Brown Bess Accuracy

[CharlesZ]

Hi All,

Took the Pedersoli Bess out to 100 yds. .015 patch, .715 round ball, 80 gr ffg.
At a 2ft square target, from a bench rest, anyone venture a guess on how many shots out of 10 hit paper?

 

[Ike Godsey]

if the shooter wasn't blind, i would say 8. :grin:

 

[pargent]

Off a bench should be 10

 

[pargent]

Refere topic Bess range report.

 

[Stumpkiller]

2 ft sq at 100 yards, eh? I used to be pretty good with mine out to 60 yards but after that they flew all over. Likely my eyes more than the gun's fault. But as you were benched and hopefully had any required hold figured out so I'll say 9/10.

Less than that likely this thread would not have appeared. Might even be 10/10.) ;-)

 

[Loyalist Dave]

You could hit 10 of 10. If you expanded the target to the standard, British target of 2' x 6', it should be 10 of 10. The British practiced for shooting men standing in formation, and had "marksmen" who were armed with muskets in addition to riflemen armed with ordinance rifles.

The Bess is not an inaccurate weapon per a single shot. Where folks err is they often don't understand that to fire an entire box of ammuntion, 18-24 rounds depending on the year of the AWI (ammo loads increased), you need a much smaller ball to ensure that when you finish out your box, you can still load the ball into the bloody, dirty barrel. :shocked2: Musket ball recovered from battle sites confirm this.

The Germans apparently experimented using various size ball..., starting with a more accurate larger ball, then moving to smaller ball as the barrel got dirty, and to even smaller as the battle progressed. The problem was that a private under stress simply cannot be trained to carefully select the proper sized ball in a cartridge AND..., depending on the humidity, higher humidity causes thicker fouling faster. So the idea didn't work in actual application...or so I am told.

LD

 

[pargent]

:thumbsup: Lets you shoot off captured French cartridges too . It was the same politians that started the AWI that severly reduced the amount of amunition alotted for practice and drill .

 

[Many Klatch]

Well, seeing as how I can hit a 3' gong at 100 yards offhand 3 out of 5 times with my Bess carbine, you should have been able to get at least 9 hits shooting off the bench.

Many Klatch

 

[Eterry]

So your just gonna keep us waiting ??????

 

[CharlesZ]

3.
At 50 yds, 10. At 100..3.
I thought this was supposed to be an innacurate firearm. If 9/10 was possible at 100yds, why the hell are they lining up at 50 yds and just banging away?

 

[Va.Manuf.06]

Your results are exactly normal. I doubt seriously if anyone can expect better. Beyond 60 yards things will open considerably, you did well.

 

[pargent]

Military load way undersize ball and paper wading on top.A firm patched ball and heavy load is much different.

 

[pargent]

+1 :thumbsup:

 

[Stumpkiller]

3.
At 50 yds, 10. At 100..3.
I thought this was supposed to be an innacurate firearm. If 9/10 was possible at 100yds, why the hell are they lining up at 50 yds and just banging away?

They weren't expected to aim. Just "bang away". If they were lucky British Soldiers got to fire five or six live rounds in practice in a year.

 

[pargent]

A bit general , whilst right for just before the start of the AWI before that it was quite different .

 

[Eterry]

So at 50 yards its dead deer....damm you guys are making it hard for me to concentrate on what kind of rifle/smoothy I wanna build!!!!

 

[TFoley]

On the other paw, they were usually at war shooting at somebody or other - that got them all the practice they could cope with.

tac

 

[pargent]

Yep a man could go mad trying to choose which one to get

 

[DanChamberlain]

From what I've read, the colonials could have done a lot better if they'd have all been using long bows and firing en masse. They could have fired from farther away and it would have greatly demoralized the red coats.

 

[Ike Godsey]

From what I've read, the colonials could have done a lot better if they'd have all been using long bows and firing en masse. They could have fired from farther away and it would have greatly demoralized the red coats.

true - but bullets are cast a lot faster then one can make a good arrow :rotf: :rotf: