Before the micrometer

[azmntman]

:hmm: Well....yer pretty old but it's my guns, not me :grin: Now I gotta get off line and make me a eye dr appt, cant see an thang :rotf:

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I think any oranges being hit at 200 yards was more a matter of luck than anything else.

I take most of the surviving stories of such outstanding marksmanship with very large grains of salt.
Or flat out call B. S. on them.

Well if you scroll down Mike Belveau's Facebook Page to August 5th, you see a guy reaching out 230 yards..., No idea how large was the target, and I'm not sure you can actually see an orange at 200 yards. BUT perhaps if the target could be seen it could be hit? No telling how many times folks fired once and hit, and were as surprised as the spectators, but instead said, "I meant to do that".

LD

 

[nkbj]

When we were kids we went "head hunting" because if you didn't hit the head there wasn't much to bring home. Now we'd be looking and wondering whether that thang was vittles or the neighbors cat.

 

[Artificer]

I think any oranges being hit at 200 yards was more a matter of luck than anything else.

I take most of the surviving stories of such outstanding marksmanship with very large grains of salt.
Or flat out call B. S. on them.

Well if you scroll down Mike Belveau's Facebook Page to August 5th, you see a guy reaching out 230 yards..., No idea how large was the target, and I'm not sure you can actually see an orange at 200 yards. BUT perhaps if the target could be seen it could be hit? No telling how many times folks fired once and hit, and were as surprised as the spectators, but instead said, "I meant to do that".

LD

Period Oranges were smaller than modern ones and were only about 2 inches in diameter. (Yes, I looked it up a while ago after reading the quote/story.)

Hitting that size target at 200 yards from the Offhand would be the equivalent of hitting the X Ring on the modern NM Target. Even the very best NM shooters today, who get paid to practice and shoot almost every day Spring through Summer, can only do that 3 or 4 times out of 20 and they have more accurate rifles to do it with.

So I very much agree any period account that says they did it "every time" or "almost any time" was pure myth.

Gus

 

[smoothshooter]

I don't think the guns, and especially the powder, patching, and bullet moulds, were mechanically and chemically, and consistently able to shoot that accurately even if fired from a bench with sandbags and a vise.
We all also know how much even the slightest puff of wind can move a ball on the target at even 50 yards, let alone 200.

 

[Rifleman1776]

We just don't HAVE IT like we did when we were young,

Amen, Bro.

 

[Rifleman1776]

They checked the thickness by feel

In my younger (and later 'middle') years I was in the rag trade. e.g. selling clothes. By feel I could tell you the blend of a cloth, whether it was thicker/thinner than the last batch, etc. Human hands and fingers are wondrous things.

 

[BrownBear]

I don't think the guns, and especially the powder, patching, and bullet moulds, were mechanically and chemically, and consistently able to shoot that accurately even if fired from a bench with sandbags and a vise.
We all also know how much even the slightest puff of wind can move a ball on the target at even 50 yards, let alone 200.

Doesn't change the fact that youngsters shoot better than geezers with the same guns. The kind of shooting cited in the old writings didn't include benches, sandbags and vises. They relied on shank's mare, good eyesight, and days upon days in the hills rather than indoors punching computer keys. Stand up and shoot outdoors, and experience youngsters will more than likely punch your lights out, doing things with guns that we can't touch.

 

[azmntman]

Yep....that was me (30 yrs ago) :surrender: :shake:

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

Even the very best NM shooters today, who get paid to practice and shoot almost every day Spring through Summer, can only do that 3 or 4 times out of 20 and they have more accurate rifles to do it with.

Sadly, your observation is waaaaaaaaaaay out of date! The nat record is tied at 15 for 20 Xs, offhand @ 200Y. But I am way ff , so I’ll stop right here ...

 

[Stumpkiller]

I think any oranges being hit at 200 yards was more a matter of luck than anything else.

I take most of the surviving stories of such outstanding marksmanship with very large grains of salt.
Or flat out call B. S. on them.

That's why you'll never see a wild orange tree in New York State. Our sharpshooters drove them extinct long before the Revolutionary War.

 

[Vaino]

I'm totally confused as to the accuracy of guns and shooters of say 200 plus yrs ago.

We're now talking 200 yd shooting and I think back then most shots at game were 10-30 yds and also don't think target shooting was that popular because of the economics.

A great deal of romanticism through the yrs has exaggerated the accuracy and marksmanship of the guns and people. Believe what you will, but I don't buy it.

First off , most of the guns were smooth bore muskets and as we well know both the range and accuracy are lousy using a single projectile...so shot was probably more popular.....Fred

 

[tenngun]

There were shooting matches in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century Europe where the ranges over 200 yards for smooth bores and over 300 for rifles, machlocks were common at the earliest.
I would say most of the guns were fusils and fowling pieces but not muskets. A Canadian/ British officer pointed out that to sixty yards a fusil shot as well as a rifle. A statement that remains true in hunting situations. I don’t think a civilal smoothbored gun should be compared to the poorly loaded and oft ”˜ill bored’ musket.

 

[Artificer]

Thank you for the correction on the current NM record.

Yet there are darn few people in the country who can do that and that's with special shooting jackets and equipment and rifles and projectiles, that are far more accurate and forgiving than a flintlock rifle with a PRB. Of course most of those shooters also fire more rounds in a few years than period flintlock rifle shooters shot in their entire lives.

Gus

 

[tenngun]

Took me a moment to look it up. A competition in Basel Switzerland smoothies shat at 570 feet ( 190 yards ) and rifles at 805 feet ( 268) yards). So less the 200 and 300 I stated above.

 

[Artificer]

Hi Fred,

We are referring to a documented 18th century period claim/myth that said flintlock rifle shooters hit or could hit a period orange at 200 yards Offhand on every shot or almost every shot. It has been a while since I read the quote, but it was referring to riflemen at one event early in the AWI.

With my 26 year career around NM Service Rifle High Power and other National/International shooting and even though I spent many of those years arguing how accurate period and modern made replica Flintlocks were to those and other shooters; I believe it is a disservice to the 18th century Riflemen to not point out what was possible/probable in the period. IOW, they deserve great credit for what they actually could do and did, but continuing myths detracts from that.

Gus

 

[M. De Land]

That is very true as even with modern cartridges an eight inch plate that I shoot at quite often is hard to hit even 50 percent of the time at 200 meters offhand.
The regular hit on an orange at 200 meters is pure apple sauce as the chicken target used in 200 meter silhouette shooting is about the size of an eight inch plate and very good shots have trouble regularly getting half of them!

 

[azmntman]

I used to be a real eagle eye and I do not believe I could ever have seen an orange at 200 yds without optics. Perhaps "yards" were measured differently back then?

 

[smoothshooter]

Having been a great student of human nature all my life, and how people tell and remember stories and events, I can see how something done at an event or situation " grows ".

Example:
During an after-the-wedding ceremony party on the American frontier in central PA in October of 1792, some of the men who brought their guns engage in some semi-formal shooting competition. Someone rounded up a sack fallen walnuts that still had the dark-green outer hull on them for use as targets.
During the course of the afternon's shooting, the walnuts were placed further and further away to add difficulty, and weed out the less talented sooner.
Eventually, some were set up on a log that at least one of those present guessed to be 200 yards distant. Most allowed that the log was closer to 150-160 yards away.
Approximately 50 shots were fired at the walnuts on the log, with at least two being well-hit, and fragmenting, with possibly a third one grazed and rolling off the log to the rear.
A witness relating details to someone else of the event the next day, or 40 years later tells of seeing with his own eyes the riflemen of old busting walnuts at 200 yards, which DID happen, and could swear on the Bible it is a true story, because he honestly believes he told the story accurately and completely.

 

[smoothshooter]

Am I the only one that doubts that anyone would waste presumably good oranges by using them for targets?

Wouldn't oranges been an expensive luxury in those days in that area?