Bite, pour, spit, tap, aim, fire!

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You would think, but the tv show and the Australian army guys bit the ball end of the cartridge off, keeping the ball and a bit of paper in their mouths, primed the pan on the musket, poured the rest of the powder into the barrel with the paper, spit the ball and a little bit of paper down the barrel, tapped the butt on the ground, aimed, then fired. No ram rod, no patch. Hmmmm???
 
Just don't swallow? :D

If this was a valid method from back in the day then I'd suggest that a trooper was at far more risk of another more direct form of "lead poisoning". So a little lead in the mouth was likely of far less concern.

These days I'd be loathe to do it that way as well. I guess one trick would be to not swallow any saliva for the duration of the demonstration and then spit and rinse well afterwards.

Other than for such a demo I just can't see why anyone would do this since it results in a very sloppy loose load which won't have any sort of sterling level of accuracy. All the good smoothbore shooters I've hung around with load them up with fairly stiff fits in order to get as good an accuracy as they can have
 
There was a similar common practice among some of the skilled 18th Century frontier woodsmen (i.e. Samuel Brady, Lewis Wetzel) for quickly reloading their rifles on the run when pursued by multiple assailants.

Several slightly undersized balls would be placed in the mouth. Powder would be poured from the horn directly into the barrel, then one of the balls spit down the bore. The butt of the rifle was then slammed to the ground to seat the ball and possibly allow a small amount of powder to trickle into the pan (frizzen would be closed and touchhole was of generous size), turn and fire.

Accuracy wasn't like a patched ball, but at point blank range, effective enough.

The procedure involves several unsafe practices, of course.
 
Insofar as lead poisoning, you are are less at risk if you swallow a large lead ball and excrete it a day or so than you are at an indoor shooting range with many shooters in a 1-2 hour session. Airborne lead particles can get ingested in the lungs and cause considerably more damage than ingested lead.

Back around 1984, my son ingested a piece of split shot (fishing weight) for whatever reason (maybe he was ticked off that I went fishing with buddies without him). He was 10 years old. Took him to ER whereupon they took an X-ray of his gut. It looked like Pac Man! :D He passed it in just over 24 hours. The probing of feces was the worst part, but we found it, and there have been no detrimental effects that he knows of.
 
Historically accurate. However, if I have to get into a gunfight, I'm going with a semi.
 
Oh, I see, thanks for the clarification. You would definitely pick up some speed and lose some accuracy. It might be worth it under some circumstances...

Metallic lead isn't really in a form where you can absorb it quickly. If I were a reenactor doing that sort of thing I'd go ahead and rinse after (because belch!) and get lead tested occasionally (which I do anyway) but it doesn't strike me as being crazy or anything.
 
My former business partner, the late Lewis Sanchez, was at the NMLRA Nationals at Friendship, IN back in the late '70's.

He overheard "Doc"(Andy) Baker talking to a frantic mother, who brought her young son to him. She exclaimed that he had swallowed a round ball, and needed a medical solution to her plight.

Andy looked at her and said, " Give him two spoonfuls of castor oil and point him down range or in a safe direction.":what::what::D:D:D
 
I worked for a state agency with the words Natural and Resources in the name and my boss came back from a national conference about wetlands.

Lead abatement was one of the topics.

He asked a Federal Wildlife high muckity muck, "so what are the effects of lead shot on water fowl?"

The answer? "Depends on the velocity."

-kBob
 
If I were holding a bullet in my teeth while pouring powder directly from a flask into a recently fired barrel, I would be much more concerned with the possibility of a smoldering bit of powder or patch from my last shot igniting my powder stream, burning right back to the flask, and igniting it like a bomb in my hand than the possibility of lead poisoning.
 
Bite, pour, spit, tap, aim, fire, ...die, from your exploding barrel because your bullet stopped half way down your barrel due to fouling and created a barrel obstruction. :what:

I've noticed that the YouTube video did such a test beginning with a clean musket although the corporal on the left during the introduction says "with a fouled bore". Second, they talk about accuracy and penetration at 100 yards...this is a technique when you are about to be overrun...NOT when the enemy is at 100 yards. Finally, I can with the standard drill load and fire a Pedersoli Bess four times in a minute...no ball spitting needed ( and I too would be using a .675 ball) 6 in two minutes is pretty slow.

The standard load was about two dozen cartridges in a box, and the lads might shoot all of them without cleaning...so lets see if one can safely "seat" the ball by spitting and tapping, after you have fired say 17 rounds, you're down to say your last six, and the French are about to overwhelm your position. :scrutiny:

The "test"

LD
 
In that Aussie test the first time he loads the powder and spits the ball into the barrel I can clearly hear it rumbling down the bore to seat on the powder before he does the first tap.

So the only issue from there on would be if the fouling builds up enough that it won't seat from a tap of the butt stock.

Of course all this relies on a GENEROUS amount of windage in the bore to ball fit. If that's not there then a KABOOM! from the ball not being fully seated becomes more likely.

It could also be trouble if shooting downhill. With no patch to hold the ball it's liable to roll part way out the barrel before the shot is taken. And it's not much of a stretch to imagine a metallic rolling sound and then a muted "plop...." that sounds much like a lead ball landing in some soft loam followed by a smokey flash of fire....:D
 
It could also be trouble if shooting downhill.... it's not much of a stretch to imagine a metallic rolling sound and then a muted "plop...." that sounds much like a lead ball landing in some soft loam followed by a smokey flash of fire....
Click to expand...

ROTFLMAO :D

I had an image of Elmer Fudd in my head when I read that! Quite right too....

LD
 
On one of the Top Shot competitions, they used single shot muzzleloading pistols for a stage. I remember one of the competitors tipping the barrel down and having the ball roll out the barrel- bullets were not patched when they loaded.
 
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