"The Baker Rifle" Topic

I have been re-reading my Sharpe novels I read them at least twice a year anyway I can't figure out if the balls for the Baker Rifle are pre-wrapped in greased patches or have to be wrapped in grease patches. I understand some ammo wasn't hence the term "Tap load" where they just dropped or spit as they say in the books a ball in the barrel and tap the butt of the rifle on the deck and shoot. But was the ball in the paper cartridge pre-wrapped in a greased piece of leather or linen or not?

IIRC the Rifles carries two forms of ammunition. For the Baker, they carries leather patches and carefully measured balls, with a fine quality powder. The powder in a powderhorn, measured for each shot, patch and ball seperate.

They also carried standard Brown Bess paper cartridges, which they (according to Cornwall) used for tap loading.

Hey all, newb question here.

Was that spit and tap load routine from the Sharpe's books really used and the key to getting the 3 shots/minute fire rate?
Or was it just something cute he wrote and looked/sounded good in the movie? I know later in the movie series they are back to using their ramrods vice spit + tap.

Mack, I think it was a measure used in desperation and not officially sanctioned.
A ball not rammed home by a ram rod would not necessarily sit in the end of the barrel especially if the barrel was in any way fouled by previous firing. Therefore a 'tap and fire' round might exit the barrel quite slowly or erratically.
I think Cornwall has seized on a bit of Napoleonic lore and given it a spin for his own artistic purposes.

3 shots a minute is possible, but this would be using tap loading, as such the ball would have the range of a carbine. To get a ball to engage with the rifling you had to hammer the thing past the grooves which is a tough rifle.

What they did not mention on the telly is that the 3 shots a minute was not as a rifle, but as a 'carbine' in range and accuracy.

K

I think the Rifles also carried a small wooden mallet to assist with ramming the wrapped ball home; must have been a really tight fit.

I think the "3 shots a minute" scene was done by the South Essex using what I assume to be unrifled Brown Bess muskets.
Presumably without the rifling the ramming would be easier

you can do 3 shots a minute on a smothbarrle musket with ramrod with out problems

Yes, for speed, it also helps to be using the vastly undersized ball they used: a 0.685 ball in a 0.751 barrel!

Robert

All rifles did. The Austrian Jager, 1/3 of which were rifle armed, had a mallet and a wooden end to the ramrod. The rifleman would pick off whatever while his two carbine-armed counterparts looked after him while he loaded.

K

Hi

I have done the 3 rounds with rifles as well.

The "mallet" is called a "starter" and is used to start the ball before going to the ramrod. There is a real problem in the period with the wooden ramrod itself.

And spitting the ball (sucking on lead?) well, ya, that works as well. In a hurry…….

R

This is the method of loading a Baker Rifle with cartridge from the Regulations:

"The cartridge is put into the barrel, and the ramrod seized with the fore finger and thumb of the right hand. The ramrod is drawn quite out by the right hand, the left quits the rifle (the barrel is held between the knees) and grasps the ramrod the breadth of a hand from the bottom, which is sunk one inch into the barrel. The cartridge will be forced down with both hands."

The above method of fire was only used if the riflemen were in close order. If they were operating in skirmish order, they used the greased patch, or "plaster" as it was known, around a loose ball. Early Baker rifles had a round compartment inside the butt-box to hold these plasters. The mallet was not used to load a Baker with plastered bullets on the battlefield, and the ramrod was steel and not wooden.

I have never read any accounts of British troops tap-loading either a Brown Bess or a Baker during the Napoleonic wars, and if cartridges were a tight fit in the rifle requiring 2 hands to ram them home as described above, it would have been impossible.

So none of the ammo came pre-wrapped in the cartridge.

The cartridge described in the regulations, primarily for use in close order, comprised of ball and powder pre-wrapped in paper.

The loose ball and plaster for more accurate fire was not made up into a cartridge.

Just as an aside it's properly termed the British Infantry Rifle. Calling it a Baker didn't become popular till later.

The mallet was discarded in the early 1800s as impractical. The rifle also was made in several calibers and I believe they settle on the .62 or .65 to use ammo consistent with the carbine. It started as a .75 but I'm pretty sure went down in size twice.

I would never tap load after the first couple of shots and those wouldn't be desperate enough to do so. The rammer is metal, or at least mine is.

Three rounds with a smoothbore is easy if it's clean. I've almost done four and others in my reenactment unit have done so. But mind you, no one was out there trying to kill us so all the pressure was just on doing it.

Michael

I have just found some more info on the Baker ammunition. Apparently paper cartridges were introduced at some unspecified date that included the greased patch wrapped around the ball. The probably did away with the need to load loose balls, patch, and powder, and explains why the butt-box on later rifles does not have the circular compartment.

As Michael points out, early Bakers were indeed made in musket and carbine bores, which in this case were tighter than smoothbores at 0.70 and 0.625 respectively. I don't think any musket bore versions were made after 1803.