Buck and Ball. Has anyone tried this?

[Stormrider51]

A recent thread made wonder about the whole "buck and ball" idea.  Before I start cutting up shotgun shells to get buck shot, has anyone tried this?  I'm not convinced that there will be any advantage over buck shot alone in a smoothbore.  Is there?

Storm

[mario]

Depends on what you mean by "advantage".

I did it just to try it and simply because is was done in the 18th century.

I found that if the shot is loaded over the ball, the ball tends to disperse the shot quite a bit more.

Mario

[Stormrider51]

Mario,  That's what I expected would happen.  The round surface of the larger ball would be pushing the smaller buckshot outward toward the walls of the barrel.  This would probably deform the buckshot and cause it to veer from the line of sight.  I can see this being an "advantage" if my intent was to injure as many enemy as possible.  Thanks for the reply.

Storm

[Loyalist Dave]

The one x-ray that I have seen with a recovered, military musket, still loaded with buck-n-ball, has the buckshot on the powder, with a small separation, followed by the ball, so when I've loaded this into a cartridge, I add an extra loop or two of string between the buckshot and the ball. I pour in the powder, then invert the cartridge, and load.  Seem to add extra hits on targets simulating a line of advancing soldiers, and sometimes gives me extra hits on a single target.  I've not had buckshot alone strike the target I'm aiming at, when loaded with buck-n-ball.

LD