"muzzle-loader load times" Topic

I'm interested in estimates for combat reload times ,primarily for rifled muskets, for different qualities of troops, although I'd be interested to hear any opinions on any type of breechloader…

Three rounds per minute on the parade field.

In combat?

See the movie "Glory"

youtu.be/gr3sGt9L3Hw

Author/re-enactor Babbington (A Devil of a Whipping) says he can (starting with a loaded musket) get off 6 aimed rounds in a minute. I think he also says he can get off two aimed rounds with a muzzle-loading rifle in the same time. I guess he can and imagine that selected individuals could back in the day.

My limited experience with a muzzle-loading rifle says I take well over a minute to reload, closer to two.

But I think that most troops back then practiced accuracy rather than high speed – if they practiced at all. I should think two rounds a minute would be the average in combat, and only at first. Once guns misfire, barrels get clogged, etc… I suspect the difference between veterans and plowboys wasn't so much rate of fire, but how many leveled their guns and how many fired shots into the air.

Consider that at Hubbardton, 1777 the Continental rearguard was engaged in a two hours of intense combat. They fired about 20 rounds per man. That's 1 round per 6 minutes.

Or to go the other way, the average cartridge box held 20 some odd rounds and figure the soldier had another 20 in his pockets if his officer was on the ball. At 2 rounds per minute all the ammo would be gone in 20 minutes – 30 minutes if they were carrying 60 rounds. Use Babbington's rates of fire and the ammo would last at most 10 minutes.

Not so much interested in rounds per minute but actual time for one load, in combat zone.

The goal was three rounds per minute. So 20 seconds to load and fire was optimal. I know from experience that starting with a clean musket it is certainly possible to do it in 20 seconds. But sustaining that in combat is highly unlikely. I would guess that 30 seconds would be a more likely rate in combat. And that's loading from the standing position. Kneeling you can increase the time by 10 seconds and prone you are looking at a minute or more for each shot. The cartridge boxes held 40 rounds and soldiers often carried another 20 in their pockets or haversacks. So even at a slower rate the soldiers could shoot off all their ammo in 30 minutes of sustained firing.

So even at a slower rate the soldiers could shoot off all their ammo in 30 minutes of sustained firing.

Hence the importance of logistics – getting additional ammunition to the troops to keep the battle going.

The standard mentioned in Rifleman Dodd and Sharpe stories is 3 rounds per minute.

Minie balls are certainly easier to load than patched roundballs, too, so I would expect that you'd see a slight increase in speed.

But 6 rounds a minute is incredibly fast for a 'smoke-pole'…

Way back in NSS Association days, our team figured that
loading a previously fired Springfield 1863 rifle-
musket in 30 seconds was good.

This followed the full scope -fire, rifle down from
shoulder, cartridge from pocket/box and torn, powder
down barrel, paper in barrel, ball on top of paper,
ramrod removed and charge rammed home vigorously,
ramrod returned (sometimes stuck in the dirt), hammer
to half-cock, percussion cap applied, butt of rifle to
shoulder, hammer to full cock, point (NOT aim), fire.

There was a 'tap loading' sequence where rather than
ramming the charge home, the butt of the piece was
struck smartly on the ground, the idea being that the
charge would seat itself in the chamber. This was a
good way to damage your weapon if the charge didn't
seat all the way down.

Anyone who claims they can load and fired more than 3 rounds per minute in the first minute is lying out their patoot. After the first 3 rounds, you can expect the rate of fire to be, at "load and fire at will" to be, at THE MAXIMUM, to be 2 rounds per minute, and after the first 10-20 rounds, to be reduced to 1 round per minute.

Even with the introduction of the Williams Patent cleaner round, the rate of fire after 20 rounds is, at the VERY best, 1 round per minute. The cleaner rounds were wrapped in a colored (blue or green) paper and the men, who knew what kind of a kick these rounds had, often as not tossed them away rather than use them.

In fact, after Gettysburg, finding more than 40 rounds/man in the ranks would have been a rarity. The book "Ready…Aim…Fire… by Dean Thomas has a copy of a letter from an officer of the 11th US Infantry to the Officer Commanding of Watervliet Arsenal regarding the issuance of extra rounds beyond those 40 carried in the boxes. He relates that the area leading away from the ammunition supply trains was consistently littered with the packets of extra ammunition which had been thrown away by the men rather than carry it. Their boxes contained space for only 40 rounds, and the extra weight was not felt worth the effort to carry.

Having carried live ammunition and 3-day's rations, I can attest to the idea that tossing aside anything not of immediate use is a good idea as being a valid concept.

Any set of rules that supports the use of more than 40 rounds/man ammunition, at a rate of expenditure of more than 1 round/minute is, to my mind, a flawed set of rules and needs revision to bring it into line with what appears to be actual practice.

V/R

As a reenactor – I'm wih TKindred. 2 rounds dropping to 1.

6 aimed rounds in a minute? With modern reproduction weapons, powder, and ball, each round using a modern cleaning patch, and all ammo and equipment laid out in easy reach? In other words, under ideal, conditions with every possible corner cut? Maybe, just maybe. I've seen 4, close to 5, but never 6. Under historic field conditions? I don't buy it.

With a musket, a man might get off three rounds a minute because the ball did not always fit the tube snugly.

The minie ball was closer to the interior diameter of the ball and was a bit slower to load. 2 rounds a minute.

The problems I have with Devil of a Whipping stem from the author using his personal rates of fire to calculate what happened during the battle. On the other hand I like his research using the pension records. I think he names more militiamen killed by name than the usual count of US casualties allows for. And that's not counting the Continentals. I think the usual quoted number only counts Continentals and ignores militia losses.

But yes, 2 rounds a minute slowing down to 1 after a while sounds more like it to me.

Put me in the camp who simply doesn't believe 6 aimed rounds per minute. Even if true, you can't base stats on 1 in a million events. I think a trained man could get off a round every twenty or thirty seconds.

6 aimed rounds in a minute?

Maybe, but… I think people are confusing rifled muskets with smoothbore muskets. I read it was 3 shots a minute with a rifled musket, or 5 rounds from a smoothbore musket.

I seem to recall in the book, "Sharp's Eagle" where Sharp fired 5 rounds in a minute from a smoothbore musket, but it was pointed out that he started with a loaded smoothbore musket.

I would guess most men & lads in the 1860`s would have fired a rifle so would have some idea how to use one. Raw recruits were drilled I would guess some sort of weapons training would be given.
in combat I guess again up to 3 rounds a minute would be possible

If you just drop the black powder, and then the ball, in the musket and shake it a bit without using the ram, and fire at will, and do it again etc, it can be very fast.

But you can't have a whole unit doing this seriously and stay in good order for a long time, if they are not super-trained elite heroes.

Thanks fellas, all useful comments. Why is prone so bad? No help from gravity?

If you just drop the black powder, and then the ball, in the musket and shake it a bit without using the ram, and fire at will, and do it again etc, it can be very fast.

But you can't have a whole unit doing this seriously and stay in good order for a long time, if they are not super-trained elite heroes.

But it doesn't work that way. To start with, the powder and ball comes as a paper cartridge, a complete round of ammunition. It requires you to tear off the end to expose the powder and pour this down the barrel. You then need to remove the ball from it's end and use the rammer to slide it down the barrel. The problem comes with fouling buildup inside the bore. The more rounds fired, the harder it becomes to load the ammunition easily.

Additionally, the weapon needs to be primed. For a flintlock system, this means that before pouring the powder down the barrel, you first need to expose the pan and pour a small amount into it, then push the frizzen back to cover it. THEN you can load the powder and ball.

In a percussion system, you load the round, then have to bring the hammer back to the half-cocked position and remove the old cap, then place a new one in position.

All of this takes time. More so than you might imagine. If the weather is very humid, the moisture tends to turn the fouling into a sticky cover that further hampers load times. Rain will do the same thing, and is especially frustrating for those with flintlocks.

At Gaines Mill, in 1862, Federal troops had difficulty loading due to the humidity and number of rounds they fired. Many were seen slamming their rammers against tree trunks or using rocks to try and drive home a final round, prior to firing off the round AND the stuck rammer, which turned their weapon into a 13 pound club.

Ammunition-wise, it was often required that both the round and the paper covering it be loaded together. George Washington adopted the use of buck & ball ammunition for his men. This used a single round ball with 3 or 6 rounds of OO buckshot atop it. The round ball and buckshot were held together by a thin piece of string which wrapped around the outside of the paper cartridge, thus mandating that they be loaded as one unit. This same round was used in the M1812 through M1842 muskets used by both sides during the ACW.

Loading prone is just very awkward. You've got a nearly 5-foot long rifle-musket and a 3-foot long ramrod and your cartridge box is on your backside and your percussion cap pouch is on your front side and yes, gravity isn't working in your favor. Loading while standing you just set the weapon's butt on the ground and the muzzle is right there in front of you. Easy to get the powder and bullet into, easy to ram and easy to prime. Trying to do it while prone you are juggling the weapon, ramrod and ammunition and gravity isn't helping you at all. With training it can be done, but there is no way to do it very quickly.

What Scott says.

Dum dee dum dum,Dum dee dum dum,Dum dee dum dum,Dum dee dum dum,Dum dee dum dum,Dum dee dum dum,Dum dee dum dum,Dum dee dum dum………..BANG!

Short Austrian jager rifles – easier to load prone?

Hess in his Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat computes the average rate of fire in a firefight at 1 round per 2.1 minutes….

I would expect the firing rates to vary widely depending on the circumstances. During an extended fight in wooded terrain you might have a very slow rate of fire as the men wait for targets to become visible. Out in the open with an enemy battle line closing on you the men might actually achieve that ideal of 3 rounds per minute for a few frantic minutes.

Remember, the troops only carried 40 rounds, and would typically throw away the "cleaner" round issued in each package of 10 for 36 rounds in combat. They'd be hard pressed to load beyond the 10th round without cleaning.

Indeed, the general planning figure for the time was each rifleman/ musketeer would average 20 rounds in a battle. In the three days of Gettysburg the average engaged rifleman fired on the order of 30 rounds for the whole battle.

67th Tigers wrote:

They'd be hard pressed to load beyond the 10th round without cleaning.

From experience, rifle muskets firing minie balls can normally be loaded and fired many, many times without fouling causing any problems at all if the bullet is of the proper size and properly lubricated, as period ammunition should have been. The size of the British Enfield bullet was reduced from 0.568" to 0.550" in the late 1850s, and prior to this fouling had sometimes been reported as a problem in India with the larger bullet. The reduction in bullet size apparently fixed the problem. Incidentally, an Enfield rifle musket under test reputedly fired many thousands of rounds without any cleaning at all.

I would imagine that if problems were actually encountered in battle after 10 rounds, then this would indicate a problem with oversize ammunition, or a problem with the maintenance of the rifles, or some extreme climatic conditions – the worst of which, in my experience, are hot and dry (the fouling is normally kept soft on damp days). Perhaps with several slightly different calibres of rifle in use in the ACW, oversize ammunition was used in Enfields?

Smoothbore muskets can also fire many rounds without fouling affecting loading if the ammunition is properly sized to allow this. Looking at some earlier data from the Napoleonic era, the British Brown Bess musket, which had an average calibre of 0.76", was loaded with a 0.685" ball, rammed down still in its paper cartridge. There are many documented accounts of British soldiers firing over 100 rounds per man in action without cleaning and with no mention of loading difficulties. I have tried this load with an original musket, with the full service charge of 165 grains of powder including priming, on many occasions and have had no difficulty loading and firing 60 rounds.

Further indication that fouling didn't normally affect the Brown Bess can be found in the results of one of several experiments carried out in the early 1800s to determine how quickly a veteran British soldier could fire off the contents of a 36 round ammunition pouch. In this particular test, the results of which were similar to others, the first 3 rounds were fired in one minute, the first 18 rounds were fired in 6.5 minutes and the entire 36 rounds were fired in 13 minutes. After 25 rounds the musket became too hot to hold during loading, except by the sling and it was noted that all rounds were properly rammed down with "two smart strokes" to seat the ball.

From these times, it can be seen that the speed of loading and firing did not alter much at all and the second 18 rounds were fired in the same time as the first 18, so fouling cannot have slowed the proceedings at all. It was noted that men in formed in ranks could not have fired as quickly, so this must be seen as the ideal on the target range, not in action, and I think that the slower rates of fire suggested in the posts above would have been typical.

Perhaps the 0.69" smoothbore of the ACW struggled to match the old Brown Bess in sustained fire, as I believe that the ball size was increased to 0.65" for greater accuracy leaving much less space for fouling buildup.

Fascinating discussion, guys, and quite helpful to me as well at the moment.

Any one have any insight as to where rates might be different for a US Cavalry Sharps Carbine M1863? Would the shorter barrel increase the rate at all, or simply be insignificant? Also, I'm assuming that such weapons would be carried loaded (at least during the active ACW). Correct?
Would light rain affect firing much?

The Sharps is a breech-loading weapon, so a better chance of getting off three shots a minute, though two is more realistic since you still have to cap it.

Soldiers only loaded their weapons when on picket (piquet) duty, or when action was expected. No officer, let alone a right-thinking NCO would allow his men to go about with loaded weapons.

On the march, in light rain, soldiers normally carried their weapons with the barrel pointed down. Either slung with the butt up, or carried at the trail arms with the barrel down.

The Sharps is a breech-loading weapon

*Head slap* (meaning me hitting my own head)

Okay, crud, I *knew* that… how did I let that one slip by my internal checklist? Total brain blip.

So thank you for the reminder, and very much also for the other insights.

If a unit was on a raid of a civilian setting where no military resistance was expected, would the weapons be loaded? (Again, cavalry, circa 1863.) I'm assuming so…

I've fired a Sharps military rifle (same basic mechanism as the carbine, just a longer barrel) and it is much faster than loading a musket. Just open the breech, shove in the whole cartridge, close the breech, prime and you are ready to go. No tearing open the cartridge, no ramming. Firing rates of four or five rounds a minute can be achieved for short periods. And loading while kneeling or prone are vastly easier.

The Sharps rifle even had the Lawrence pellet primer system which (when it worked, it was prone to malfunctions) automatically primed the weapon, streamlining the process even more.

Enfields are great rifles. With a properly fitting minia ball I have fired well over eighty rounds without any fouling. Starting with the weapon loaded, with the ramrod returned under the barrel, with cartridge ammunition I managed to get off 2 aimed shots a minute.

I can dio four rounds a minute with a flintlock, but only three with a percussion. The extra time it takes it fiddle with the percussion caps is the difference.

Spontoon, there's no 'fiddling' with frizzen, pan,
flint/hammer, priming horn ?????

Spontoon: Are you speaking from firing blanks or live ball ammunition?

There is no possible way that anyone can fire 3 rounds ball ammunition with a flintlock on a regular basis.

Frederick the Great was a fanatic about high rates of fire with his flintlock-armed troops. I've read that he could get them to do 4 or even 5 rounds a minute. Flogging can yield great results :)

Trained users can shoot remarkable rates with either Flintlock or Percussion Muzzleloaders – and especially so with a breechloader – but only with two huge caveats

1.) They have no fear of death – no one is shooting at them
2.) Running out of ammunition is not issue

The two facts above are critical to any discussion of rates of fire. Although proper training can greatly reduce the affect of "the fear factor", everyone is affected by it it some amount, and it serves to greatly lengthen the period between shots.

Ammunition expenditure also greatly affect sustained rate of fire. Most combatants went into action with 40 rounds (sometimes as many as 60, but hardly always) per man with no guarantee of replenishment. While their initial rate of fire would approach the optimum training allowed for, by the time half the men's ammunition was expended, IF NO replenishment was at hand, the rate of fire would steadily begin to decrease as it became more important to keep a steady fire, no matter how slow, to keep the enemy at bay.

This much slower rate of fire would gradually become slower until such time that replenishment was at hand.

While it is no doubt true that a dead man cannot shoot, it is equally true that a live men with no ammunition cannot either.

I have, on a range, fired 12 rounds in one minute from an original Burnside Carbine at a man sized target 50 yards away, getting 10 hits [the rounds and caps were neatly laid out in front of me before hand and, if course, nobody was shooting at me while I was doing it!]. However, had I gone into action with only the 20 or 40 rounds that a cavalry trooper normally carried on his person, I sure would have though twice about the intelligence of doing that! After all, even with only one round being fired every 90 seconds, that 40 rounds would last but one hour …

Mark E. Horan

I'm not sure how much effect ammunition supply would have had on the rate of fire of the average soldier. We have all these stories about muskets recovered from the battlefield with 6 or 8 or 20 unfired rounds crammed down the barrel. Clearly the soldiers who carried them had ceased thinking rationally and were just going through the motions that had been drilled into them without even noticing that their weapon wasn't firing when they pulled the trigger. Now those were extreme (but not necissarily rare) cases, but I have to wonder if even the clear-headed ones would be counting down how many rounds they had left while in the middle of a fire fight.

link

3 shots in 46 seconds video

ScottWashburn
16 May 2012 12:31 p.m. PST
I'm not sure how much effect ammunition supply would have had on the rate of fire of the average soldier. We have all these stories about muskets recovered from the battlefield with 6 or 8 or 20 unfired rounds crammed down the barrel. Clearly the soldiers who carried them had ceased thinking rationally and were just going through the motions that had been drilled into them without even noticing that their weapon wasn't firing when they pulled the trigger. Now those were extreme (but not necissarily rare) cases, but I have to wonder if even the clear-headed ones would be counting down how many rounds they had left while in the middle of a fire fight.

It is also likely that a soldier picked up a musket lying on the ground and tried to load it. He might be replacing a unservicible musket or he might have been loading a spare during a lull in the action. The first step is to pour the powder, ball and wadding down the barrell and then seat the load with the rammer. If the rammer didn't go down all the way, then you knew it had been already loaded and threw it away…. for the next guy to try the same.

3 shots in 46 seconds video

Nope. Man was loading blanks, not live ball ammunition. He would also NOT have been firing by himself, but would have been waiting for the commands for his platoon (rolling platoon, and sometimes company) volley to discharge his weapon.

Lots of differences between the 18th and 19th century systems, too. But this video doesn't cut the mustard. It's a neat party trick, but not at all what you would see in battle.

Still, the man was definitely skilled :) But yes, with volley fire, the rate of fire of the whole platoon/company is limited to the slowest men. With independent fire the men fire as quickly or as slowly as they want.

But the video was interesting. Nearly four rounds per minute, although I doubt he could keep it up long. I've read that Frederick the Great went so far to have muskets made with enlarged flash channels so that powder from the barrel would leak out into the pan when ramming, eliminating the need for the priming step. Five rounds a minute anyone :)

In War of 1812 reenacting we have a lad that can load and fire 11 per minute…ahem…..load and fire blank rounds ,no ramming,no present and aim, he is very fast and wins the speed competitions if the rules arent worded correctly.Its just a matter of sophistry.

no ramming,no present and aim

Which is why the 'kid' can fire so fast.

How fast can he load LIVE rounds, ram, present and aim?

Our ACW group had our own 'talent' competition. We tried live firing rifled Springfields and Enfields as fast as we could. We practiced for 1/2 half hour on our own before hand to work out the kinks.

The goal was to have 3 rounds fired in 1 minute and to separate the wheat from the chaff. Three guys would fire together with 2 judges watching the shooters from either flanks. A stop watch was used by a 3rd judge to call a cease fire at the 1 minute mark. There was only one winner from each 3 group. The rules were:

start with unloaded and clean rifles

start from Shoulder arms

you may NOT have your cartridge box moved forward before hand. Shooters cold swing them forward and/or tuck the flack up but that was your choice if you wanted to waste the time. Many did not do that.

no cleaning rifles while waiting to shoot in the next round

ramrods may be thrown into the dirt or back into rifle between each rounds

cartridge boxes must remain full as well as caps pouch (it's easier and faster to grab caps with only a few inside)

everyone was wearing all equipment including a Double bag knapsack

you can not hang cartridges from your mouth while firing.

all shooters were ‘supposed' to aim. What that meant was that shooters had to level their rifles and not just ‘pop-off' at 45 degrees to save time. If you were deemed to have NOT leveled your rifle you would lose that shot as not counted

In my first round I easily beat the 2 other guys. They fumbled with rounds, caps or ramrods. I got off my 3rd round just at the cease fire call. It was intense and you had to REALLY focus to shoot that fast. In my next round I mistakenly threw my ramrod too far and it fell over. Bending down to pick it up was a time killer but I won anyway with just 2 shots. The other two guys had horrible problems, dropping caps or rounds. Being nervous and keyed-up really slows you down because you make mistakes.

Watching the others while waiting was fun to see what can go wrong even though loading and firing is so simple. One guy bent his ramrod while loading. I think he rammed rod when only about 4-6 inches down the barrel and he put an enormous amount of pressure on the rod down instead of into the barrel. That was weird. Others make stupid mistakes that cost them time like flicking off the caps while full cocking the hammer, one guy dumped almost the entire powder charge outside the barrel and then thought it had enough to fire which it didn't so that kicked him out since he rammed the paper down on top. He had to go aside after the competition and worm his rifle out.

In my next round I tied with another guy with 2 shots. The judges threw out his last shot because he barely brought the rifle level. He was not happy but rules are rules.

There were four of us in the finals. The winner got off 3 shots cleanly with probably a second to spare. I got off 2 and was in the act of bringing the rifle capped to my shoulder at the buzzer. The other guys had disastrous problems which they didn't have previously. They did all the silly things and fumbles that came with trying to fire too fast.

It was an interesting and fun event. We learned a lot and with the nervousness and yearning to be the winner the result may or may not have been somewhat like firing under pressure in a battle… except the guy next to you didn't get his head blown off.

I say 2 shots per minute. :)

Avidgamer, that sounds like a fun event.

138SquadronRAF,

It was and I'd like to do it again. There was just as much watching the others fire too. The location is no longer available to us so I'm not sure was can have another event like this. I don't think an ordinary rifle range would allow this sort of thing except perhaps a NSSA location.

When we are practicing I emptied all but 5 or 6 caps from my Cap pouch and was able to fire faster and the same with the rounds but… sadly I was informed we couldn't do that. :( When you have lots of them in there it seems it does make grabbing individual caps more cumbersome.

Another guy took all his caps and pinched them slightly which helps preventing them from falling off the nipple and he wasn't allowed to do that either. The judges saw him do it and then checked everyone's to make sure everyone wasn't doing the same. I normally do this before a reenactment, school program, living history event or a ceremony for just this reason.

The one guy wanted to grab the 3 rounds and hold them in the corner of his mouth. He found he saved a few seconds by not reaching in his cartridge box but was informed it wasn't allowed simply because it is too dangerous…. which I would agree with.

aahhhhhhh… the good old days. :)

all shooters were ‘supposed' to aim. What that meant was that shooters had to level their rifles and not just ‘pop-off' at 45 degrees to save time. If you were deemed to have NOT leveled your rifle you would lose that shot as not counted

Which is what that guy was doing in the video. With his last shot he even throws himself off balance due to his not taking up a proper firing position and waiting for the powder in the pan to ignite before he starts to lower his musket.

TKindred
18 Jun 2012 4:40 p.m. PST
3 shots in 46 seconds video
Nope. Man was loading blanks, not live ball ammunition. He would also NOT have been firing by himself, but would have been waiting for the commands for his platoon (rolling platoon, and sometimes company) volley to discharge his weapon.
Lots of differences between the 18th and 19th century systems, too. But this video doesn't cut the mustard. It's a neat party trick, but not at all what you would see in battle.

I agree. The video does suggest that 3 shots (in line, with ball) would be the highest end rate.

Interesting