Most Used Calibre Flinter?

[Marc Adamchek]

I know everyone here likes to answer impossible, esoteric questions like this: What was the most popular calibre flinter in the mid 18th century or thereabouts? We're talking "eastern woodlands", to make it even more obscure.

 

[Mike Brooks]

Mid 18th century is 1750 to me. I'd say probably fowling bores .60-.80. Rifles were just starting to pick up popularity in 1750 and I'm thinking various assorted folwing guns were probably most common everywhere in the Colonies.
Now, if you want to just talk about "early" colonial rifles I'd say .54-.62. Big bored guns for big game hunting and killing NA's.

 

[Flint1]

I would agree with Mike. If you're talking approximately the F&I period, I would guess for rifle guns .54 to .62.

 

[thomas]

Your most likely right on cal. for that period, They did a study later and it came out .49 cal. I'm talking about rifles btw.

Thomas

 

[jim gray]

I read in a previous thread that the average caliber of that era was .55 for rifles.

 

Did you get that number by adding up all the known calibers and dividing it by the number of rifles counted?

:crackup:

 

Seeing as how so few rifles exist that are reliably dated to the mid 1700s, I don't know how one comes up with an average caliber or typical caliber. The average caliber I came up with in looking at data for hundreds of longrifles spanning the flintlock era was about .48, but the spread was so large as to make the number nearly meaningless. I have seen pics of what would be considered 'early' rifles with calibers down in the .40s and up in the .50s or even low .60s. Personally, I would look at the better dated early German rifles (so-called Jaegers) and use those data; but I think you could select a .50 or .54 and be perfectly correct.

 

[nchawkeye]

I gotta agree with Mike...When I built my "1770 Carolina Rifle"...I looked to the Moravian gunsmiths (Christian Springs) as the early gunsmiths in Salem , NC came from that area...Rifle barrels during the 1750s were being imported from Germany and England...We can't even be sure at that early date that any barrels were being made in the Colonies...So the question is...what was being imported...
Now...by 1800...I would say a .40-45 caliber was most commonly made..at least on the NC rifles I have seen from that period.

 

[jim gray]

I didn't count 'em, but i guess that would be how you get an average, huh? :haha:

There's probably a reasonable explanation to justify almost any caliber you'd want to carry between .36 and .75, but if there were any standard calibers time has probably pretty well eliminated the record of what they may have been.

I know that very few rifles can be proven to have come from that time frame, but was caliber mentioned in the records of any gunmakers. I know that there was a bill of sale that was purported to have been for Timothy Murphy's swivel rifle was there any mention of caliber in that document if anyone is familiar with it?

 

[jim gray]

There's also no guarantee that the rifles that do exist are still of their original caliber if things are not complicated enough already.

Is there even any record as to what type of rifling would have been most prevalent? Such as the shape, number, and depth of grooves, or the rate of twist, etc.? Did the rifling in the typical gun resemble the rifling that is in MLs made today?

 

[Johnny Tremain]

I gotta agree with Mike...When I built my "1770 Carolina Rifle"...I looked to the Moravian gunsmiths (Christian Springs) as the early gunsmiths in Salem , NC came from that area...Rifle barrels during the 1750s were being imported from Germany and England...We can't even be sure at that early date that any barrels were being made in the Colonies...So the question is...what was being imported...
Now...by 1800...I would say a .40-45 caliber was most commonly made..at least on the NC rifles I have seen from that period.

Id concur, lead cost big bucks, the smaller cals made it last
(From Chuck Dixon's book)

 

[54ball]

Hello,
I think the issue of caliber has more to do with what and where than when. For example, The early Jaegers were very large bore for a rifle. Some were in the .60s. We all know the Jaegers were Europeon big game guns that suited the American frontier of the middle 18th century. Why? They were able to take anything from an Elk to a charging Huron. Durring the Revolution the long rifle in slighly smaller calibers was the now accepted norm. The longrifles were considered small caliber but we must consider they were being compared to a .75cal musket. Davy Crockett's first longrifle rifle of around 1800 is in .48. Crockett was a famed bear killer and later indian fighter of the early west (southeast). By the first decade of the nineteenth century Creek Indian hunting parties of central Alabama were ranging as far as the Cumberland Valley of central Tennessee in search of deer. It would be nearly one hundred and fifty years before the deer herd came back in earnest. By 1800 the threat of indian warfare and big game hunting was a thing of the past for the original thirteen states. The guns made in these states reflected that. Golden age longrifles were not called squirrel rifles for nothing. As the country moved west it was found that the current(1820-30)eastern style of rifle was not ideal for the western frontier. A new style of gun emerges famous and legendary with names like Hawken, Demick and Leman. These were the montain rifles. They were shorter heavy bore some in the .60s. Jack O Connor in the 1960s wrote in his Book of Rifles " Even though the mountain rifle is legendary,It was actually a return to an earlier type of gun." That gun,was the Jaeger. In summary the larger calibers followed the frontier plumb to the Pacific and north to the Artic.

 

[Tommy Bruce]

A friend of mine actually added up all of the rifle calibers in Shumway's Rifles of Colonial America (I'm not sure if he added both volumns or just the first one) and divided it by the number of rifles and came up with .55 cal as an average. I guess he was really bored one day.

 

[AZ-Robert]

A friend of mine actually added up all of the rifle calibers in Shumway's Rifles of Colonial America...

Hmmm, I wonder if he put that in a spreadsheet like excel....

What you're after to get "the most popular" caliber in any given time period is the mode rather than the average. Having that stuff in a spread sheet would make it a snap. It would still be a swag, though, as you would only count the ones we know about and not every rifle made, used, etc.

 

[Okwaho]

Good post and well said. :agree:

 

There are several lines of reasoning that can be used. First, there WERE some standard sizes, but they went by ball per pound or gauge(bore). Daniel Boone's Ticklicker fired an ounce ball according to the history passed down to us. This would have been in the 1770 time frame. That equates to a .60-something caliber ball (437 gr) and would have been called a 16 bore. Battlefield finds also give us a range of calibers: the big bored musket balls, small buckshot for the buck and ball loads and rilfe balls, typically near .50. Yes, there were .40s made back in 1770, but alot of the rifles were bigger bored then. There were still buffalo and elk in the east, not to mention open hostilities with the natives (and soon with the mother country). I personally chose a .50 to represent the period in my own rifle, but it could have been one of the even 'balls to the pound' numbers close to it and been accurate. There were several peaks on my bore size distribution and the most prominant were near .43-.45 and near .48-.52. If you look at rifles used later, say 1800, you will find many fall near the smaller peak size. If I could identify only pre 1770 rifles I am sure they would average slightly above the .48 overall average--I need to try that...