How short of a barrel makes sense?

[Bad Karma]

So... from 1684 to 1841 the barrels went from 42" as a "standard" to 30"..., that's more than one and one-half century to lose 12". So by that standard rate of reduction...., it will be another 78 years for the barrels to get down to 24"...so by 1919 you should be good-to-go.... if you want a 24" barrel.

LD

Trapdoor carbine??

 

[Grenadier1758]

Good luck with that @Woodnbow.

 

[General Public]

Just getting into muzzle loading.
Starting with a American Guncraft 12ga. 6" barrel.
Next a blunderbuss.
Then onto a rifle.
So much to learn and yet so simple.
Thanks for this.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

1847 musketoon had a 25 inch barrel 69 cal smoothbore
as did some of the Macon Armory smoothbores.
also look at some the the cavalry carbines. many had 25 or less.

The Cook Brothers as well as the Enfield Musketoon Pattern 1861 from Pedersoli, both have 24" barrels but they are rifled. They are a tad too expensive to then have them reamed....
The flintlock French An IX de Cavallerie from Pedersoli has a 30" smoothbore barrel, and if you don't care about having a bayonet, you could probably go to 26" with ease.

LD

 

[RjSixgun]

The Cook Brothers as well as the Enfield Musketoon Pattern 1861 from Pedersoli, both have 24" barrels but they are rifled. They are a tad too expensive to then have them reamed....
The flintlock French An IX de Cavallerie from Pedersoli has a 30" smoothbore barrel, and if you don't care about having a bayonet, you could probably go to 26" with ease.

LD

Not sure if your agreeing or dis-agreeing but either way it Just goes to show there are many muzzleloaders both smooth and rifled barrels less of than 30 inches prior to 1919, as you stated in post #55
heck Im looking at a few in my safe right now.
I believe it was Macon Armory that also produced an 1842 smoothbore carbine with barrel of 20 inches or less, held by a single band and its tang screw. This was made from salvaged (rased) and battle damaged 1842s
And again I have an Austrian Frunwirth with a factory 13inch barrel.
Although not common, short barrels are far from rare. Factory made, blunderbuss, cut downs, rased barrels, canoe gun, blanket gun....they go by many many different names throughout history, but they are there and were not rare.
No reason why one cannot have a shorter barrel and still be correct!
I personally own an 1861 Springfield that has had its barrel cut to be a Richmond Musketoon as documented in the book Confederate Carbines & Musketoons by John M. Murphy; Chapter XIV Macon & Richmond Armories Alteration of Muskets for Cavalry Service; pages 166 to 175
The book is an excellent read with many smoothbore and rifled bore arms

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Not sure if your agreeing or dis-agreeing but either way it Just goes to show there are many muzzleloaders both smooth and rifled barrels less of than 30 inches prior to 1919, as you stated in post #55

NO KIDDING? Gee....

The OP was commenting on how the tradegun shortened over time.... I pointed out it was a lot of time with my post.

Not sure how anybody could think I was suggesting that shorter than 30" didn't happen until 1919.

OH btw "canoe gun" is a 20th century thing.... "blanket gun" as has been pointed out were cut down tradeguns (with cut down stocks) which were used at the beginning of Pontiac's uprising. They weren't a "regular" thing.

You can have whatever your heart desires....,
But simply because they had shortened rifles by the ACW doesn't mean that IF you want a "common" or even "uncommon but known" gun or rifle, you can take a saw to what was a common gun, hack off a chunk of the barrel and stock, and meet the same standard.

OH here's a really really short rifle for ya..., so far we know of one....
Very Short Rifle in Hungary

LD

 

[rodwha]

OH here's a really really short rifle for ya..., so far we know of one....
Very Short Rifle in Hungary

LD

Yessir, that’s the short barreled rifle that got my wheels turning, but with a smoothbore so I could shoot buck n ball were I to need to track a wounded hog, though my stock wouldn’t allow for it to be that short, which is a good thing in my eyes as I’d venture to guess a few more inches could do nothing but be helpful.

 

[tenngun]

The first rifles were mounted on a straight stock or the bent ‘colts foot’ style. Made to be held free in the air with the stock touching the cheek for aiming.
barrels were short as the guns weight and recoil was absorbed completely by the arms. The advent of the German stock produced the jaegar rifles. First in wheelocks, later in flint.
there were some long jaegar but short was common.
Most American made rifles in the eighteenth century were longer, though Hines turned out some short guns.
They needed it for better powder burning? TheGermans didn’t seem too concerned. But powder was basically powder then.
Later the plains opened up and rifles got shorter, back to jaegar length. Because they were on horse? Long hunters ant trans Appalachian settlers spent a lot of time a horse back.
Hudson valley Fowler’s could getup to sixty inch barrels. What made people buy that, what made them stop? Powder didn’t get noticeably better, and lots of guns in the forties were made at this same time.
I’ve always wondered how much was just style with a reason tied on later

 

[RjSixgun]

Look up the Austrian Fruhwirth carbine, very easy to find at many of the auction sights and the price for one is very reasonable.
Ive shot mine with round ball, cast and sized 12ga slugs, and original type bullets. Its quite the little shooter with a 13-14 inch barred!!

 

[shorthair]

I wish I could find some ballistic stuff online somewhere. Everything is geared toward modern bullet design and inlines. Not at all what I'm interested in. I have plenty of centerfire weapons if I wanted to go that route. Thats kinda why I started this thread, to get some personal insight from people in the know. Im not trying to convince anybody except myself. If I could afford to, I would buy guns of all lengths and shoot them myself and find the perfect length for the charge weight. And be able to find the best handling gun. There just no budget for that. Thats why I come to a place like this to get help.

Try the 1974 Lyman black powder handbook it should have what you need.

 

[Eterry]

I wish I could find some ballistic stuff online somewhere. Everything is geared toward modern bullet design and inlines. Not at all what I'm interested in. I have plenty of centerfire weapons if I wanted to go that route. Thats kinda why I started this thread, to get some personal insight from people in the know. Im not trying to convince anybody except myself. If I could afford to, I would buy guns of all lengths and shoot them myself and find the perfect length for the charge weight. And be able to find the best handling gun. There just no budget for that. Thats why I come to a place like this to get help.

Ok, i'll give you the Reader's Digest version from my 10th edition Lyman Black Powder Handbook. All for the 58 caliber, PRBs and 80 grs of G-O FFG powder

32" 1177 fps
28" 1099 fps
26" 1039 fps
24" 1163 fps
22" 1075 fps

So according to their data any barrel longer than 24" actually has a decrease until you reach 32". They didn't have a longer barrel to test.
Btw, all powder charges listed, from 50 grs to 150 grs show the same anomaly.
So get a 24", or one longer than 31".

There's something to sleep on.

 

[tenngun]

Or:
50 with 3r 80 grains
26...1690
28”...1692
32”....1777
43”....1854
So you gain 164 fps in 17” close to 10 fps per inch
But 1700 fps slows to 1273 at fifty yards and 995 at a hundred

 

[rodwha]

Running the 1690 and 1854 FPS velocities for a 177 grn .490” ball with a BC of 0.069 for me at 900’ shows that at 50 yds they’re now at 1257 vs 1376, and zeroed at 75 puts them 1.0 vs 0.8” high, and at 100 I have 1013 vs 1071 and being -2.8 vs -2.3” at 100 with the wind deflection of a 10 mph 90* breeze showing 5.4 vs 5.1” at 100 yds. I see no reason to use more powder (looking at this from the perspective of slow twist vs faster for a ball, but even with barrel length as far as velocity is concerned).

 

[Hglucky13]

Running the 1690 and 1854 FPS velocities for a 177 grn .490” ball with a BC of 0.069 for me at 900’ shows that at 50 yds they’re now at 1257 vs 1376, and zeroed at 75 puts them 1.0 vs 0.8” high, and at 100 I have 1013 vs 1071 and being -2.8 vs -2.3” at 100 with the wind deflection of a 10 mph 90* breeze showing 5.4 vs 5.1” at 100 yds. I see no reason to use more powder (looking at this from the perspective of slow twist vs faster for a ball, but even with barrel length as far as velocity is concerned).

Thanks for the info!
0-100 yds not enough difference for me to swing a longer barrel.
The more research I do the more I see getting something around 30" +/-.