long range shooting with patched round ball

[smoothshooter]

No. The front sight picture is always positioned to where some of the target is above the top edge of the sight.

I must say I'm surprised this method isn't common knowledge.
I've been doing it that way since I was 8 or nine years old shooting my old single-shot .22 Ithaca Saddle Rifle.
Even figured it out on my own. Made perfect sense, even to an 8 year-old. Don't recall ever discussing it with anybody early on, just assumed it was something everybody knew that shot open-sighted rifles at longer ranges.

 

[Adui]

Smooth, I never took it as far as you I have let the front sight creep up the rear sight notch to get elevation. I just never told no one cause I thought they'd think I was weird.

 

[Heelerau]

I did the same sort of sight picture when I shot 4 kangaroos at 130 yards many years ago with my .50 missouri plains rifle. There was a cross wind and they could not hear the shot, and each one just laid down without alerting the remaining roos. A lot of meat to carry out !

 

[smo]

400 is twice that far.....

Captain Obvious :hmm: Sorry I'm not making fun of you that just struck me as really funny.

It was suppose to be funny! LOL

Now what’s really funny is , yes it’s twice the distance but.....

My point was that hitting a 2’ wide target at 200 yards is impressive, but move that same 2’ wide target back another 200 yards.... that’s twice as far.

But more than twice as hard to hit .

To me the challenge of shooting at that distance would be side to side movement more so than elevation.
:hatsoff:

 

[Grumpa]

Elmer Keith just keeps on showing up!

I started reading him when I was a boy. I consider him a mentor, not only in shooting, but in life.

Richard/Grumpa

 

[Britsmoothy]

Elmer Keith just keeps on showing up!

I started reading him when I was a boy. I consider him a mentor, not only in shooting, but in life.

Richard/Grumpa

Never tire of reading from him myself :thumbsup:

 

[Gene L]

This might be helpful. Round balls have a poor bc, and you can see the heavier balls are generally "longer" and have a higher BC. They are generally slower, of course, which increases exposure time for the wind to work on them. Somewhere, there is a golden mean between velocity (exposure time to drift) and MV. Lots of luck working out this problem. Here is what I found helpful on the subject.

Lead Round Ball Bullet, Ballistic Coefficients:
0.350" Diameter Lead Round Ball Ballistic Coefficient = .049.
0.375" Diameter Lead Round Ball Ballistic Coefficient = .053.
0.433" Diameter Lead Round Ball Ballistic Coefficient = .061.
0.440" Diameter Lead Round Ball Ballistic Coefficient = .062.
0.445" Diameter Lead Round Ball Ballistic Coefficient = .063.
0.451" Diameter Lead Round Ball Ballistic Coefficient = .064.
0.454" Diameter Lead Round Ball Ballistic Coefficient = .064.
0.457" Diameter Lead Round Ball Ballistic Coefficient = .064.
0.490" Diameter Lead Round Ball Ballistic Coefficient = .069.
0.495" Diameter Lead Round Ball Ballistic Coefficient = .070.
0.530" Diameter Lead Round Ball Ballistic Coefficient = .075.
0.535" Diameter Lead Round Ball Ballistic Coefficient = .076.
0.570" Diameter Lead Round Ball Ballistic Coefficient = .080.

 

[jfaldo]

It was suppose to be funny! LOL

Well I'm glad you weren't offended in any way. It just struck as rather humorous when I read it.
What you are saying is so true about the degree of difficulty and how it increases exponentially in relation to range of the target. I shoot a lot of long range BPCR and it's amazing how the degree of difficulty changes at 600 to 1000 yards.

 

[smo]

I would think in the BPCR world the difference between 600 to 1000 yards would be much the same.

:thumbsup:

 

[BrownBear]

I can tell you first hand there's a world of difference between shooting PRBs at 100 yards and 200 yards. There's a galaxy of difference between 100 yards and 300 yards, and a whole universe of difference between 100 yards and 400 yards. In comparing a lot of calibers at 400, things only get "good" when you're at 58 caliber and above, and "good" ain't very good at all.

 

[smo]

Yep my point exactly BB. :hatsoff:

 

[Gene L]

I'm surprised round balls shoot as well as they do. The bearing surface of a round ball on the rifling is tiny.

 

[Zonie]

Just for giggles, I ran three different caliber roundball loads thru my ballistic calculator to see what a 3 mile an hour cross wind would do to the flight of the ball.

Remember, a 3 mile an hour wind is what you feel when your walking along in a normal manner. In other words, not much wind at all.

In all three cases, I used the Lyman Black Powder Handbook to see what a hot powder load velocity would give and then plugged in those values with the rifle sighted in at 100 yards.

First, a .45 caliber roundball with a muzzle velocity of 2100 fps.
100 yards = 3.8 inches & 0 inches low
200 yards = 14.2 inches & 40.8 inches low
300 yards = 31.4 inches & 173 inches low
380 yards = 52.4 inches & 418 inches low

Second, for a .50 caliber roundball with a muzzle velocity of 1900 fps.

100 yards = 3.8 inches and 0 inches low
200 yards = 13.1 inches and 40.7 inches low
300 yards = 28.5 inches and 166.5 inches low
380 yards = 46.8 inches and 386.1 inches low

Last, for a .54 caliber roundball with a muzzle velocity of 1600 fps.

100 yards = 3.4 inches and 0 inches low
200 yards = 12.1 inches and 44.7 inches low
300 yards = 26.3 inches and 177.5 inches low
380 yards = 43.3 inches and 402.8 inches low.

That 43.3 inches of drift is only about 3 1/3 feet but the 402.8 inches of drop means your rifle would have to be aimed 33 and a half feet above the bullseye. :shocked2:

From this, it looks like the larger calibers have a little advantage but it's not enough to get too excited about.

 

[nhmoose]

Not to Zonie

Shoot and not know the wind using the wind flags even is the hard problem.

No flags and you have no idea what you are doing IMHO from 20 years of competition.

400 yards round ball and hit what counts you are an expurt with a round ball and I bend my knees in salute. :bow:

 

[BrownBear]

No flags and you have no idea what you are doing IMHO from 20 years of competition.

Yeah. Outside of competition it's even worse. No wind flags, maybe a couple of draws between you and the target with the wind going up one and down the other.... Long list of variables, all invisible. Hard for me to even imagine 400 yards in my area without several terrain changes and wind changes. Pert good reason our play shooting is over water.

 

[Herb]

There was considerable discussion of long range shooting in this forum back in November, 2008. I shot my .54 Hawken at 200 yards and show velocities and targets in this post:
http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/showpost.php?post/640226/

 

[smoothshooter]

Elmer had an interesting method for getting on target with a handgun at long range with minimal ranging shots where bullet strikes on the ground could be seen.

Fire first shot with normal sight picture. Keep top of front sight blade on target, put top of rear sight notch where bullet struck low. Fire second round. Should be on, or very nearly on target.

I have tried this for myself, and it does work. Rifles and pistols both.

 

[Adui]

Good advice, except that requires one to be able to see the impact point before walking the 50 yards to the target. :haha:

 

[Boomerang]

Good advice, except that requires one to be able to see the impact point before walking the 50 yards to the target. :haha:

:rotf:

 

[smoothshooter]

Elmer did most of his long range pistol shooting in the western mountains and high plains where finding a place that made it possible to see where the bullets the ground was not a problem.