Smoothbore accuracy

[4v50 Gary]

OK all you guys with muskets or fowlers - what the furthest distance you've shot and to hit an object. Please describe the "object" size, state the caliber of your musekt/fowler/trade gun and the ball size. Did you patch it?

I'm curious because I've read in Bill Babbit's A Devil of a Whipping - The Battle of Cowpens that Babbit hit a man size target 5 out of 6 times with his replica Brown Bess. He was using .63 caliber balls in it too.

[thisaway]

I can keep probably 4 of 5 of my shots on an 18"x18" target (roughly the size of a man's chest) at 50 yards with my Brown Bess, using unpatched .735 round balls over 80 grains FFg.

I haven't tried my .69-cal. M1842 Springfield at 50 yards yet but it should be comparable.

[Borf]

thisaway - can you describe your Brown Bess for me? Is it the 46 or 42" bbl? How much is accuracy degraded at 100 yards?

4v50 Gary - do you know what distance he was shooting at?

Thanks!

[Ryder]

My 64 caliber (greased patch round ball) can drop a gallon milk jug in it's tracks at 50-60 yards with either barrel. Deer however are shot clean through and you'd never even know they were hit until they run a ways and do the big sommersault thing.

[4v50 Gary]

But I was running around ole Virginny trying to figure out whether its sacred soil was really red color like the Sibil War soljers said. ;)

Babits conducted his test at 75 yards distance. It's found in Chapter 1, footnote 7 (page 165 of the paperback edition).