"Firearms for Hunting?" Topic

Does anyone know when bows were replaced by firearms as the preferred weapon for hunting in Europe?

Regards

I have seen 16th century fowling pieces.

Huntsmen, even into the 18th century, are often shown hunting with a spear – Boar was the prized kill I believe.

This is 'sport' hunting for the rich though, not sure what hunting for food would be like – it was banned in much of Europe for the peasantry.

Crossbows were still used pretty widely I think – particularly for deer.

Fowling pieces in the 16th century were primarily as sport for the nobility. 17th century fowling pieces and rifled muskets toward the end became available to common man but I get the impression they were rare. As GildasFacit mentioned the peasantry was not permitted to hunt in most of Europe. Poaching was the common mans hunting and continued using bows, snares, and spears into the 18th century. In the americas rifled muskets as hunting pieces were fairly common by the middle of the 18th century. Not sure about the smoothbore. They are pretty worthless for hunting.

Got this over at the Arms Collectors website -

link

Firearms were recognized as hunting arms as early as 1515, and a book (Balleates Mosetuetas y Areabuces Pablo del Fucar, Naples, 1535) on sporting firearms appeared in 1535

While the peasantry were restricted to hunting outside the areas reserved for the King or the nobility, you had the professional huntsmen who acted as gamekeepers and controlled predators that would otherwise prey on domestic animals. One would presume that they would have switched from bows as firearms became practical.

Wish I had kept it, my brother had a Rifleman that had an article on European shooting competition targets – as I recall one of them had a portrait of HR Emperor Maximilian II? on it. These were held at public events such as fairs or local weddings by shooting clubs which were an outgrowth of the town militia system instituted in the Middle Ages.

P.S. Imagine the outcry if portraits of current political figures were being used as targets at shooting events. And this occurred in 16th-19th century Europe under monarchies.

Firearms were available for the 'common man' in the 16th Century as well. Fairly ordinary Swedish peasant were owning them as early as the 1540's while the wealthier yeomen could and would posses multiple firearms. The main problem was not getting the firearms but rather ensuring a steady supply of powder, shot and match. (Which is why the last was often replaced with tinder made from local tree fungus)

Bows and crossbows never entirely went out of fashion in Europe. They were relatively quiet, didn't have a distinct scent for the prey to recognise, worked when wet (despite years of B.S. about Agincourt).

Bows firing clay pellets were very popular for pest control in built up areas and were still in regular production into the 20th century.

"Not sure about the smoothbore. They are pretty worthless for hunting."

Not really. In Ohio deer hunters have been legally restricted to smoothbores (shotguns with slugs – max of two rounds in the magazine) for many years. (There are also muzzle-loader and bow-hunting seasons). You just need to sneak up on Bambi close enough to get a solid hit. As on the battlefield, the smoothbore is more likely than a bow to disable the target with one hit – a deer shot with an arrow may run around for a while before he bleeds out, a deer shot with a one-ounce lead slug, not so much.

Zippy, aren't most of the slugs for those smoothbores rifled? The ones I have seen advertised are and are usually conics as well. Some of them are even sabots.

Slugs for smoothbores rifled? Does not compute. Shotguns are smoothbores, no rifling in the barrel. I'm not gonna tell you what shapes the slugs have or whether there's a hi-tech way to make them spin out of a shotgun (maybe a plastic jacket?), but the barrels aren't rifled. I think the modern muzzle-loaders are generally rifled.

For sure, the Indians paid plenty of good beaver skins for smoothbore hunting carbines, and took plenty of game with them.

There were "paradox guns": shotguns with very light rifle grooves in them. The problem with a rifled shotgun, is that the rifling tends to prevent the shot from spreading in a nice way. The paradox gun was supposed to give a little bit of spin to a slug, while not interfering with the spread of shot.

Smoothbore weapons can be surprisingly accurate: the issue is using tight fitting ammunition (either a tight fitting ball, or a ball with a patch). In the renaissance, it seems to have been common for soldiers to carry two sizes of ball, one tight fitting, and the other "rowling" or "rolling" -- meaning it was so loose it would "roll" down the barrel. When accuracy was desired the tight fitting ball would be used -- but it had to be pounded down the barrel with the ramrod. When speed was desired the loose ball would be used, and possibly without using the ramrod at all. (Conversely, the smaller ammunition may have been used as the weapon fowled).

When armies started to standardize around paper cartridges, and close range volleys were vogue, they went for a smaller bullet. This had the advantage of fast loading, and also, given the poor tolerances of the time, ensured that the ammunition wouldn't be too large to fit down the barrel. However, this allows the ball to "bounce" along the interior of the musket, decreasing accuracy considerably.

After the invention of the "Minie ball" (an expanding muzzle-loading bullet for use in rifles), many European nations also adopted the "Nessler (sp?) ball". This is basically a short fat minie ball for smoothbore muskets (I'm told it's very similar to a shotgun slug). Introduction of such bullets to smoothbore muskets, increased their effective range, and made them so accurate that they were now fitted with rear sights! Still not as an accurate as a rifle, but it was a cheap way of increasing the effectiveness of an old weapon. The US never adopted this system.