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20 April 1808

On 20 April, Christian August sent two companies under Captains Heyerdahl and Zarbell toward Hemnes. Rumors soon spread that the Swedes were advancing, and Heyerdahl withdrew with his company and returned to Fetsund. Zarbell remained at the pass... Read more ...

20 April 1808

Battle of Hemnes Church
On 20 April, Christian August sent two companies under Captains Heyerdahl and Zarbell toward Hemnes. Rumors soon spread that the Swedes were advancing, and Heyerdahl withdrew with his company and returned to Fetsund. Zarbell remained at the pass west of the Lund farm, east of Hemnes Church. He advanced toward the farm and found a Swedish rifle company, which was driven from its position and forced back almost half a mile to Opsal and Krok in Rødenes.

These were the northernmost Swedish positions, and brigade commander Colonel Cederström was also there. The company commander was ordered to return and confront the Norwegian company, which had remained near Lund. The Swedes tried to drive Zarbell and his men out of position, but failed. After losing a quarter of their strength, the Swedes had to give up and withdraw.

The lines then remained quiet for a while, and Zarbell used the time to familiarize himself thoroughly with the ground leading down toward, and partly behind, the Swedish lines.


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    Percussion revolvers, also known as cap and ball revolvers, were made by the thousands before and during the war, but the principle of muzzleloading started to become obsolete when the new metallic cartridges became common after the war. This article shows you how to convert a percussion revolver to fire metallic cartridges.

Smoothbore Musket and Paper Cartridge

Category: Muzzle-loading
Published: 24 November 2007 by Øyvind Flatnes.
Edited: 24 November 2007.
Views: 57409
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Brown Bess

A picture of a target which I shot from the standing position with my Pedersoli .75 cal. Brown Bess carbine loaded with paper cartridges from a distance of 35 yds. The cartridge consisted of a .735" ball dipped in a mixture of deer tallow and bees wax and 90 grs. of 1F powder. You would probably get better results with a patched roundball, but what the heck, I'm satisfied anyway!

Sometime during the 17th century the armies of the time began to use the paper cartridge for their muskets. Before, the musketeers had used a bandoleer with the desired amount of gunpowder measured beforehand which was kept in a tubular wooden container. This was an inconvenient way to carry the ammunition because the ball had to be kept in a pouch separately from the powder. Loading a musket was by then a time consuming process.

Find out more!
You can learn more about the history and use smooth-bore muskets and paper cartridges in the brand new book From Musket to Metallic Cartridge: A Practical History of Black Powder Firearms.

Loading a Musket with Paper Cartridge

Muskettpatron

.75 cal. musket cartridge.

The first thing you do is to take a paper cartridge that contains a round ball wrapped in paper, black powder and bullet lube. Back then, the bullet end of the cartridge was dipped in melted tallow before the powder was poured into the cartridge. The soldiers used to bite or tear a hole in the cartridge and pour a small amount of powder on the flash pan. This is not recommended to day, obviously because you do not want to load a primed weapon. The weapon was primed first in the old days because you saved time during the operation of loading the musket. Today we don't have enemies charging us when we load. We do as follows: We pour all the powder down the barrel. Then the cartridge is reversed and placed with the bullet end down it is rammed down the barrel.

Brown Bess Brown Bess Brown Bess

The greased paper around the ball will work as some sort of crude patching. I have experienced that if the excess paper is torn away (all the paper that isn't greased) accuracy will be best.

Brown Bess Brown Bess Brown Bess

Now we can prime our musket. I normally use 4F for this, but I have also tried 3F, 2F and even 1F powder. The musket will ignite with all of them, but the coarser the priming powder is, the slower the ignition time will be.

Brown Bess

BANG!