Rick,
I have often wondered about people firing the toreador, as nothing shows up on line that I can find.
Odd thing about the threaded breech;
We don't trust them without, and in India they didn't trust them With threads!
You are lucky to have a competent gunsmith to do work for you! They are hard to find.
I tend to do it myself, for the latter reason. It started when I was a kid, and the local gunsmith soldered some ramrod pipes on for me and they fell off when I got home, so did it myself!
For a start, I will try a close -fitting ball with no patch, using thick felt wads over and under it, with plenty of lube.
I will also try a remote shot or two to test the barrel prior to shouldering it. :-)
Re. charges,;
I don't want to give the wrong idea here, but Sam Fadala in one of his M/loading books did tests on barrels made of Normal copper water pipe (!)
These barrels had makeshift breechplugs of a bean tin/can, filled with molten lead and the copper pipe dropped in.
A .530" patched ball fit perfectly, and the charge was 130 grains of 2F.
A hole being drilled at the breech for ignition, these 'barrels' were tied to a plank and remote fired.
Result was that the copper pipe did not expand at all when firing the 130 gr charge and close fitting ball.
If however an airspace was left between powder and ball, the barrel swelled up like a snake that had eaten an egg.
A bit more gap between powder and ball & the barrel split.
We both know that we shouldn't leave an airspace between powder and projectile, (you can with BP cartridges as long as the airspace is limited!)
But my point is, that a fairly decent barrel well breeched should be Ok with nominal charges, as what we will be attempting to fire is a lot better than a piece of copper water -pipe. :-)
Caution is the key whether we use threaded or welded breech.
It will be interesting to see our developments. :-)
Richard.
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