Fowlers

[Horace]

I am having a fowler made and am debating with myself, whether to have a rear sight installed, as I will use it mainly for turkey hunting, but do not want to stray too far from PC. I suspect that most fowlers were used to shoot at stationary targets as maximum meat for minimum shot was the desire, not sportsmanship. Thus some real fowlers might have had rear sights. Opinions, please!

 

Indeed, fowlers/fusils are known with rear sights, but if you ever intend to use one in smoothbore matches, most ban them. Most shooters find that they can learn to shoot one without a rear sight--some "cheat" a little in aligning the tang screw head slot with the front sight--but elevation is as important as windage and a "hold" position still needs to be learned...

 

[BCarp]

I'm not sure of percentages, but many original smoothbores did have rear sights. I've even seen photos of matchlock muskets from the mid-1600's with rear sights installed! However, if you plan on shooting in any smoothbore target matches, rear sights are generally disallowed....

 

[Mike Brooks]

If you're only turkey hunting a rear sight may be a good idea. I usually reccomend it to the fellas I build turkey guns for. I personally don't prefer a rear sight on a fowler, I can't see them anyway....
I have on occasion seen rear sights on antique fowling guns. It's not unusual, but then it's not common either.

 

[Slowpoke]

Mule,
I usually don't find myself disagreeing with Mike (because he knows fowlers) but I'm gonna do it this time. I would not put a rear sight on the fowler until I tried it without first. Fowlers/Shotguns are pointed and not aimed at a target. You can always file the front sight and if it shoots high, just aim a little lower.
If you plan on shooting a lot of roundball out, you might want to put a sight on it... but only after I tried it with first. Just my 2 cents.

 

[AZ-Robert]

Thus some real fowlers might have had rear sights.

From what others have said, we know they did. IMO, this boils down to whether or not you intend to shoot with it in matches that ban rear sights.

The fowlers I've seen all have itty bitty front sights so as to keep them down near the sighting plane (the top of the barrel). If you put a rear sight on, you raise that plane by the height of the sighting notch. You will want to start with a taller front sight than normally used on fowlers and file down to the proper height when you sight it in for your turkey range.

 

[Richard Hare.]

Quite a lot of original fowlining pieces had a tang that was somewhat higher than the barrel, with a groove through the top, to help align the eye.
This looks very nice, but would also preclude your using it in certain matches.
If you want some type of a rear sight, I believe this type looks the best.

PB.

 

[Mike Brooks]

Mule,
I usually don't find myself disagreeing with Mike (because he knows fowlers) but I'm gonna do it this time. I would not put a rear sight on the fowler until I tried it without first. Fowlers/Shotguns are pointed and not aimed at a target. You can always file the front sight and if it shoots high, just aim a little lower.
If you plan on shooting a lot of roundball out, you might want to put a sight on it... but only after I tried it with first. Just my 2 cents.

Well, the advice I sometimes give and what I personally do are often two different things. I personally don't use a rear sight OR A FRONT SIGHT :shocked2: on my own personal wing shooting guns. When I have a fowler that I use for both PBR and sometimes shot I do use a front sight. Col. Hawker said when refering to wing shooting "Only a novice uses a front sight". And of course I never wanted anyone to think I was a novice. :winking: :haha:
(I'll bet I catch some manure over this one :grin: )

 

[musketman]

I am having a fowler made and am debating with myself, whether to have a rear sight installed, as I will use it mainly for turkey hunting, but do not want to stray too far from PC. I suspect that most fowlers were used to shoot at stationary targets as maximum meat for minimum shot was the desire, not sportsmanship. Thus some real fowlers might have had rear sights. Opinions, please!

If you have a rear sight made and dovetailed in, why not have a dovetail gap filler made as well from like metal?

With the sight installed, you can see the base of the sight in the dovetail holding it in, all is well and good...

For the times you need to remove the rear sight, drift it out and then drift in the gap filler, this fills in the dovetail and makes the barrel look whole as if nothing was ever cut from it...

The only problem I can foresee with this is if the gun pre-dates dovetails...

 

[TN.Frank]

Wouldn't the addition of a rear sight make it a "smooth rifle" and not a fowler. If you're going to hunt Turkey and feel that a rear sight will help you make a clean kill then by all means have one added. If a fowler fits you properly you won't use any sights when wing shooting, it's the same with a modern ctg. shotgun too. When I shoot my Mossberg 500a at clay targets I never even see the beads, I just look at the clay and follow thru, shoot and hit it. Being happy with what you have comes first, being "PC" comes second in my book. JMHO, YMMV. :v

 

[Horace]

With all that said, how about the question of whether or not they were used for wing shooting. I personally do not believe that they shot ducks while they were swimming----they waited for them to stop. I don't think they had the lead to waste shooting a flying fowl.

 

[Hoyt]

When I built my smooth bore it was to hunt spring gobblers with. So I put a rear sight on it to better draw a bead on their head..or just below their head. I figured if Daniel or Davy was putting one together for spring gobblers they would too...if they knew what they was doin.

 

[tg]

Just adding a rear sight to a smoothe bore does not make it a smoothrifle there are other rifle rifle factors involved like a grip rail, cheek piece, heavy barrel that usually are included in a smoothrifle.

 

[TN.Frank]

Understood, but it is one of the "things" that make a smoothbore gun into a "smoothrifle" rather then a "fowler". :v

 

[paulvallandigham]

I don't know who got appointed to be Daniel Webster, and define a fowler as one thing or another, but like most P/C arguments, its sounds particularly silly. My fowler has a rear sight on it, because I asked for one, intending to shoot PRB in the gun. It is half octagon, half round barrel, and is thoroughly an American made gun. It immitates no particular style of historic firearm. It has a left handed Flintlock, too. It has more of the attributes given to most fowlers by most writers, than not, so its a Fowler. Not a smoothrifle. If the range rules at Friendship call for removing the rear site to qualify to shoot a particular match, I won't shoot that match. My life will not end because I don't meet someone's elses criteria. They also don't get my entry fee, or my support for their shooting match. Its their choice. Its their shooting match.

What is the reason and source for this drive by so many shooters to build or buy a gun that pleases someone else? If you are custom builder, like Mark, of course you build guns to suit the costomer's taste. That is why you are in business. But I have not met a builder yet who claims a particular barrel will only shoot well if its married to a particular style of stock, or sights, or trigger, or buttplate, or has or does not have a patch box, etc.

I know this is heresy, here, but am I the only one who had a gun built to fit me, and not some picture of a gun in someone's museum, or gun collection?

 

[Stophel]

The original question included the phrase "but do not want to stray too far from PC".

Shooting without a rear sight is something that one can do easily with practice (and a well-built gun!).

As a general rule (and actually, it is the VAST majority), Smoothbore guns in Fowler form, made on either continent, are devoid of rear sights of rifle style (vertical blade, square or V notch). Often, there is no rear aiming device at all. Often, there is a groove, large or small, filed into the top of the barrel and breechplug. Sometimes on better European guns, you will find a Spanish style "butterfly" sight on the barrel, or even attached to a barrel band which goes all the way around the stock. Sometimes you will see a tang which is raised up above the plane of the top flat of the barrel with a large "U" groove acting as a rear sight. On German guns like this, you will usually see the wood rising up as well, covering the sides of the "sight". If you have "Rifles of Colonial America" look at gun number 111. The tang is raised up above the barrel and has a large U groove in it. It is crude, and obviously secondary to the barrel (which has a groove filed into the top flat which would have continued a distance down the top of the original breechplug), but you get the idea.

I don't really do "Fowling" type guns much, but I did one of "Englishic" style not too long ago. After bending the barrel a bit, the thing shot ball quite nicely, and in fact, it handled and "pointed" so well that one could have easily done without a front sight as well!!

 

[Rusty Old Gunns]

I know this is heresy, here, but am I the only one who had a gun built to fit me, and not some picture of a gun in someone's museum, or gun collection?

Paul,

I agree with you in part. Who wants a copy of someone else's gun? Its kind of like being married to someone else's wife (Down Boys!)Nice to look at, a fortune to own, but it really isn't yours.

I think what most folks seek, and I speak for myself here, is "Period Correct".

I have a sweetheart of a 20 ga. double flinter that still pumps me up when I just look at it. But, no way is it period correct for mid 18th C. And I also own one of those Jacky Brown Canoe guns that is a real nail driver.

Soooo... I just shot them. I don't carry them around at re-enactments.

But having said that, I must admit that having a gun that's period correct for where my fantasies lie, is rewarding to me.

I think Mike would agree that if we didn't care for the ambiance and beauty of a period correct gun, and the pleasures and challenges of shooting them, we'd all be out there with M-16's


Just my thoughts.

ps. (And if anyone wants to be married to my wife... All sales are final!)

 

[madbrad]

Paul just for curiosity sake could youpost pictures of your fowler?

 

[TN.Frank]

Here's a somewhat "stupid" question. At what point gauge or caliber wise does a smoothbore go from bing a "fowler" to being a "musket"? It seems that as a general rule a fowler should be of smaller caliber then a musket or am I off base here? My Cumberland Fowler is 75cal(11ga) which technically would pretty much make it a "musket" of the Revolutionary Period, wouldn't it? :hmm:

 

[Stophel]

A musket is a STRICTLY military arm that is designed for the use of line infantry and made to take a bayonet (in the 18th and 19th centuries anyway). Caliber or gauge is irrelevant.

A "fowler", strictly speaking, is just that...a gun for "fowling"...the taking of birds on the wing. Definitely a gentleman's sport. (there are the other type of "fowlers" too...the large waterfowl guns...). The octagon to round barrels readily available today are often a tad heavy to really reproduce a "true" fowling gun. The one that I said that I had just done handled nicely and all, but for a real bird gun, it would have been nice to have been able to find a thinner barrel. (the guy wanted it mainly for shooting turkeys, so the barrel is fine...this makes the gun more of what I would simply call a "general purpose smoothbore gun". Trying to put labels like this on 18th century guns is a lot harder than on modern guns!!!)