There is nothing mysterious about this musket barrel at all. Perhaps the person in the video has referred to battle field records since he mentioned that thousands of muskets were picked up after battles that had multiple unfired charges down the bore. Read the "Official Records of the War of the Rebellion" published by the U.S.Government, and you'll read that this event was a M-A-J-O-R problem with the Union Army.....not unknown to the Confederate Army, but not common.
What I do find totally, insanely stupid beyond belief is the fact that this person DRILLED A HOLE INTO THE BREACH not knowing what in hell might be there! Perhaps I missed something in the narrative that would correct my thinking on this,---some safety measure that he took---but if not, to do this is asking for an explosion to occur in your hands! Black powder, if sealed and protected from moisture, will remain explosive for hundreds of years. And remember.....black powder IS a category one explosive.
Would have been more interesting if they had actually shown the x-ray, seems to me. And - this drilling a hole through the powder chamber, don't know that I approve of that at all.
The only mysterious part is that they are not rammed home and are clustered closer to the muzzle than the breech.
And Beau has drilled close to a thousand civil war era artillery shells that he's found. He has or makes use of an underwater remote drilling set-up. Don't think insanely stupid covers most of his actions. Maybe a few.
And, Clyde, The xray is shown at 3:15 in the video as well as at about 7:30. It's also the thumbnail before you start the video.
OK, underwater remote drilling set! Now it makes sense! I knew there must be something that I didn't grasp, and I did leave myself a way out in my comments! Clyde is an attorney, and the choice of words in his response shows this very well! Me...I'm just a Southern Mountain country boy, a forester/wildlife manager by profession, and my choice of words can be too critical at times ;-)!
As for the multiple loads in the musket: Given battlefield conditions and the natural fear that a man would have under those circumstances it's easy to understand how this could happen.
OK - guess I got tired of yadda, yadda, yadda with the rusty barrel. Lack of approval of drilling has less to do with safety than not liking making holes in barrels.
Drilling while subject (especially possibly armed ordnance) is submerged is a better idea than doing it dry.
Once was an attorney, no longer. Suits me to be a free man again. Which is why I resigned when I closed the office and retired.
It's an M1854 Austrian Lorenz. I'm betting it's a confederate piece. Probably thrown into the rifle by Union Soldiers after captured, would have been a third class rifle in 1865.
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