Bullet Strikes From the First Day Of the American Revolution

Interesting read ! From the ball calibers recovered it would seem the Americans had a lot of French Charleville muskets. Or if fowlers (?) were using the French caliber ball. At any rate a much more organized bunch than one is normally lead to believe. = For the fun of it I measured the bore diameter of two short land (2nd model) brown bess’s . The iron mounted one came in at 0.773 and the brass mounted at 0.767. Admittedly these were most likely post Revolutionary war arms. = The authors note muzzle velocity was lower than expected in their test gun. I would expect at the time, the muzzle velocity would have been lower still. Due to loose fitting non-patched balls and clumpy black powder. The black powder did not have graphite added. It would clump more, absorb more water, and pour and pack unevenly. [Compared to today’s powders]. Of course who knows the source of the American powder, could be British from the Raid of fort William and Mary in 74. If locally sourced who knows what the quality was like. After all Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours. (love that name) made powder at the turn of the 18th century because American powder was of such poor quality.