Tightness = Accuracy in Smoothbores

[Cosmoline]

I've been working up loads for the .54 smoothie and I've noticed a direct and consistent relationship between the tightness of the ball's fit and the accuracy of the shot. I remember the same thing with my old trade gun. Whereas rifle accuracy with PRB seems to depend a lot on the charge level, with these smooth bores it seems to depend mostly on the thickness of patching.

So far I'm getting my best results with .530" bore-tight unpatched roundballs over bare powder and with .520" roundballs with heavy ticking, both over various charges of 3F from 65 to 90. Groups with the tightest loads are 1" at 25 yards and 3" at 50. When I let the ball go in looser, like a musket, the group opens up very quickly to 3" at 25 yards and forget it at 50.

Weather permitting I'll be doing more testing on this theory this weekend. Anyone else notice this with smoothies?

 

[sundance44s]

My 54 smooth bore liked .527 balls and lubed .018 thick tillow tickin patches ...( Greenmountain barrel )
Seemed the higher charges inproved things also .. I settled on 80 grs of Goex for hunting and target work .....they are picky eaters ...but will shoot much straighter than some will give them credit for .

 

[4v50 Gary]

I don't know the group size, but patched round balls fired from reproduction Brown Bess muskets that are benchrested have been shown to hit man sized targets at 100 yards. Lawrence Babits wrote in Devil of a Whipping that he was able to hit man sized targets 5 out of 6 times at 75 yards distance. So, with that in mind, can you please try 75 yards and 100 yards?

 

[Loyalist Dave]

The standard for a military marksman of the 18th century was to be able to hit a 6' x 2' target at 90 yards two days in a row, firing a set of 6 shots each day, hitting 11 of 12 times. Any hit on the target counted. The idea was to take out a human, so any hit with a 1 oz. ball was good enuf The shooter could use any position.

FYI the bess was known to be accurate, given the time to load rounds for accuracy, AND the time to clean like a rifle..., but the military normally issued speed loading rounds, and the gun had to stay in action for 18 - 24 rounds without cleaning. So the speed rounds used very undersized round ball.

LD