long range shooting with patched round ball

[Jimbo47]

If you were setting up a round ball rifle for the longest useful deer hunting range what would you make?

Personally, I 'd check out Kindig's works and images of original rifles and pick one that matched my tastes.

I don't see much point in modernizing a traditional round ball rifle.

When I was new and fresh 120 yards was dooable - but now I limit myself to 80 yards because of my limitations . . . not the round ball. I like the .54 for 200# to 250# (dressed) game.

My furthest deer taken with my .54 Hawken was 84 paces. That was four paces past my personal limit.
My range finder is my legs, and I'll either pace off my max distance and put a pile of rocks or a downed log or just a certain tree to mark my kill zone.
It will do the job if you do yours!

 

[Boomerang]

I was shooting deer for several years with a longbow and 20 to 25 yards was a long shot with my bow. So shooting at a deer at 75 to 100 yards with my .54 cal muzzleloader makes that range with the longbow seem awful short. So it is all relative. When it comes to hunting, the closer the better.

 

[F.G. Ford]

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 !

Are you sure it was not the same roo getting up after each shot? :wink:
Fred

 

[Scipio]

BB:

In warfare with BP firearms and cannon, chances are you wouldn't be able to see more than a hundred yards.

Scipio

 

[Rifleman1776]

Colonel Washington worked hard to get a musket armed disciplined army instead of irregular riflemen. I presume he knew what he was doing.

He needed both. In his years as a surveyor he learned how effective the 'indian' way of fighting could be. With woods, creeks, hills, etc. the classic European method of war was useless. Stealth and accuracy carried the day many times.

 

[BrownBear]

BB:

In warfare with BP firearms and cannon, chances are you wouldn't be able to see more than a hundred yards.

Scipio

Tell that to all the snipers and sharpshooters in that era.

 

[Scipio]

BB:

What? They had thermals back then? He, he.

I imagine that a couple thousand guys shooting at each other with muskets and cannon using black powder would obscure quite a bit of area.

When I was in the SE USA and visiting most of the Civil War battlefields, the one thing I noted was how hard it was for the leadership to know what was going on due to the amount of smoke being created.

Scipio

 

[RAEDWALD]

What he did know was that in his day you could inflict casualties beyond musket range with rifles but you could not take nor hold ground with them due to the rate of fire and lack of bayonets (and discipline with irregular riflemen).

By the end of the war there may well have been more riflemen on in Loyalist regiments than in Rebel ones but the se riflemen were disciplines regular soldiers in use as an integrated part of an all arms system.

Rebel riflemen payed a significant part in the overall conflict but one must look to the foreign support and a professional conventional rebel army that could meet Loyalist forces on equivalent terms, take and hold ground for a rebel victory. It was all part of a world wide conflict where actions (especially at sea) from India to the Caribbean could play a greater part than the actions on the ground in America.

However, we stray OT and I have no problem with others having different conclusions in a complex situation.