Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders Smoothbores

Ok! Lets see your smoothies! Here's an updated photo of my Fusil de Chasse I put together from an old Centermark kit about 20 years ago. The pouch I use is a late 17th/early 18th century military "Giberne" I copied from an illustration in Diterot's Encyclopedia. The flask or "pulverin" was made for me by Idaho hornsmith Lloyd Moler. I traded him a native style twined bag for it.
It is a nice firearm to tote in the woods! If you have a smoothbore, lets see it!

I savvy that a smooth bore is a musket without rifling, but not a shotgun, but designed for shooting a single patched projectile, correct?

What is a fowler?

All in how yoj wanna use the word. Technically, (smoothbores) are all considered a musket. The archaic french term for flint was fusil Its have changed sine the 17th century to mean a type of firearm. A musket has become a military weapon. A fusil can be a light musket. As can a carbine. Then you can get into musketoons, which is shorter. Bore diameter can also come into play in ththe discription. Musket bore, carbine, bore pistol bore. It can get complicated between 17/18th century terminology and collectors parlance. Fowler is basically an English term for like gun.

For practical purposes theres really no difference in a fowler and this fusil. Since mine is a "fusil de chasse" (hunting fusil)".They can both be used for shot or ball. Currently say in France a rifle may be refered to as a carabine and a shotgun a fusil.

A while back we had a thread on smoothrifles. It can get complicated

Never fear! Someone will be along shortly to correct me!!

I have shot my Centermark "fusil de Chase" with both shot and patched ball. They are great guns, and very accurate you just got to get that head position consistent. That is a nice set up great to see that level of craftsmanship.

My English .62 smoothbore / 20 gauge fowler. Although I guess it is more rifle since I had the rear sight added.
It's jug choked to modified and has accounted for two turkeys and a multitude of squirrels. One turkey fell at 32 yards...
She hasn't accounted for a deer yet, but she will place a ball well enough that I wouldn't hesitate to take a 100 yard shot with her.
Bag, knife sheath and horn made by me, knife was forged by Ben Hoffman

Nice rig htredneck! I stuck a small brass rearsight on my gun too! There was a french gun excivated at the Tunica Indian site at Haynes Bluff on the Mississippi. ( Tunica Archaeology, Peabody museum pub. Harvard Univ. ). It had a small brass rear sight on it too! So I kinda copied it. Makes a big difference.

Nice set up!

I enjoy shooting mine Pashooter! Grandsons wanna do a squirrel hunt after deer season. Suppose i'll pack mine along. . I carry a little cloth bag of wasps nest for wadding! Works great! Doesnt burn. Dissipates when fired.

Ok, tell me about single projectiles for a 62 caliber smooth bore, how you patch etc etc.


I can appreciate the dual functionality of something

Well, you can patch them just like you do for rifle shooting. You be surprised how well they may shoot. But I've shot a bunch just using a wad above and below the ball with pretty good effect! You can use a fiver wad over powder and a card wad over ball. But like I stated above, I use a lot of old wasp nest with good result as wadding. Because its convenient for me and works pretty well too.

Patched RB is probably the method most used tho.

A short story,

About 25-30 years ago acquaintenance calls me, "hey! Drive up and we'll have a flintlock weekend at my lease!" Ok, only flinter i owned at time was a Northwest trade gun. (These were the salad days of our family). Smoothbore 20 ga. But i had no .59/.60 calibre ball. I come up with 1/2 box of .440 round ball. So off I go! I load 4, .440 round balls in front of 70 grains fffg. I get me a spot behind this roch where i can watch a trail. Old doe comes alone. I aim and fire. Doe jumps straigh upand I watch blood shoot out of her neck! She hit ground drt!!! Hit her with all 4 balls. One hit juglar I guess. She bled out fast!

Edit!

Been thinking. This was ever bit 35 years ago and the NW gun was a 24 gauge! And i had no .570 ball for it! . Wished I had that gun back!!!

Great story KW. I’d imagine the 62 cal smooth rifle was pretty danged useful. Fowl and Big Game capable. Pretty danged neat.

There was such a wide variety of smoothbore firearms back in the day. Many made for the indian trade. It is a pretty safe bet that if one was to single out a certain firearm that saw the most use in North America, the smoothbore trade gun pretty much fills the bill. Some form of that old gun has been in use by white and red man since the latter part of the 17th century on. Gone thru a few modifications over the decades but pretty much the same gun. And still used by some of us today.

A bunch of them floating around Africa and being used every day now, too.

Speaking of which, I wonder what ever happened to that 4 bore African Settler's smoothbore that Crossfireoops restored? That one was a hoot to shoot!

Ed

I had one of those 6 bore Belgian made African Trade guns like Stoeger used to sell! Noticed Simpson's Ltd had one a while back too.

Quality was a bit questionable.

Dixie solld em too! As An elephant gun! LOL

If one were to look for a 20 bore (62 caliber) that is PERCUSSION, where would one look? I'm not doing a flint.

A custom gun. As most you see are flint. Contact Matt Avance here;

http://www.tennesseevalleymuzzleloading.com

He may be able to build you something like that! .

This would be a good place to start.

There are scads of others out there that could also put something together for you. Watxh the Contemporary Longrifle Assn. Website too!

I'd think a good piece of wood that long is not exactly easy to come up with. Beautiful arms indeed.

A pair of type "G's" for Birdwatcher! Courtesy of Clay Smith, gunmaker.

They are very sweet fusils to pack in the woods! Light!!!!



I know a Creek fellow who sports one like this one below!

I can attest to the beauty of htr's fowler. That is one nice piece.

At the moment I'm without a fowler or any kind of smoothbore M/L. I want to rectify the disparity but the right one hasn't popped up! Anyone sitting on a 16 bore they don't want?

The first gun I built was a track of the wolf fowler. It's a functional debacle, but accuracy wise it shoots about a foot and a half high at 25 yds. It's on my back burner list of projects but one day I'll wack 8 or 10" off the barrel and see what happens. Worst case I can burn the wood to stay warm and use the parts for something else. May have to lose the barrel at sea however.

Steelhead, in the latter part of the 19th century many of the old trade guns were converted to percussion. Any builder selling guns could pull that off.