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Loading and Firing the Baker Rifle By Richard Moore
Introduction
Students of the Napoleonic-period 95th Rifles will have already noted that there is a dearth of exact information from period sources concerning loading and firing the Baker Rifle even in Ezekiel Baker’s book Remarks on the Rifle (which through a series of update re-publications might be termed the Bible on the subject) and exactly how the Baker rifle was loaded and fired ‘on campaign’. The issue is further clouded by the fact that two different ammunitions were issued to riflemen and hence there are several variations on the methods of loading in using only the gear that Napoleonic riflemen were issued with. I’m told that non-shooters also have difficulty understanding the technical bits - so this article comes in four main parts and is supplemented with two other articles as the practical firing of a muzzle-loading Baker rifle is perhaps not something most recreated riflemen may be familiar with (though I know that most of them do understand the basic principles).
Any attempt at recreating the practices described in this and the other article mentioned must be covered by the relevant laws and statutes and take place under supervision in a safe area such as a certified range at fixed paper targets only.
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A useful introduction to this article would be to reproduce part of the text in a history of the 95th Rifles which was originally written circa 1899 and then held to be true in many of the books to follow …
“The Baker rifle with which the regiment was armed was in every sense an arm of precision up to 300 yards and at ranges of 400 and 500 yards it was possible to hit a mark with it. This alone gave the Riflemen an immense advantage over their comrades armed with the smoothbore muskets and as proved by the experiments at Woolwich it was greatly superior to the rifles of Continental and American manufacture in use at this time. The rifle was invented by Ezekiel Baker, a London gunmaker towards the end of the last century and was the first rifle regularly adopted into the British service. It was tried at Woolwich in February 1800 by the order of the Board of Ordnance and was selected as the arm of the Rifle Corps then in the process of being raised. On this occasion, eleven shots out of twelve were placed in a six-foot circular target at 300 yards distance. The following is a description of the Baker rifle: weight 9.1/2 lbs, barrel seven-grooved and 30 inches in length, rifling one quarter-turn in barrel, bullet spherical, 20 to the pound, charge of powder 84 grains (2.1/2 drams), flint-lock. The ball was placed in the centre of a greased leather patch and rammed home, considerable force being necessary to effect this. At first, wooden mallets were issued to the Riflemen to facilitate the process of ramming home, but these were very shortly discontinued (circa 1803). A supply of greased patches was carried in a small box with spring brass lid in the side of the butt of the rifle.”
But - in reading the actual test of February 4th 1800, the target was nine-foot in diameter, the rifle barrel was firmly set in a fixed mortar bed to be loaded and fired at this range and was not the calibre as described above but was musket-calibre (.70 inch or 13 balls to the pound) and loaded with four drams (109 grains) of gunpowder.
In his book published in 1805 Remarks on the Rifle Ezekiel Baker himself on the performance of his carbine-bore rifle - as described above - states: “I have found two hundred yards the greatest range I could fire to any certainty. I have fired very well at times when the wind has been calm. At four and five hundred yards I have frequently fired and I have sometimes struck the object: though, having aimed as nearly as possible at the same point, I have found it very much to vary from the object intended; whereas at two hundred yards I could have made sure of the point, or thereabouts.”
In the same book, Baker later notes : “After you have loaded the piece with powder, then put the greased patch of leather, calico or soft rag provided for that purpose on the end of the barrel as near the centre as possible … great care should be taken that the ball is in the middle of the patch of leather or greased rag before it is rammed down the barrel … a ball should never be forced down too hard nor yet should it be too easy: I never found them to go so true as when they are properly fitted. The ball with its patch should fit air-tight. Let the rifle be ever so well cut, if the ball does not fit it will not answer the intended purpose. I do not mean that the ball should fit so tight as to require a wooden mallet to drive it in the nose end of the barrel … but they found the mallets very inconvenient and very soon dispensed with them: in addition to which they became a serious encumbrance to the men and have for some years been entirely abandoned. The loading is indeed formed equally well without them as a man’s strength is always found sufficient to make the ball enter when it fits as it ought to do.”
The reader will be able to spot the misconception in the descriptions contained in the former book from the descriptions in Ezekiel Baker’s book. Not just leather patches are mentioned in it but also the use of cloth patches, notably ‘provided for that purpose’ and Ezekiel Baker clearly states that 200 yards is the distance over which he might fire at a mark with any certainty of success - but remember when reading further that Ezekiel Baker was an experienced rifle-shot and the shots he describes were obviously not made by a hungry or thirsty soldier ‘on campaign’ or under ‘battlefield’ stress and perhaps subject to incoming enemy fire.
Baker’s success in the Woolwich tests over other rifles were due to the overall design of his rifle being stoutly ‘soldier-proof’ and able to take a bayonet, giving a reasonable rate of fire and good accuracy over a distance of twice the effective range of a musket, with the rifling differing from the current Continental and American recommendations of a full to three-quarter turn in a barrel of thirty-six inches in length being replaced with a quarter-turn in thirty inches: the bullet in a Baker rifle was easier to load, the barrel was less likely to foul in battle and remain reasonably accurate against man-sized targets at ranges up to 200 yards. The Baker rifle went through a series of developments from conception in 1799 through to 1815 and most of these I have dealt with separately in another article. One of the stipulations in the Woolwich tests was that the chosen rifle had to be of an existing British military bore-size but although Baker made some musket-bore rifles, the musket-bore Baker rifle was dropped well before 1805 due to reports about their excessive weight coupled with a few manufacturing and logistical difficulties compared with the ‘carbine bore’ rifle and the carbine-bore Baker rifle hence became the norm before 1805. It is with this calibre of rifle that the three battalions of the 95th Rifles fought in The Peninsular War and The Waterloo Campaign. |
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Rifleman Moore Click for more details and enlarged image
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The Baker Rifle Click for more details and enlarged image
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Sgt. Andrew Blake Click for more details and enlarged image
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