When did small caliber rifles become a thing and why?

As Americans heading west the found bigger game. But for some reason the Smaller bored guns became a thing. Why?

Not exactly...During the time of the American Revolution they ran around .50-.54 caliber...As the deer herds were reduced in the eastern part of the country they went down to about .40 caliber, this would have been around 1800...The contract rifles Lewis and Clark carried were probably .50-.54 caliber...Then as the fur trade got started they went back to about .50-.54...Now, in the 1820-1850 area you still had rifles made in Salem and of course Jamestown rifles here in NC...They would have been in that .36-.40 caliber range...So, it really depended geographically upon where the guns were made as to what the local market wanted as to the size caliber...

The mythology I learned many years ago is that powder and lead were more expensive and not as abundant as in Europe. So, in contrast to the powerful large caliber arms, like a Jager rifle, the colonial Americans learned that a smaller bullet and powder charge fired from longer barrel was much more economical and yet still effective for hunting and fighting. The longer barrels also allowed a longer sight radius which promoted accuracy.

Was that actually why smaller caliber rifles became a thing? Perhaps it was a factor, but I don’t think we can say with certainty.

because in many places large animals were overhunted and it was much more economically sound to hunt smaller game with less powerful rifles. not everyone in the past was out hunting elk, buffalo, and dear. many were dealing with pests around their farm.

I think in the east, as bigger game and hostiles became scarce and the need for bigger bore lessened, smaller bore became more popular.

Comments above relating to location and game availability are right on target. They didn't require a cannon to hunt rabbits and squirrels.

Three issues helped to lower caliber size , post 1800. Eastern Indian wars were over , big game became scarce , and shooting contests came into vogue. Farmers began to dramatically loose crops to squirrel invasion , and the small cal. rifle in the hands of a young person, or folks using the squirrel issue as entertainment , would hold squirrel hunting contests. Read this info in some book......oldwood

It's something I've run across a lot that less big game in the east and more small game & pests that were best taken with smaller calibers. And certainly the smaller calibers were - and still are - less trouble and cheaper to feed than the big guys. There were still plenty of .50 & .54 rifles around and they were kept active although less and less as time went on.

jd945043 said:

As Americans heading west the found bigger game. But for some reason the Smaller bored guns became a thing. Why?

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I can’t add to any to the all correct answers given. Except to emphasize that the economics of carrying ball & powder for a smaller caliber as Widows Son said was more than mythology.

Smaller calibers seemed to work well for both Boone as well as Crockett. Large game fell to these rifles, including bear, although, Crocket is said not to really need a rifle, as he preferred to grin the bears into submission.

Widows Son said:

The mythology I learned many years ago is that powder and lead were more expensive and not as abundant as in Europe. So, in contrast to the powerful large caliber arms, like a Jager rifle, the colonial Americans learned that a smaller bullet and powder charge fired from longer barrel was much more economical and yet still effective for hunting and fighting. The longer barrels also allowed a longer sight radius which promoted accuracy.

Was that actually why smaller caliber rifles became a thing? Perhaps it was a factor, but I don’t think we can say with certainty.

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Economy of powder and lead wound have been a factor with a lot of people.
A flatter trajectory without more recoil while using less powder and lead was a win-win for the shooter.
Less noise too.

nchawkeye said:

Not exactly...During the time of the American Revolution they ran around .50-.54 caliber...As the deer herds were reduced in the eastern part of the country they went down to about .40 caliber, this would have been around 1800...The contract rifles Lewis and Clark carried were probably .50-.54 caliber...Then as the fur trade got started they went back to about .50-.54...Now, in the 1820-1850 area you still had rifles made in Salem and of course Jamestown rifles here in NC...They would have been in that .36-.40 caliber range...So, it really depended geographically upon where the guns were made as to what the local market wanted as to the size caliber...

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I think a gunsmith would make any caliber the customer wanted, regardless of where the gun was built.
The gunsmiths knew many of these guns would be taken west so requests for some larger calibers would not have been unusual at all.

I think it is a mistake to assume gunsmiths only built rifles along the guidelines of the predominate regional style where they lived. A good South Carolina gunsmith would have been able to build a Lancaster rifle, and a Pennsylvania gunsmith could build a southern mountain rifle if he had to. And remember, gunsmiths sometimes relocated to another region hundreds of miles away.
That may not have been their preferences at times, but it was more than possible.
It would have been foolish to pass up work for a paying customer.

oldwood said:

Three issues helped to lower caliber size , post 1800. Eastern Indian wars were over , big game became scarce , and shooting contests came into vogue. Farmers began to dramatically loose crops to squirrel invasion , and the small cal. rifle in the hands of a young person, or folks using the squirrel issue as entertainment , would hold squirrel hunting contests. Read this info in some book......oldwood

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I have read the same thing.

jd945043 said:

As Americans heading west the found bigger game. But for some reason the Smaller bored guns became a thing. Why?

Click to expand...

I've always felt smaller bore diameters were a result of transitioning from round balls to conicals. As people traveled west and encountered larger game they wanted heavier projectiles. The reason for this is that heavier projectiles usually increase penetration. The only way to get a heavier projectile with a round ball is to increase bore diameter.

As the minie and other bullet designs were introduced you could get a fairly heavy projectile with a smaller bore diameter. Conicals had a higher ballistic coefficient than a round ball of equal weight which resulted in a flatter trajectory. This made hitting targets at longer distances easier. That was an advantage when hunting potentially dangerous game or when fighting an enemy.

I think in many areas back in the day, the small caliber was used because many families existed on small game and a small caliber destroyed less meat etc. Also, many people were living at a basic almost subsistence level and powder & ball would be expensive, so the less needed the better. IMHO

There is an American Indian creation story that tells how Buffalo Calf Women gives the people buffalo. I’m thinking it’s a Cheyenne story. One rule is to never show sorrow for the game killed.
After a hunt a women sees an orphan calf and says ‘ah poor thing’.
The Buffalo then disappear. Only via complex ceremonies are they restored after a starving time for the people.
Plains Indians were know to chase a heard off a cliff killing more then they could process. Or killing just for tongues for a ceremonial feast.
We want a quick clean kill. And shoot with that aim.
But our frontiersman hunter ancestors were not so kind.
A .40 or even .36 on a low charge will kill a deer if shot through the lungs or liver, or even belly.
It’s not a quick kill, and you may spend a day trailing it. But what’s that matter, a hundred pounds of meat lies at the end of the trail.
Two or three shots may be fired and importantly found in the body when cleaning.
For all the big rifles in colonial times vs small rifles after we have the testimony of a British officer during the revolution who described American rifles as 7/16 bores, about .45. And says he never saw one bigger.
It was better to recover the ball then have a quick kill.

tenngun said:

There is an American Indian creation story that tells how Buffalo Calf Women gives the people buffalo. I’m thinking it’s a Cheyenne story. One rule is to never show sorrow for the game killed.
After a hunt a women sees an orphan calf and says ‘ah poor thing’.
The Buffalo then disappear. Only via complex ceremonies are they restored after a starving time for the people.
Plains Indians were know to chase a heard off a cliff killing more then they could process. Or killing just for tongues for a ceremonial feast.
We want a quick clean kill. And shoot with that aim.
But our frontiersman hunter ancestors were not so kind.
A .40 or even .36 on a low charge will kill a deer if shot through the lungs or liver, or even belly.
It’s not a quick kill, and you may spend a day trailing it. But what’s that matter, a hundred pounds of meat lies at the end of the trail.
Two or three shots may be fired and importantly found in the body when cleaning.
For all the big rifles in colonial times vs small rifles after we have the testimony of a British officer during the revolution who described American rifles as 7/16 bores, about .45. And says he never saw one bigger.
It was better to recover the ball then have a quick

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I’ve killed lots of deer with my 40 caliber, it’s really all about shot placement. I’ve had them drop in thier tracks and I’ve had them run about 80 yards and pile up. I have never lost a deer nor had to track one very far using a 40 cal. Now don’t get me wrong a 50 and 54 would do the job as well.. but it’s still all about shot placement.
As far as the calibers are concerned, smaller calibers were around early on for squirrels and as a varmint rifle. I’ve read that as the deer, elk, bear and bison were eliminated from the state of Ohio ( this over hunting and deforestation information comes from the ODNR hunters safety course manual ) that the need for larger calibers was no more. So the smaller calibers became more popular.

I think there was always a diversity. At the time of the American Revolution there were a lot of 50 caliber long rifles. As Stated, Davy Crocket always used a small bore. He killed a lot of bears but he had dogs and the bears were often at point blank range. I think he mostly used a 36 caliber. He may have taken head shots, something no longer done.
The Mountain men, they were running into some serious stuff so bigger bores although Buffalo were in Kentucky when Daniel Boone first got there. More shots per pound might have been the deciding factor although the long hunters had horses and packed their gear.

jd945043 said:

As Americans heading west the found bigger game. But for some reason the Smaller bored guns became a thing. Why?

Click to expand...

I once read somewhere that the US Government started regulating the caliber of guns that could be traded to the Indians around the time of the great Indian Wars. I don't remember where I read this but did find this quote today in True West Magazine:

Whether flint or caplock, Indian trade guns of this period were usually full-stocked arms of .45 caliber or larger. In 1837, the War Department’s Office of Indian Affairs issued specifications for guns destined for trade with various tribes. Built to the standard of measurement at the time, these contracted guns employed a round lead ball in a caliber that “a pound of lead” would “not make less than forty-five, nor more than one hundred, and must be of a length and weight corresponding properly with the size of the ball.” by Phil Spangenberger | Jan 13, 2015

And then I found this:

There are 156 round balls of 32 caliber, 90 round balls of 36 caliber, 50 round balls of 44 caliber, and 38 round balls of 50 caliber in a single pound of soft lead.- https://blackpowderguide.com/round-balls-per-pound-lead/
So it would seem that the good 'ol US Government mandated the use of smaller caliber rifles for Indian Trage Guns, at least to some degree. Most of the period trade guns I've seen up for sale were around 36 caliber, but it is also written that guns around 45 caliber were the most common. However, the modern Lyman "Trade Rifle" replicas of today are only offered in 50 and 54 caliber.

Off topic but something else I encountered and found to be very interesting is that the Indians preferred flintlocks over percussion caps for reasons not too unlike what is going on today with cap shortages!

"For some time after the appearance of the percussion ignition system in the 1820s, Indians, like many white frontiersmen, clung to the more familiar flintlocks—partially because of the availability of new flints, as compared to the percussion caps in the early years of the caplock system. For example, after receiving a delivery of 550 percussion rifles in a trade, the Choctaw tribe in Fort Smith, Arkansas, exchanged 200 of them for flintlocks. In another instance, a band of Osages refused percussion arms in 1840, not only because of an abundant supply of flint stones, but also because of a gunsmith, made available to them by the U.S. government, who kept their firearms in good working order."

So how much did shooting supplies cost in those days?

From its beginning in 1670, the Hudson's Bay Company traded guns to the Indians on a large scaler. By 1742, beaver pelts were valued at: one pelt for one pound of shot or three flints; four pelts for one pound of power; ten pelts for a pistol; twenty pelts for a trade gun.

The primary sourced of the Indian trade gun was factories in Birmingham and London, England. The gun makers in London charged that Birmingham turned out park-paling muskets for the American trade. The Birmingham manufacturers were often referred to as blood merchants and their factories blood houses by the London group. There are numerous accounts in journals of gun barrels blowing up when these trade guns were fired (Northwest Journal). There is no way to determine how many Indians and trader lost all or parts of their hands from these guns. Still, problems with the Indian trade gun were probably no higher than other Colonial guns of the period.

By the early eighteen hundreds, the trading companies had established rigid requirements for the Northwest guns. The full-stocked, smooth bore trade guns varied little in shape and style, but underwent changes in barrel lengths. By the late 1820's, the 30 inch barrel had become popular. The overall length of a standard Northwest gun with a 30 inch barrel was 45.5 inches. A distinctive feature of these guns was the dragon or serpent shaped side plate. Most Indians would not trade for a gun that did not have the serpent plate. Hansen states that the earliest record of the Hudson's Bay gun with its distinctive dragon ornament is dated 1805.

I am forced to wonder about barrels that blew up.
Indian trade barrels had to be proofed in England, to the same standards as any other gun.
So are we talking poor barrel or poor care.
I recall the story of a white with a stuck ball, and the Indians he was with telling him to toss the barrel in a fire to blow it out.
Certainly tribes like the Cherokee had well trained gunsmiths living in their communities, but I wonder how many guns were shot and left dirty, and were more rust then clean metal after a year in use.
Noteworthy is the fact that military guns rarely lasted twenty years in issue. A man might clean his gun to inspection passing but how was his bore.
Also of note is the records of fine shots taken by Indians. That bespeaks of a barrel that’s doing it’s job, but the best barrel can turn to crap pretty quick. And tipi or longhouse may not offer the best storage for a dirty gun.