And because that POS Simmerson said that any man not able to fire three rounds a minute would be flogged. He wasn't about to gamble with their well-being

It is also worth remembering that Sharpe is fiction

They would also have a bigger target. Man on/and a horse.

The actual person who taught them how to do it was a former British army Trooper. The fact that it does work, provides that with training and more training you can fire three rounds in just under a Minute or six just under two minutes. Of which is a impressive fire rate for a old weapon. The old ways are always the best. As former British army myself I’ll teach you some thing that not a lot of people know In the field of combat you still need to keep your weapon clean . However the way to do it is On stripping the weapon You set the safety to safe Remove the mag Pull back the loading arm to eject a round in the barrel You removed the gas plug and piston and spring by turning the plug anti-clockwise with your hand pushing down so as to stop it and the piston plus spring flying off . Split the rifle in two by pushing down the release level on the left side And remove top cover Pull out the working Clean the weapon In putting back together Slide in the working and slide back into place the top cover Rejoin the weapon and load the mag Now you ask why have I done this before putting back the spring gas piston and plug The reason is that you can still fire the L1A1 as a single shot in a combat zone under enemy fire. In a lull of enemy fire you can then pull the spring the gas pistol and plug back into place.

@@chiswolfenden2400 Please keep your irrelevant nonsense about the SLR out of this comments section.

Ay, he can fire three rounds a minute, but can he stand?

not in wind as the powder would get blown away from the flintlock before u had a chance to close it. wouldnt work in rain either as the powder would get wet. Its why the battle of waterloo was deleyed starting cause it was raining and the powder would of got wet when trying to load. If it wasnt for the rain delaying the start by a few hrs napolian would of won. Wellington ordered the retreat as his army was defeated but just as the men started to retreat the prussian army arrived and turned the battle in wellingtons favour. Battles in that time period were only fought when there was very little wind and no rain. Sometimes the armies would just sit around for days waiting for the right weather to fight. only cavalry would do anything as they used swords or lances so didnt have to worry about the gunpowder. Dragoons had to wait for the right weather as well as they were not cavalry they were mounted infantry who rode horses to the battle but then dismounted and fought on foot with muskets. Dragoons job was ride round the flanks of the enemy dismount then shoot in the flanks then mount up and ride away. They were vulnerable to cavalry as they only had muskets and no swords and they couldnt fire while mounted.

Local oral history here in "Leatherstocking country, was, back in the 1700s, one local frontiersman was capable of four, in a minute... man spent yrs, reshapeing his hand, so four balls could be maintained between his fingers so four were ready for the feat...

By god, if they can't, they should be flogged !!

@@lewspeedwagon6330 Not sure how having them between his fingers would help at all. Sounds like a "legend"

+tbone martinez Spit harder!

Were you spit loading .223 in a .233 rifle? That's your problem. If you noticed, they were using .67 caliber balls in a .75 caliber weapon. Try it with some .22 rounds.. or better yet, 17 HMR.

ah yes I will spit harder and use 17 hmr bullets!

lol....this was a good laugh....

Get a friend to play guitar while you do it. Hope that helps!

Thank you for your support. We have another video related to this one in the mill.

+bpezzano1 it was in a film yes and no self respecting safety officer would allow it to happen, spit a ball down a empty musket YES, spit it down a loaded one NO bloody way any way would only be firing blanks, would not have a ball within a 100yards NO any where near the set for Christ sake its a movie and does a camera lie yes it does ,just remember a fool and his head are soon departed or have a hole in it , a bloody good talk by a safety officer id needed , a good way to loose a licence here in OZ

+talleyrand I dont know about Australia but most places in the world you can damn well do as you please if its private property

+Munk The Mongol MUNK well mate even the stupidity of placing your face over a loaded musket , be it on a range or private property an idiot and his head are soon parted should a spark remain from the previous charge , again due to the nature of black powder is likely, a good way of meeting what ever god you may pray to

They proved it was POSSIBLE. No one ever said it was SAFE! Seems to me, though, that when the alternative to increasing your rate of fire in a possibly unsafe manner is being overrun by an enemy intent on shoving steel(in one form or another) into various parts of your body, the risk might be considered not quite so great

@@mikegrossberg8624 Yes, why allow your enemy to blow your head off when you could do it yourself, right? In live combat with muskets, volleys of fire would be much more lethal and terrifying regardless, compared to everyone firing at their own pace, so reloading would be done as a unit upon given orders regardless. Not to mention the fire by rank system which quite effectively kept the rate of fire up, much more so than shoving your face in front of the barrel of a loaded gun might do.

Expected, British people are very adaptable and good at inventions (that is inventing or evolving a way to fire a musket for example).

madeline koster That's an interesting point. Tap loading seems to be almost exclusively associated with the British soldier, probably because of rifleman Sharpe. But logic would suggest that soldiers of other nationalities were equally inventive and innovative. I would imagine for example that the German, Portuguese, Dutch and Spanish soldiers serviing alongside the British would have quickly learnt the technique even if they hadn't thought of it themselves, and I doubt that the French would have failed to notice the cleverness of it. Perhaps the only obstical that might arise would be if the weapon being carried simply couldn't be loaded that way. It is perhaps one of those strange situations where the poor quality of the Brown Bess in terms of it's windage actually worked to the soldiers advantage. I believe french muskets had a much tighter barrel relative to their ball which may have made tap loading awkward.

French Frogs did it too, in the battle of Abraham Plains because the Scottish were charging and they wanted to fire fast and run like hell, leaping around the frogs they are- they ran so fast that the Highlanders couldn't catch 'em w/ sniper support. Such cowards. Several loyalists though were issued with wooden ramrod muskets. Scottish troops had all kinds of variations, long land, short, artillery carbines, some musketoons for cav, light infantry ones. Very interesting. Do you know why the Scots had this equipment? You seem like an expert and I want to know more is why I am asking.

madeline koster I can't claim to be an expert or even a historian. I have just spent about forty odd years indulging my interest in military history and researching the truth behind some of the myths regurgitated in our history books. The Battle of Quebec (The Plains of Abraham as you call it) was in 1759 and part of the Seven Years War and as far as I know the only Scottish unit present was Frazer's Highlanders. Highland Regiments were relatively new addition to the British Army bearing in mind that it was not that long since the Highland Rebellion of 1745, and the purging of the clans. They were also considered temporary regiments and most had very short periods of existence. The British army was also less regulated in 1759 than it was to become later, and many regiments were trained to their own standards and equipped out of private funds. From what I've read the Highland Regiments of this period were very much a reflection of their Colonels idea of what highlanders were and how they fought, and were equipped at his expense in the way he thought appropriate. Most wore highland plaid usually with a red coatee and blue bonnet and some if not all were issued with short land pattern muskets similar to those used by the dragoons perhaps to reflect the fact that they were not expected to engage in a protracted fire fight but were expected to execute the famous Highland charge. To this end they were all issued with heavy basket hilted broadswords and shields (Targes) rather than bayonets. Their training was certainly different. From what I've read they were trained to launch themselves at the enemy at full run making as much noise as possible and waving their broadswords, and to throw themselves flat on the ground as soon as they heard the enemy fire. The idea being to waste the enemies volley. After which they jumped up and resumed their charge. I would imagine that if successful this would have put the fear of god into any French units they faced. Nevertheless, I understand Frazers Highlanders suffered the highest casualties of any unit present at the battle. The unit was disbanded in Canada after the war and the men never returned to Scotland.

Are you sure they had shields? IK they had pistols for melee combat when they charged- an officer would scream ''CROSS ARMS!'' as a bagpipe blared threatening Sharpe sounds and they would put down their muskets (A reason they did not need bayonets) and do a full charge the Highland way, screaming and scaring the French like the clans used to do back home. But idk about shields. Frazers took losses because they ran into Quebec snipers with superior numbers and their English friends were advancing too slow in a slow charged bayonet WALK not even a march so they had no help. Several Frazers joined a Scottish regiment afterwards though, that served in the revolution. 87th if I am not mistaken, but IDK because I keep getting them all confused several have close numbers being created around similar times for certain conflicts usually dismissed right after they ended. In conclusion: Can you put sources that they had shields, and the Frazers took so many deaths because they ran into Quebec snipers with the English advancing too slow to help them so after a while they backed up and the Quebec militia ran, not wanting to take on the full forces gradually arriving and joined the rest of the retreat. Also, Scot regs were dismissed right after the conflicts they were raised for I can only remember 1 case where they were not raised for a conflict or garrison duty and they did not last long. P.S. in a lot of ways, the Highlanders were like the Rangers- several units destroyed Indians in forest combat, something the British were generally still adapting to and had few light infantry and the ones they had were very small and they mostly related on militia to do the rangering due to their numbers. The ducking thing also, as Rangers would crouch or drop like Roger's Rangers when obliged to take enemy fire but massive volleys and artillery would still cause casualties. Don't forget that Highlanders had dirks, even when Swords and pistols were phased out (Swords were still offered during the Revolution, but rejected by all but one reg so it was more informal that they were abandoned). Dirks were short Highland knives as an absolute last resort. To have been a Highlander during the Pontiac Rebellion, armed with a pistol, dirk, sword and musket would have been very cool as you would be able to fall back on numerous weapons and be one of the toughest European soldiers.

He also made a lot of crap up and took a huge amount of license. He wanted to make the hornblower series on land but didn't even reach Forrester's level of accuracy and that man basically cut and pasted.

​@@BeKindToBirds Yeah. I hate when my historical FICTION contains fiction. What a dweeb.

Well, at least better than the enemy muzzle.

Actually, IIRC his riflemen use their ramrods in the episode. Only the standard guys use the tap loading.

Thanks. We continue to think the technique is entirely plausible, just not something you would do in today’s safety environment.

It was fun to do. British contemporary accounts record the French light infantry doing tap loading at Quatre Bras in 1815 for example, but the British never did it as far as we know.

Interesting. Did not know the French left the paper on the bullet. But we were testing the method shown by Sharpe. If you can post a reference to the French method, we might test it. Regards

I bet you can only do it with a relativley clean musket. I know the barrel of my muskets get fouled with modern black powder (i.e.quality controlled manufacture, made to modern understanding of molarity, regular grain size, stored in nice airtight dry conditions etc.) I imagine the period powder was not quite as clean burning (for a relative definition of 'clean'!), so I bet the touch hole would soon become too fouled to allow powder to trickle from the breach to the pan with ths method. It's one thing for a flash in the pan from a normal priming to travel through a partially fouled touch hole. It's another for enough regular sized black powder grains to travel from the breech to the pan to make that flash possible.

***** Having read several articles on the net (and not being able to remember which site stated which exactly, Google could be your friend if you wanted to confirm it), I read on a couple of them that the British Army Rifle or later, Baker Rifle as tested or confirmed buy the British Board of Ordinance at the time, could fire un-fouled about 25 shots!

TheMrRoc Ahhh, that word 'could'. So many variables. I have several muskets and pistols and have fired black powder weapons probably in excess of over 10,000 times, including blank and live. Damp or humid conditions, powder 'hanging around' for a while before firing (black powder is hygroscopic), cold musket, large grain size (etc) can also have effect on burn rate. I have known my musket to foul after just a few shots (maybe 6 or 7) on cold, damp evenings, so that I found it dificult to fire with just paper wad. A ball would have been really difficult. On other occassions I have have fired the same musket for over 80 shots in an afternoon without significant fouling.

+phs888 that method works on smoothbore muskets, not on rifles. in the video they are using RIFLES not muskets. you are correcting them on a loading method which you are explaining to be entirely different than which they are demonstrating,.

With a minie? Lol no unless it’s undersized to the point it just won’t work. With a Prichett? _Maybe_ but I wouldn’t try it with a rifle musket anyhow.

Absolutely not. The fit of a bullet is much tighter on a rifle due it being "patched" -- or in other words, surrounded by a lubricated cloth patch which forces contact with the grooves and lands of the rifling (this also means it is much more difficult to ram the bullet home, the procure generally requiring both hands to drive the ramrod down the barrel). The only way you could "tap" load a rifle is to use a sufficiently undersized bullet, and forget the patch, in which case, you've pretty much turned the rifle into a musket.

in Sharpes Rifles Pat does the spit tap with a baker yes i know that is TV but think it could be done

Smooth bore muskets were never accurate.

😂. Stay tuned for a revisit to this issue.

Yes he really beef doing!

The rear of the barrel heats up very promptly, the muzzle not so much. And we are only talking a half dozen shots in the line infantry we were emulating. Skirmishers firing many rounds over a 30 minute period might well have to contend with a hot muzzle. But, as I say, not in the Sharpe video.

I have seen antique Brown Bess muskets with eroded touch holes that would likely allow even the coarse grained powder of the Napoleonic Wars to trickle through. Muskets in near new condition might be a different matter. But accounts of French skirmishers using that method of priming do exist so maybe it was possible. If by challenge you mean experimenting with priming - probably not. Too many variables and uncertainties relating to powder grain size, touch holes, the alignment of the touch hole with the pan, and the profile of the concave section on the under side of the pan cover (ie the underside of the hammer/frizzen).

Keep in mind, that this was a smooth-bore musket, not a rifle.

David Hatch well tap loading was used for the battles where loading speed was important inserting the paper may slow down the bullet needing them to manually lower the bullet down the barrel. the paper had the same effect as the patches it is useful so the bullet doesn't roll down the barrel when you are pointing downhill but on even ground its really not necessary it may just make you take longer to load the gun at least thats what I've heard

All Omen Sounds plausible. I was just curious what the enactors experiences were as I haven't had the pleasure of firing a Baker rifle, and probably never will.

It does not for two reasons. 1. If you use a patched ball, the ball will nor shake down the barrel. 2. If you use an unpatched ball, the ball is too close to the diameter of the barrel to reliably run down it. Potentially might work on a clean barrel but after the first shot it would certainly be dangerous due fouling. We do not suggest tap loading should be done under any circumstances.

No. You need a round ball and plenty of windage.