Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders Smoothbores

"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"

Piece of cake! A bit cheaper too!

I'm mulling and reading.

The pragmatic in me can appreciate being able to sling a 62 caliber ball or a load of shot at something.

FYI, last wild turkey i kilt was with a buck & ball load. 1 ball & 4 buckshot. Was shooting at top half of bird and hit him with one buckshot pellet in neck. About 25 yds. So you see you can shoot both at onced! LOL

Buck and ball was popular at Gettysburg. It is on at least a few monuments. 2 linked below. I remember a tour guide talking about the importance of the 69 caliber holding Culps hill. Some companies wanted to keep the smoothbore over the 58 caliber rifle.

https://www.hmdb.org/Marker.asp?Marker=27592

http://gettysburg.stonesentinels.co...lvania/more-90th-pennsylvania-monuments/

Thanks Terry! Yeah seems I remember reading that several militia units (New York popped into my head) were issued M1842's or 69 cal rifle muskets of that ilk and buck and ball ctgs. And hurried to the front!

kiaywoodie,

Fyi, many a Billy Yank & Johnny Reb went to war with a Revolutionary War BROWN BESS or a CHARLEYVILLE in 1861-62.
(One of those Johnny Rebs was a 16YO PVT from our family, who didn't HAVE a firearm, couldn't report for MO State service unarmed, so his father bought him a Bess for TWENTY FIVE CENTS. = A letter home from January 1862 indicates that he had "picked up" a modern rifled-musket from the battlefield. - The letter does not indicate the kind of RM.)

Smoothbore muskets, converted to percussion, were used throughout TWBTS for naval service/repelling boarding parties by the USN/CSN

yours, tex

Lots of refurbished firearms went theu the Tyler arsenal. The muskets N B Tanner's manufacturing facility from here in Bastrop were of such poor quality the Texas legislature decided not to issue them to state troops but instead give them to friendly local Indians. In turn the Indians would not even take them. It is speculated they were reworked Belgian muskets. There are no known survivors.

The most interesting military muskets i know of here, at least to me were the Model 1816/35 US Musket contracted to the republic of Texas from Tryon Pennsylvania. There was one found in the carraige house of the Pease mansion in Austin way back in the 50's or 60's when it was going thru a refurb. It had been converted to Percussion. Victor Fredericks, a local gun collector had it reconverted to flint. It is still floating around somewhere im sure.

I'm with you, a Hunter in NC used to post pics of Deer and squirrel the same day from a smoothbore 62. Now that I am in PA with its late Flinter season I am looking at the same. We also have a late turkey that hits the same week as Bear and right before Buck season so added fun. He has a very nice custom we discussed. I believe TVM made it and I wouldn't doubt they could do a Cap. I would prefer a Cap as well but season here is Flinter only.

I have an older trade gun that when I was a kid my dad helped me make from a kit. As far as accuracy goes it was not accurate enough to make me happy even at the age of 12 when it was built. I'm 50 now. After a year or so, my dad took it to a friend who had a press. We bent the barrel and it is now as accurate as I need for deer hunting out to 60 yards. 60 is a stretch but it is accurate now. I love that gun. I owned it from the age of 12 until I sold it to a friend when I was in my early 30's. I needed the money back then. I bought it back from him about 3 years ago and took it deer hunting this year for first time since I got it back. I did not get any shots, but I sure had a good time taking it hunting. I am looking forward to hunting again with it next year.

Now! This my friends, is a damn cool story!!! Thanks for posting!

Just put my thinking cap on and realized I have a 54 caliber Renegade that I don't use. Now to see if I can find a 20 bore barrel for it.

I'm loosing interest fast. Fugging everything you look is Flintlock, apparently you have to dress up and use flintlock if you want a smoothbore barrel. Finding one for the Renegade is a royal pain in the ass too.

That was fine, back to inlines.

If I happen to run across something, i'll always holler at you. But I think you had right idea on replacement smooth barrel for Renegade.

I dont pay much attention to whats available for commercial built guns and I dunno if one of the barrel companies offer a drop in smooth you can get. Havta check on that!

I have read instances where people have purchased replacement barrels pretty cheap, or used the one they have, and had a gunsmith do their thing.
The .54 is 28 bore in a smooth, and the 20 bore is .62 so that Renegade would lose some weight also.

I've lost interest. Green Mountain DID at one time make 62's but they stopped those shenanigans.

Neighbor has a smoothbore double percussion. The wad was 14 gauge. It looks interesting to say the least. Not sure how it compares to a 20 gauge/62 cal or if he can get PRB or Conicals for it. Might do a post deer season hunt for grouse and hare. One more week to hunt Deer.

Here is the Sitting Fox kit I built. .54/28 ga. I shoot both shot and patched ball.

[img]https://flic.kr/p/22gfeR1[/img]

Very nice Jeff! Nice gobbler too!!!

My Fusil de Chasse by Centermark, a good shooter with either ball or shot



This next gun is Two-Fer, a 20ga smoothbore with one of the two deer it killed with one shot on it's maiden hunt. The ball past through this deer and killed another on the other side.



The two deer that Two-Fer killed