Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders smooth bore accuracy

this is a symbolance of a type D trade gun with a fancy stock .
probably it would be more correctly described as an Board of ordinance piece

it has no rear sight only a blade frount sight

Well today was the day for my customer to pick this up . So we spent the day sighting it in for him and then just throwing lead .

What a great after noon .

Right from the get go she held a 2 inch group at 25 yards . Even at 50 she was clover leafing from the bench so we did some off hand shooting .
If anyone has or had any doubt about how well a smooth bore can group, this should dispel it . Even at 75 yards the group was still under 6 inches . while fred has alot of exsperiance with muzzleloaders , this was his first flinlock . i would have to say he did very well










a shot of the wrist



the new owner



first 3 shots at 25 yards

[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y242/captchee/gun%20stock%20artical/storm015.jpg[/img]

target shot off hand at 50 and 75 yards . 18 shots
top 10 are at 50 yards . lower center as well as bottom flier is at 75

[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y242/captchee/gun%20stock%20artical/storm016-1.jpg[/img]


MAN!!! you just gotta love a smooth bore

Cal 62
load = 70 grains 2F goex . . 1 soft wad . .600rb , 1 over the shot card to hold it in place .
at no time was a patch RB used in the above targets

OH and we put 75 rounds through her today without running one single cleaning patch LMAO

that's GREAT shooting for a smooth pipe, and good looking wood too!

Beautiful work! My congratulations on a job well done.

Yep, smoothbores will shoot better than most people would believe. Many moons ago, I built a repro of an original Pennsylvania rifle that's been in the family since new. I had the barrel maker leave it un-rifled (.50cal.) until after the gun was finished just to see how it would shoot (the original is un-rifled, whether from new or not I couldn't say). Got results like you did. Then I sent it back and had it rifled.

Large percentage of original "Pennsylvania Rifles" were left un-rifled, or so I've heard. Makes for a much handier gun for wilderness use- more choice in projectiles (ball, buck and ball, shot), plus quicker reloading capability when the chips were down (naked ball directly on top of powder, or musket-style pre-rolled paper cartridges). Just my $.02 worth.

well gnoahhh not completely accurate. The Pennsylvania rifles were rifles . Much different then a fowler , fusil or musket . Most had a completely different shape as swell .
Now there were also smooth rifles . Basically these were smoothbores with rear sights . While these could be used as a fowler , they were more designed to be used with RB and many times heavier in the barrel . Where true dedicated fowlers were often times lighter in the barrel .
No that�s not a hard fast rule as there are examples that crises cross that .
There also is a myth that trade guns did not carry rear sights . This also isn�t true . There are as many surviving examples with some type of rear sight as without .

What im getting at here is just because a rifle is a full stock , that doesn�t make it a Pennsylvania . The same can be said for a piece made in Pennsylvania being a full stock yet not a rifle .
But there is no doubt that the smooth bore out numbered rifles well past the 1800 simply because it was a more utilitarian weapon . A seasoned smoothbore shooter can hold his own with a rifle well into the 100 yard range , but it takes skill and time to learn the rifle and its required loads , to do so .
Myself , I find that at ranges out to 50 yards , they are very comparable to a rifle , especially when equipped with rear sights

Yeah, I should have been clearer. When I said "Pennsylvania rifle" I should have said "smooth rifle." I got a wonderful tutorial on the subject from Wallace Gussler at Williamsburg many years ago.

The family heirloom (we're originally from Pa.) in my possesion is an N. Beyer .48cal.(smooth)rifle.

I also once had fun with a Navy Arms Brown Bess. I played with paper thickness (for cartridges) and ball diameters until I hit the right combination for accuracy and reasonable number of shots between cleaning. Pretty amazing accuracy out to about 50yds., with useful accuracy at 100 (minute of chest cavity there). Like you said, it takes time and dilligence but smoothbores can be very accurate.