I am sure this has been posted before but was going through the channels and was watching Sharp Shooters on the history channel. Sad thing when the public is led to believe you can barely hit a sheet of plywood at 50 yards with a smoothbore.
Greg Martin once "prooved" that one could not hit a barn(actualy about a 7'x7' scaled down profile of a barn) but failed to explain what load he used, probably a very small ball in the Bess and he likley had his eyes closed. One would not want to take fire from an average smoothbore shooter from even 75 yds or 100 for that matter. I used to hit a 10"x48" cylinder at 135yds +/- regularly with my smoothrilfe, I hit it more often with that gun than any of my rifles. Most unknowing sources continue to repeat this false information or decption by omision of what a smoothbore is really capable of.I know several folks who give the riflemen a run for their money with a smoothy on the rifle trail walks, I am not one of them but am comfortable out to 50+yds when Deer hunting with my .58 fusil with patch,wadding or cards holding the .562/.550 ball in place with 80+ gr 3F and the same powder for the prime.plain vent a bit under 5/64" wide and coned just a bit on the inside.Works for me but I have to admit that I have not tried this gun/load on any barns so... :idunno:
