I agree with this. Also when you have somebody shooting at you you just drop a ball down the barrel and fire back. No time to be messing with patches! I'm sure at one time or another someone in a hurry to load may have shot someone with their ramrod not haveing time to remove it. It may not have been pretty but just as effective.
Not so much at the revolution. Pre revolutionary early rifles tended to be large. As the time of the revolution approached calibers tended to shrink. But .45-.50 would have been common. During the federal period rifles would get closer to the .40 and less of the ‘golden age’. Of corse frontier guns tended to be larger.
That’s possible but we see where ever military rifles were adopted they tended to be smaller caliber then military muskets.
I am not doubting the lethality of a properly placed shot at proper range.
I doubt that the difference between them using a .58-.62 as opposed to say a .70+ had anything to do with its increased lethality. Again, if it can pass through a bison I don’t understand how it would be required to go larger to be “effective” on humans. I think the prevailing thought on here is that it had more to do with A. shot being the main use in a lot of these guns when not used for militia B. using standardized paper cartridges. and C. allowing for an undersized ball to slide easily down to facilitate faster reloading. I am not off on conjecture here. I am listing off some of the things I have heard mentioned frequently by many experienced members here.
The 'paper" cartridge allowed a trained soldier(Civil War era) to load and fire approx three shots in a min or so, provided he was not hit during the process! I read several account where they have found four and five loads in a rifle where the soldier had obviously loaded but never capped the rifle, fired and loaded again!! Imagine when he finally did cap it?!! OMG!
Pass thru a bison at what yardage? 30? 50? There is a huge difference in energy between 50 and 100 yards. Examples below.
Yeah, In battle with the adrenaline, noise, smoke, confusion and blood it would be easy to overlook a plugged nipple vent or a dry-ball load. Continuing to load, cap and “fire” never aware that no lead is going down-range. It’s really easy to see how weapons would wind up with multiple loads.
“engagement distances” with a smoothbore musket were not much farther than the hunting shots. To 100 yards no one could tell the difference between a .62 ball and a .75 ball on a human. at 150+ an errant shot from either will crumple a man. I really don’t understand your point and I am tired of trying to discuss it with you. Thanks for your thoughts. I dont feel the need to change your opinion and you are not going to change mine so lets maybe leave it at that.
I always think about this! All it takes is a squirrel barking in the back ground to make me dry ball lol. Cant imagine how I would prevent doing it in the heat of battle…lots of drill hopefully. Otherwise I would be saying bad words and looking for a gun my buddy just lost the need for
A live spark and you've got a horn grenade going!
In addition to worrying about getting shot you had to worry about your own kit taking your hands off! Arent we lucky we have brass powder dispensers haha
Could work but sounds like a lot of steps to go through with balls going by your head. Saw another post this morning where a guy wrapped the ball in a patch and tied the end of the patch around the ball for a quick load. That with something that holds a premeasured load of powder would make more sense. If you look at illustrations of even the earliest matchlocks they were carrying premeasured powder.
