"Accuracy of smooth bore guns in 1820's" Topic

Yep, Zorro and the Lancers.

Watch the Alain Delon Zorro last night (EBay can be very useful) after the Antonio Banderas Mask of Zorro over the week-end. Unless extremely close and personal, most musket and pistol fire missed, except in the cornfield scene. Yes, it is Zorro (or a "red shirt" like the Brother) being shot at but just for discussion and my enlightenment (I have never shot smooth bore) of reality versus Hollywood/Bollywood/etc. what kind of percentage of hits would be likely for a person who was "trained" in terms of the massed fire era?

Assume a smooth bore pistol or carbine at a rapidly moving target in an urban (indoor or outdoor) setting at night by a dismounted Lancer. Then in the daylight. How severe an effect would be the mental stress ("It's Zorro!") or distraction factor?

Gracias,

Glenn

I came across a book a few years ago where they'd conducted firing trials using weapons from the Gratz armoury in Styria (Austria)

Apparently the accuracy was very dependent on the manufacturing quality of the weapon : some early, very well made weapons were quite accurate, later badly made ones less… including one so bad they had to stop using it, the bullet could go just about anywhere.

One interesting factiod, a well made wheel-lock was about as accurate and lethal as a modern 9mm pistol, just not as many shots and a lot longer to reload.

One problem, from what I've read, with smooth bore weapons, is as the bullet is slightly smaller than the barrel (to fit) it can bounce off the side of the barrel as it goes, and the last bounce is the one that puts a spin on the ball, potentially causing it to curve in flight like a tennis-ball with some 'english' on it. As this bounce and resultant spin is entirely unpredictable, so is the influence it will have on the bullet's flight. The longer the range, the worse it will be.

I'm not sure what effect wadding would have on it.

My gut-feel is that with pistols, you're going to have similar accuracy at 'combat' ranges, but with long-arms at any significant distance, it's going to be a lot more dicy with smoothbores, and the weapon quality will be decisive.

Can any black powder smooth-bore re-enactors shed on any light?

Yes, and for most military figures, the effects of recent (Napoleonic) warfare would still have massed fire as the most often taught technique. Skirmishers, yes, not not allas "1800's snipers" and in California you would not have the Elite Guards quality soldier as the norm (at least one early Presidio founding form was filled out by emptying the stockades IIRC.)

Gracias,

or is that Garcias,

Glenn

I wouldn't want people shooting at me with them, but I'm not Zorro…
-Kle.

in addition a flintlock makes a large flash right by your face before going off a second later. this is quite distracting. There are accounts of the Mexicans during the Texas Revolution turning their heads away when they pulled the trigger to avoid the flash. So just point and pray.

LOL, ditto but there were reasons Zorro operated a lot at night – perhaps decreasing minimal accuracy of the soldiers was planned?

Gracias,

Glenn

Smooth bores are all right for shooting en masse at a big, slow-moving target. A fast-moving target in poor light would take an exceptionall lucky shot to hit IMHO.

Dn,

Really, the flash is not as distracting as you might think, especially if you are familiar with it. And the main charge goes off so quick that my 14 year old granddaughter hit the target 2 out of 2 times her first time out with a flintlock rifle at 25 yards. I do not think a smoothbore at that distance would have changed the outcome, but at longer distances, definitely.

rusty

The problem is two-fold.

Imagine a well-thrown football. The shape (somewhat conical) and the tight spiral help it to go straighter and farther. I don't understand the physics of it – it just works. Now imagine a volleyball, thrown from an open palm. No spin, slow big and round. The physics are such that it simply doesn't travel as far, and the angle of release is much less precise.

Same principle re: rifles vs. smoothbores. The angle of ejection as the round ball leaves the muzzle of the smoothbore is a matter of pure chance. The more windage, the greater the possible degree of that angle. At short ranges, this isn't going to matter much – a 2 degree variation over ten or twenty feet is only going to move the strike point a small amount – an inch or two at most. At 50 yards, that difference will be much more pronounced.

From what I have read, at 100 yards, a Napoleonic-era smoothbore had about a 50-50 chance of striking a man-sized target it was aimed at. Add in 'flinch' factor, 'buck fever', bad powder, poor training, and any of a host of other factors, and I would be amazed if the ol' Z-man caught any lead at ranges much greater than point blank.

Marksmanship wasn't exactly encouraged among the rank and file as it wasn't considered necessary. Muskets were leveled towards the enemy and you pulled the trigger. Most had no sights other than a lug for the bayonet on the end of the barrel. Most training involved teaching you to load and fire 3 times a minute, often without even firing the musket.

I wouldn't expect a common musketeer to have much chance of hitting a moving target in low light. Anyone who owned a pistol would probably have a much higher chance of hitting, but still not that great.

Depends on the roundness of the projectile being fired too, and if it was dropped, nicked, dented, not quite round, etc.

If you have ever been on the receiving end of a good "knuckleball" pitcher you have an idea of why smoothbores are so inaccurate.

Hi

NO NO NO NO.

Be logical, if the ball rattles down the barrel, just how do you point it at anything? Slight slope and it runs out! shaky hand, it rolls out.

Balls are patched. If you are carring loaded, you NEED to be patched (that is what that little brass decoration on the but is, carries the patches).

Ok, real world tests:

You measure accuracy in a weapon as "minutes of arc" or "moa". No matter how good the weapon, there will be inaccuacy producing a cone of fire that many minutes in radius. The ball/bullet hits randomly in that circle.

At 100 yards, a minute of arc is 1 inch. a really good shooter might add in his own problems down to about 4 minutes of arc unless shooting from a rest, say a tree or rock or bit of wall.

An excellent target pistol (Including my 1862 colts pocket police) can do an moa of 20, but 50 is more likely.

A bess or charleville can only be expected to do 36 to 40.

A modern assaault weapon is 8 to 12.

A good rifle does 3.

a sharpes does 2.

A supurb tack driver does under 1.

Rocky

"Accuracy", that's an oxymoron.

I had a reproduction 50-calliber Hawken once. It was very accurate out to just over 100 yards. Beyond that the ball wandered ever farther to the right. At c. 300 yards I was hitting c. 6' to the right of the aiming point. I could adjust for it manually, but the shot would wind up anywhere inside a c. 5' or larger area/circle; and that is with a rifled barrel….

Great stuff but…

"…Assume a smooth bore pistol or carbine at a rapidly moving target in an urban (indoor or outdoor) setting at night by a dismounted Lancer. Then in the daylight. How severe an effect would be the mental stress ("It's Zorro!") or distraction factor?…"

Alain DeLeon's Zorro aside, most of the times Zorro operates in the dark…

No rifling.

No 100 Yards (well across a plaza, unlikely 1n 1820's California at best but possible in theory.) No 300 yards certainly. Ammunition Quality – IIRC it was shipped from Spain (at least officially) so who knows.

Rocky, I assume those numbers are on a range with a rest? And the Bess and Charleville are the only smoothbores?

I won't be re-creating history (Zorro is not history, alas.) But I do want some basis for modifying the rules I will use for smoothbore weapons in the hands of (supposedly) a trained soldier. I will give Zorro a limited number of uses mechanism for degrading shots to recreate the opportunity for derring do.

Gracias,

Glenn

Brown Bess and Charleville balls aren't "patched". You bite the end off the cartridge, pour a little powder in the flashpan, pour the rest down the barrel, drop in the ball and ram the remaining cartridge down on top of it. But it wouldn't matter if it was patched. Training rarely involved firing the musket, just going through the motions of loading so you could get faster. The British manual of arms at the time of the American Revolution didn't even have an "aim" order. The command was "level your musket" and sergeants used their half-pikes to make sure your musket was level by "leveling" them from the sides. Marksmanship was only for riflemen, not the rank and file. That's the major reason men didn't die in droves.

Hi

Mik….actually the paper is the "patch". Further, in the americas, most muskets civilian and military were shot with loose poweder and shot, not factory cartridges from 5000 miles away.

I gave the smoothbores and rifles of various ages mostly to inform by comparison.

There are a lot of quibbles here. The mexican army in the 1820s used both ex-british besses but also ex-british rifles. Not zorro, but the scattered presidials and other troops could be quite different from continental practice. The common "regular" who would face a zorro was commonly the "only law" for a hundred miles, and quite good, I think. Often local indians chasing indians. And the cav could look quite medieval with lance, sword, buckler, two pistols and a carbine. In the movies, they are too commonly carrying infatry muskets and ill trained.

R

"…And the cav could look quite medieval with lance, sword, buckler, two pistols and a carbine. In the movies, they are too commonly carrying infatry muskets and ill trained…

So you suggest the historical dismounted trooper be modeled carrying sword (and maybe a pistol (or two) or a carbine) while on Guard duty? With or without buckler? I can live with that.

Gracias,

Glenn

Rocky Russo, there is a difference between a "patch" and a "wad". When shooting my Pennsylvania rifle, a leather patch is used, placed over the muzzle, the ball placed on top, pushed into the barrel with your thumb, the patch cut, then rammed. The patch provides the grip for the rifling.

When shooting either my Charleville or Brown Bess, the powder is poured in, then you drop the ball, which if properly made, is tied to the top of the cartridge, in first and ram the paper down on top of the ball. That holds the ball in place so it doesn't roll out. If you put the ball in on top of the paper, you risk having it roll out the barrel.

The difference in style of loading may, and I say may, affect the range of the weapon. When powder explodes in a properly loaded musket, part of the force of it moves past the ball as it doesn't fit the barrel tightly, even with the cartridge paper wadded on top of it, hence it loses some of it's power. The patched rifle ball however has a seal that puts most if not all of the explosion behind the ball. I've seen the argument made for this, and high speed cameras of both kinds of weapons shot from a bench show the rifle ball preceding the flame of the ignition while the musket ball comes out of the barrel surrounded by the flame of the ignition so their may be some truth to it.

Loose powder was rare except for the rifleman, who on occasion carried a separate horn with a more finely milled gunpowder for the pan instead of the coarser powder for the barrel. While it differed, Framingham required it's militiamen to have a musket, bayonet, cartridge box and thirty six cartridges. Not using a cartridge meant you had no way of keeping the ball seated on the powder.

hi

The "moving past" is called "windage".

But this is uselessly argumentative. Not using a cartridge means using the patchbox.

Rocky

So, what weapons would be most common for a dismounted lancer on guard duty/patrol?

Gracias,

Glenn

If you're using Zorro as a basis try this site for a look at his opponents from the movie and the TV show.

tinyurl.com/4gszeo

Note that the "escopeta" could vary in length. Anywhere from about 4 feet to 5 feet. The barrels on surviving examples vary from 33 1/2" to 38 1/2"

Hi

THATS MY BOY. I tried getting a 300 comission to do that guy. Notice the array of stuff on him. Just too cool.

The escopetos from the presidios I have seen are not unlike similar US cavl carbines. In TV and movies, the guy is in blue, but you will note that the cuero and tan. Just unique.

across the southwest there were a chain of presidios as well as most missions having perhpas a dozen guys protecting the missions.

Note, 1790…and the guy has an ardarga right out of the reconquista.

Love that illo, wish there was a 25mm

R

Start carving, Mr. Russo, start carving.

And I notice he doesn't look much like Sgt. Garcia.

Hi

Well, his hat has a flat brim!

R

It has been a long time, but didn't Sgt Garcia ride a mule or donkey? Like to see that with a lance.

Hi

Hmm, I don't remember the donkey or mule. I vaguely remember someone doing a garcia dismounted last year…but I didn't follow up as the fig was TV not the Cuero I was looking for.

Anyone rememeber THAT line?

R

Well, when u are using a well made Paper cartridge of the english style, the strong, waxed and greased paper of the Cartridge ist neatly tied on both end of the ball with strong thread. Your biting open the lower end of the cartridge, and after pouring the powder down the barrel you enter the cartridge ballside-down into the muzzle. The ball ist still surrounded and neatly wrapped in greased paper. and while ramming it down the barrel, in scrapes a lot of fouwling from the barrels sides, and is greasing it also nicely, which allows you to reload quite often without any problems. the neatly wrapped paper also heavily reduces the bouncing of the ball during its accelleration.
I tried it out. And whils a loose undersize ball with wadding is flying totally uncontrolled, the very same ball flies unbelievably better and straighter when used from neatly made cartridges. I am far from being a good or even experienced shooter, but even I have quite good chances hitting a mansized target at 50-70 Yards. And in fact, despite common belive being different, the soldiers where quite regularly trained and encuraged to aim carefully. So, Even with several shots missing, I do belive that "zorro" must be extremely lucky. Even more, as the battlefield problems are nonexistant, like extreme powder smoke clouds, exhaust from long marches and hours of fighting….Over the years, there was one thing I have learned about muskets: The loose bolt is the one, standing behind it. Even with the military ammunition, the reasons for volleys at 100 yards not whiping out a whole enemy company, are those 5-6 feet tall dumbs pressing the trigger. Also, any decently trained soldier would knew how to improve his chances, and wait for zorro to come closer and then provide him with a new button-hole. It is a pitty that in almost all series and movies Musketeers are depicted as incapable retarded dumbfXXXs.