help! my trade gun shoots low!

[Grenadier1758]

Actually most smooth bores shoot low when we try to shoot them as if they were a rifle. Now we all know that to raise the impact one has to either lower the front sight or raise the rear sight. There isn't much height in those turtles sitting out on the front end of that barrel. However there is a rear sight associated with these guns. It just happens to be your eye. You raise or lower the sight be changing the position of your cheek on the stock. If the bone in your cheek is what you now have resting on the stock, then you raise the position of your eye by trying the position to placing the line of your teeth on the stock.

 

[berickson]

that's sort of what my buddy catnthehat was trying to tell me re cheek pressure. (he's a competitive class skeet shooter). he claims if you bear down with your cheek on the stock it will throw your shot off. i think i have to learn to shoot this smoothie in a more instinctive method ie point and pull. more like snap shooting. makes me nervous re deer hunting but then i was hunting them with a long bow (after much practice), and i wasn't worried at all. same sort of zen i'm thinking.(as i stated before)
thx all! i'll take it out stump shooting at various unknown ranges til i'm comfy with it.i'll get back with a status report in a month or two.
gotta go varnish my snowshoes... winter's finally here.

 

[musketman]

i think i have to learn to shoot this smoothie in a more instinctive method ie point and pull.

It will come in time, the more you shoot it, the better you will become, before lone you will be out shootin the best of them...

 

[FlintGrendel]

Cheek pressure, butt placement, and keeping the butt from slipping are all interesting factors...
A couple hundred years of field use kinda made design of the flint smoothbore pretty effective. Your ability to estimate range based on the amount of barrel showing will prove to be a lot better then you might think. Better yet, shoot enough to get a feel for it and don't think.
Most everybody does very well, once they realize there is no need for a rear sight and give it a good try.

 

[tg]

"Most everybody does very well, once they realize there is no need for a rear sight and give it a good try."

this is generaly true...but many originals had rear sights so someone at sometime must have thought it was a good idea...

 

[FlintGrendel]

Not many really... There were some rare cases. But the bulk of production had no rear. For most purposes, including the majority of competitions available, you would want to try it the way most of the troops at Waterloo did.
The Military muskets were designed for a purpose and designed well. Of course, most were designed better then the Brown Bess, but that's a different story.
Effective range of Charleville up through the 1842 Springfield is 100 yard plus. With stories of original shooting suggesting a certain amount of expectation at 200 you end up just trying to find out what can be done.
It seems a shame to give up on "old" skills and opt for "Smooth rifles" just because there is a perceived advantage to having a rear right. While the NMLRA has matches for both, which means having a good excuse to buy/build two guns instead of one, MLAIC competition is military style only.
Frankly, having a rear sight on a smoothbore just tends to specialize the gun for a specific match-distance...and cuts you out of a lot of matches. Without the rear sight you can hunt or shoot any match, any range, and with a little homework, just as well if not better.
Once you give in and go for a rear sight you're on the slippery slope of technological decline that takes the human factor out of shooting...and a lot of the fun too.

 

[tg]

I think if you do your homework on non-military smooth bores the Dutch, French and English type were commonly Made with rear sights during much of the 18th century, even the high art French guns had them. todays trend is based on a lack of knowledge or interest in history and the rules come from a National group we have talked about before. See works of Hamilton, Lenk, and any of those who have studied the originals and records and finds at digs...

 

[FlintGrendel]

Talk about civilian arms and you can find almost anything, including 30 shot repeating flinters built in[url] 1750...in[/url] small numbers. The subject was smoothbore and in the massive numbers of military flint smoothbores that were used you have a long term standardized form of firearm that evolved to function in a broad range of conditions-service, and do it well. Along with that went a type of shooting that matters here because when a fellow observes that his "trade gun" shoots low it's only fair to help explain a little about shooting methods so he doesn't have to go make a pretzel of his barrel or himself in order to get it to work in the manner it was designed for.
Not everybody starts out understanding how to shoot a (military type) smoothbore the way it was designed. The "Smooth Rifle" is a form of firearm. Just not the same form of shooting.

TH

 

[tg]

Putting a rear sight on a trade gun or fowler does not make it a smoothrifle, my point is from a historical point of view on a trade gun of the 18th century either with or without a rear sight would be proper and documentable, they were not rare and these guns were made for hunting as much or more than for warfare which may have been why the rear sights were used, they general military drill was not to aim but to point, the rear sight can make aimimg quicker and was probably adapted for that reason. There is nothing wrong with useing a smoothbore without a rear sight but originals could have been either way. Some have dovetails in the same location which indicated a pattern and not an after market installation.

 

[Flintshooter in Indiana]

Hornhead............I shoot 65grs of fffg when I'm target shootin' with a round ball and stuff 20 more for a deer load. Don't know why, I could probably kill one with the 65grs. It's a 58 cal. 24 gauge I reckon.

Jackie Brown is a fine feller for my two cents. Talk to him every year at Friendship and he never acts snooty or above anyone. Matter o fact, I spent 35-40 minutes this fall talking to him about jug chokin' a smoothbore. He said he'd never tried, but might be somethin' to think about. Might help a bit fer turkeys. Don't know.

Anywhos, keep playin with it and you'll get 'er.

 

[Snowshoe]

I put on a rear sight on my english fowler. I taped a piece of wood on the barrel and ajusted the size till i got it sighted in. then i made one out of brass a tad higher, cut a dove tail in the barrel and resighted. I even cut the v in the sight to one side to compensate in order to keep the sight centered on the flats
Snowshoe

 

[Ohio Rusty]

If a person were to solder a taller front sight farther back on the barrel, maybe half way back or all the way to the wedding ring where octogon meets round, and used that sight as a target reference, would the gun shoot higher ???
I'm not wanting to put on a rear sight, but I want some way to get a better point of reference ...
Ohio Rusty

 

[mazo kid]

I've got one of Curley's Trade guns in 20 ga. and yes, it shoots low too. It has taken buffalo and deer, but I will be bending the barrel as just shooting high is not acceptable all the time. I had a turtle front sight but took it off as I couldn't get it low enough, put a very small blade sight on and it still shoots low. I'm making a hydraulic press and will try that for bending the barrel. Emery