigger on a Pedersoli Brown Bess. I'm getting a good price as it is unfired new/old stock. My goal is to shoot it a bit and then set to work, get the bugs worked out and then set to work taking a deer and a turkey in the same year.

So far I've located a .735 mold from Pedersoli USA. I also have a line on some flints. I figure Track of the Wolf is going to have the rest.

This is my first flinter, but I've been shooting a .54 percussion Hawken for almost 40 years.

What goes in a Brown Bess possibles bag?

How does one take a turkey with one?

 

[rfd]

Congrats on your forthcoming Bess and welcome to the wonderful world of the rock lock. Pedersoli's are good guns. A flinter shooting bag will have all the basics no matter whether rifle or smoothbore. The advantage of a smoothie is that it can be loaded with both patched ball and wadded shot. It can be a very deadly weapon, but with distance limitations.

My suggestions ...

Use 3F or 2F real black powder for both the tube and pan. At the very least, real black powder is a MUST for the pan. My .62 smoothie works best with 3F and it's easier to have one horn with one granularity of powder rather than having to need two different powders and a priming horn as well.

You will need a brush for your ramrod to clean out the patent breech ante-chamber, typically a .24 to .30 caliber, and draped with a patch. How often it will need to be swabbed out you will need to see. When I had such a gun, I could get off 3 to 6 rounds before the bbl needed cleaning out of BP residue and that meant having to also clean out the breech as well, since cleaning out just the bore will push crud into the breech's ante-chamber and you'll have ignition issues - trust me on this.

I recommend "fine" flints - that is, a thin flint with one edge. Double edged "common" flints I've found over the decades not to be as efficient. TOTW has them but you must ask for them ... I prefer the black English types. Learn how to sharpen a flint.

My loading process after taking a shot is to blow down the tube to clear out any possible embers, put the lock on half cock, load powder and patched ball, use a cloth to clean the frizzen face and pan and flint edge, use a wire to pick into the touch hole, put a few grains of BP into the center of the pan, close the frizzen, ready to shoot.

For loading shot, I recommend checking out Bob's page ...

http://home.insightbb.com/~bspen/SmoothboreLoads.html




My current .62 smoothie ...