Skychief
69 Cal.
Is a percussion fowler considered "traditional"? If so, when were they used in the past? Thanks. Skychief.
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PERCUSSION fowler question.......
- Thread starter Skychief
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paulvallandigham
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No. Fowlers were flintlocks. By the time percussion shotguns were made, they were just called shotguns, to distinguish them from " rifles". Ironically, both the term " musket" and " smoothbore" faded from popular use after the percussion age began, with musket being still used to describe military long arms, whether smoothbore, or rifled, for some time, and " Smoothbore " becoming a generic term for all such guns designed primarily to shoot Shot. A fowler, for instance, can be a ' smoothbore", but not all smoothbores are fowlers. A single Barrel, Percussion ignition shotgun can be a " Smoothbore ", but not a fowler. I have never heard of any Double-Barreled " Fowlers", or Fowlers with more than one barrel, no matter how many.Double-barreled shotguns are just " shotguns".
Today, we use " Smoothbore " to distinguish non-rifled barrels that may still be used to shoot both PRB and shot, although there is no definitive reason to do so, from shotguns. And, we argue about what the difference is between a smoothrifle, and a smoothbore, a shotgun, or a musket. Some say a smoothrifle has a rear sight mounted on it, for shooting single projectiles( RBs), while others say that any smoothbore used to shoot RBs is a " smoothrifle."
Today, we use " Smoothbore " to distinguish non-rifled barrels that may still be used to shoot both PRB and shot, although there is no definitive reason to do so, from shotguns. And, we argue about what the difference is between a smoothrifle, and a smoothbore, a shotgun, or a musket. Some say a smoothrifle has a rear sight mounted on it, for shooting single projectiles( RBs), while others say that any smoothbore used to shoot RBs is a " smoothrifle."
Skychief
69 Cal.
Hmmmm...just as I expected. Time to bear my soul for all here to see. I am a little jumpy when shooting my friends' flintlocks. There, I said it!!! My name is Skychief, and I have a problem! :redface: While I can capably take rabbits and birds with flintlocks and shot, shooting a single projectile out of a "flinch"-lock is a whole other story! Even with pretty fast locks, I unravel. Yet, I dream of deer hunting with a smoothbore/PRB combination. Hence my questioning about percussion fowlers historical correctness (as that is becoming more important to me as I get older). I feel like such a wimp when trying to place a roundball out of a flintlock into a bullseye at 50 yards or so. I need help. :hmm: Skychief.
paulvallandigham
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Its takes a year of more of frequent CORRECT practice for most of us to be able to shoot a flintlock as well as we were shooting a Percussion lock before the Enlightenment. :rotf:
Shoot of the bench, or a standing rest. Teach yourself to focus on only the front sight, looking past the frizzen, and the flash. You should be seeing the muzzle flash around your front sight, and even the ball or shot leaving the barrel before recoil and smoke hide the rest. You have to learn to count to 5 in your follow through. When the gun comes down out of recoil It must return to your last sight picture at the instant the shot went off. If it doesn't, it means your are not mounting the gun to your shoulder and cheek consistently, nor at the correct angle to the target.
Use light loads. You don't need to learn to deal with BOTH recoil and the flash in your face.
The reason you seem to be able to shoot a flintlock without flinching when shooting at birds, or clay targets, is that these activities require you to focus on the target, and NOT ON THE FRONT SIGHT. Shooting a single projectile requires you to focus on the FRONT SIGHT ONLY, and not the target, the rear sight, or the frizzen. It take lots of dry fire practice, at home, daily, and a lot of practice on the range. Begin shooting only off the bench. When you find that you are not Noticing the flash, then, and ONLY THEN, move on to take a few shot off-hand. Only when you see that your follow through skills have been transferred from bench shooting to off-hand shooting should you consider shooting more Off-hand, than bench shots.
Read my article on Off-hand and trick shooting. It can be found on the index page, here, under Member Resources. Scroll down to Articles, click on that word, and then click on articles again. The third article is the one on Off-hand shooting. That should give you the fundamentals you have to master to do very good off-hand shooting, and believe me when I tell you that shooting off-hand at 50 yards is very difficult. You never master it, until you finally move targets out to 75 and 100 yards, where your struggles there make the problems shooting small groups at 50 yards Nothing at all! But you have to spend a lot of time at both 25 and 50 yards before you are ready to shoot at longer targets and have a clue why your balls are going somewhere other than your POA. Along the way, you will perfect your loading and cleaning techniques, which are both extremely important to long distance accuracy. A lot of men who can shoot one-hole groups at 25 yards all day long, can't hardly hit the black at 50 yards. Most get frustrated and go back to shooting modern guns, unwilling to learn what they are doing wrong with loading and cleaning their guns.
Shoot of the bench, or a standing rest. Teach yourself to focus on only the front sight, looking past the frizzen, and the flash. You should be seeing the muzzle flash around your front sight, and even the ball or shot leaving the barrel before recoil and smoke hide the rest. You have to learn to count to 5 in your follow through. When the gun comes down out of recoil It must return to your last sight picture at the instant the shot went off. If it doesn't, it means your are not mounting the gun to your shoulder and cheek consistently, nor at the correct angle to the target.
Use light loads. You don't need to learn to deal with BOTH recoil and the flash in your face.
The reason you seem to be able to shoot a flintlock without flinching when shooting at birds, or clay targets, is that these activities require you to focus on the target, and NOT ON THE FRONT SIGHT. Shooting a single projectile requires you to focus on the FRONT SIGHT ONLY, and not the target, the rear sight, or the frizzen. It take lots of dry fire practice, at home, daily, and a lot of practice on the range. Begin shooting only off the bench. When you find that you are not Noticing the flash, then, and ONLY THEN, move on to take a few shot off-hand. Only when you see that your follow through skills have been transferred from bench shooting to off-hand shooting should you consider shooting more Off-hand, than bench shots.
Read my article on Off-hand and trick shooting. It can be found on the index page, here, under Member Resources. Scroll down to Articles, click on that word, and then click on articles again. The third article is the one on Off-hand shooting. That should give you the fundamentals you have to master to do very good off-hand shooting, and believe me when I tell you that shooting off-hand at 50 yards is very difficult. You never master it, until you finally move targets out to 75 and 100 yards, where your struggles there make the problems shooting small groups at 50 yards Nothing at all! But you have to spend a lot of time at both 25 and 50 yards before you are ready to shoot at longer targets and have a clue why your balls are going somewhere other than your POA. Along the way, you will perfect your loading and cleaning techniques, which are both extremely important to long distance accuracy. A lot of men who can shoot one-hole groups at 25 yards all day long, can't hardly hit the black at 50 yards. Most get frustrated and go back to shooting modern guns, unwilling to learn what they are doing wrong with loading and cleaning their guns.
Russ T Frizzen
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Give it some time. If you just don't get to the point where firing a flintlock becomes second nature, but you still want a longfowler, there is no problem. Many fine old flintlock longfowlers were converted to percussion late in their lives and enjoyed a rebirth of use. You can't re-enact any period earlier than perhaps 1830 or so, but you can still enjoy using one of these excellent guns in the field.
Capt. Jas.
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Yes, A percussion fowler can be traditional.
"Fowling Piece" and "shotgun" have both been used to describe the same animal. I have a 1782 VA will inventory listing an "old shotgun". My family has even into the late 20th century referred to their shotguns as "fowling pieces".
A fowler is a gun that shoots fowl, usually with shot. My modern quail shotgun is a fowler.
Although a prior poster correctly pointed out the term shifted to "shotgun" (for the most part) with the percussion advance, it's still just semantics and it is not etched in stone.
As an aside, I have also never seen the term "fowler" used in historic documents for my area but have seen "fowling piece" "piece" "gun" "smoothe gun" "smootbore gun", "shotgun" etc.
There are also flintlock fowling pieces that were converted to percussion.
"Fowling Piece" and "shotgun" have both been used to describe the same animal. I have a 1782 VA will inventory listing an "old shotgun". My family has even into the late 20th century referred to their shotguns as "fowling pieces".
A fowler is a gun that shoots fowl, usually with shot. My modern quail shotgun is a fowler.
Although a prior poster correctly pointed out the term shifted to "shotgun" (for the most part) with the percussion advance, it's still just semantics and it is not etched in stone.
As an aside, I have also never seen the term "fowler" used in historic documents for my area but have seen "fowling piece" "piece" "gun" "smoothe gun" "smootbore gun", "shotgun" etc.
There are also flintlock fowling pieces that were converted to percussion.
Russ T Frizzen
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On occasion they are referred to as birding pieces, too. I've always kind of liked that term...
A Google search on Percussion Fowler reveals a lot of hits and time periods.
Lot's of flintlock fowlers were converted to percussion using a drum and nipple. IMO they are traditional for the percussion period and even up into the 1930s in some backwoods areas.
Lot's of flintlock fowlers were converted to percussion using a drum and nipple. IMO they are traditional for the percussion period and even up into the 1930s in some backwoods areas.
Another good option would be a percussion Trade Gun. They were common. Flintlocks were even converted to percussion in the field. Personally I like both systems. Guns is guns!
http://home.att.net/~mman/Guns.htm
"In the early days of the percussion era the Mountain Men chose to remain with the flintlock guns for various reasons including distrust of the new system and uncertain supply for additional percussion caps should their supply run out, be lost, or spoiled. Because flintlocks would fire successfully approximately 7 times out of 10 in dry weather and under good conditions, percussion rifles were gradually accepted because of their much greater reliability. Percussion rifles, pistols, and caps were first advertised in St. Louis in 1831. In 1832, Lucien Fontenelle ordered 500 percussion caps for his rifle, and Andrew Drips ordered a spare percussion lock for his rifle. In December of 1834, while encamped in the Columbia Valley Nathaniel Wyeth's party converted three flintlock rifles to percussion. Wyeth writes "...during this time we percussioned 3 rifles, our powder being so badly damaged as to render flintlocks useless." (The Correspondence and Journals of Captain Nathaniel J Wyeth, 1831-6, p 238). Converting these guns while in the mountains suggests that the skills, parts and tools for making such conversions were neither unusual or difficult. Wyeth also expressed this opinion about flintlocks in his journal, "...our hunters are more conceited than good....and commonly have miserable flint guns which snap continually and afford an excuse for not killing." By 1834 gun dealers in St. Louis were advertising large quantities of percussion caps as stock on hand. Jos. Charless, Jr. advertised 200,000 caps, and H.L.Hoffman & Co. 280,000 caps. In 1836 Mead & Adriance advertised "1 million percussion caps." Even after widespread adoption of the percussion system, some of the old frontiersman continued to prefer flint ignition. In the mid 1850's its reported that Old Bill Williams and Rube Rawlins continued to use flintlock rifles"
http://home.att.net/~mman/Guns.htm
"In the early days of the percussion era the Mountain Men chose to remain with the flintlock guns for various reasons including distrust of the new system and uncertain supply for additional percussion caps should their supply run out, be lost, or spoiled. Because flintlocks would fire successfully approximately 7 times out of 10 in dry weather and under good conditions, percussion rifles were gradually accepted because of their much greater reliability. Percussion rifles, pistols, and caps were first advertised in St. Louis in 1831. In 1832, Lucien Fontenelle ordered 500 percussion caps for his rifle, and Andrew Drips ordered a spare percussion lock for his rifle. In December of 1834, while encamped in the Columbia Valley Nathaniel Wyeth's party converted three flintlock rifles to percussion. Wyeth writes "...during this time we percussioned 3 rifles, our powder being so badly damaged as to render flintlocks useless." (The Correspondence and Journals of Captain Nathaniel J Wyeth, 1831-6, p 238). Converting these guns while in the mountains suggests that the skills, parts and tools for making such conversions were neither unusual or difficult. Wyeth also expressed this opinion about flintlocks in his journal, "...our hunters are more conceited than good....and commonly have miserable flint guns which snap continually and afford an excuse for not killing." By 1834 gun dealers in St. Louis were advertising large quantities of percussion caps as stock on hand. Jos. Charless, Jr. advertised 200,000 caps, and H.L.Hoffman & Co. 280,000 caps. In 1836 Mead & Adriance advertised "1 million percussion caps." Even after widespread adoption of the percussion system, some of the old frontiersman continued to prefer flint ignition. In the mid 1850's its reported that Old Bill Williams and Rube Rawlins continued to use flintlock rifles"
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I always wanted to have a percussion fowler, or smoothbore. One in maybe a 20 gauge, maybe a percussion Tulle. I want a percussion smoothbore so I can take advantage of all the substitute blackpowders out on the market. All of them seem to ignite well in a percussion rifle. A percussion smoothbore would be another great tool in your gun arsenal that would make you more flexible in hunting, especially when you can't get your hands on any real BP, but you can go to the local store and pick up a pound of a substitute BP.
It would be real nice to have a matched set of smoothbores on the wall ..one in flint, the other in percussion. Just my personal opinion on this subject.
Ohio Rusty
It would be real nice to have a matched set of smoothbores on the wall ..one in flint, the other in percussion. Just my personal opinion on this subject.
Ohio Rusty
