The Long Short Starter, And Muzzle Coning

 

I sanded a flat surface opposite the starter "plug".

From the Tresco Catalog, circa 2016.

Long Starter? I have a suggestion for beginning buckskinners: Instead of a regular short starter, why not buy a pistol loading rod? It's basically a short starter with a shaft lengthened to seat your round ball in a standard length pistol barrel. To top it off, the tip is a cleaning jag, so you purchase the loading rod with a jag tip diameter that corresponds to your pistol. The jag is both concave to self-center on your ball, and threaded, albeit with a 10/32 tap, to accept standard cleaning accessories. Huzzah!

The photo at the top of the post shows a modification I made to my own Pistol Loader. Using a belt sander, I flattened the ball's face opposite the little brass nub that actually starts the ball down the barrel. The reasoning is simple: Since most of us use a clenched fist to pound on the ball, the flattened surface distributes the impact over a larger surface of your hand, reducing the discomfort considerably.

You'll notice from the chart that the pistol loaders come in three sizes ranging from .45 to .54. I purchased the one with the .45 jag tip, and then bought a button jag (10/32) for each different pistol bore size that I owned. This way I can load and clean any muzzle loading pistol I might have with me on the trail. Track Of The Wolf carries them, so click here.

Historical Authenticity: The use of short starters has been questioned by some serious reenactors. Mark A. Baker, a living archeologist, writer, and technical consultant for the movie Last Of The Mohicans, stated that he has found no evidence that short starters were ever actually used on the frontier. This doesn't mean that they didn't exist, but fabricating a short starter using the materials available at the time wouldn't be difficult if somebody felt the need to have/make one. Instead, the practice of "coning" was employed to allow the patch to be gradually compressed as it was forced down the barrel. 

Contemporary Coned Muzzle

Coning: Today, coning the muzzle is normally done with a tapered reamer inserted down the muzzle, as was done in this example. This method is easily and accomplishes the desired effect: a gradual compression of the patch as it's pushed home. However, coning is discouraged by contemporary gun makers. I asked the late rifle builder Craig Kern if he would cone the muzzle of the long rifle he was building for me. His response was a simple "No". He explained that accuracy would suffer, and I took him at his word. After all, who was I to argue? 

If you examine the photo of contemporary coned muzzle, you'll get some insights into Craig's response. You can see that both the lands AND the grooves have been relieved. This means that when the ball leaves the muzzle, the lands are no longer there to support for the patch/bullet. If this isn't enough to make one reconsider coning, there was an article in Muzzle Loader magazine where the author did a pre-crown post-crown accuracy comparison on a barrel coned in this manner. He concluded that in no case was overall accuracy improved, and in nearly all cases, decreased.

Traditional Coned Muzzle

In one of Mr. Baker's articles for Muzzle Loader, he described the half-stock rifle he was having built. A stickler for authenticity, he had his muzzle coned, but in a period correct manner. If you examine this coned muzzle at the right, you will see that it was done with a narrow cylindrical file and not a tapered reamer. What's more important is the placement. Examine the decorative cuts marking the lands, or highest points, of the rifling. The filing was done between these marks, thereby cutting only the grooves, or the lowest points in the rifling. This allows the lands to maintain contact with the patch/ball longer than if the cone was cut with a tapered reamer.  Done in this manner, the performance of the barrel would deteriorate less, if at all. 

So consider using the Pistol Loading Rod in place of your traditional short starter. From my perspective, it's all good.