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Stopping power of a brown bess

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Just wondering, how is the recoil of a bess shooting a 640 grian ball at 1260 fp/s?
I shoot a rifled .69 with conicals weighing 735 pounds over 75 grain of swiss FFFG at about 870 fp/s, and the recoil is killing me.
I just ran the numbers and a 640 grain at 1260 has a lot more energy, so it must have a horrendous recoil, right? :hmm:
 
I've read the accounts of mountain men and Lews & Clark against griz with big bore muskets, and I think the major factor was range. Inside of 25 yards a Bess or similar smoothbore is throwing such an enormous mass of lead it can kill anything in North America without troubles. But at 50 yards it's a notch less and at 100 its several notches less powerful. The roundballs, esp. the big ones, lose velocity fast as we all know. There's also a question about where the animal was hit.
 
It is not velocity that lets the Big Gauge or Caliber balls kill. Its their weight that allows them to push right through flesh and bones. Actually, Large Bore balls will lose less velocity than balls fired from smaller bore, or diameter guns. The Ballistic's Coefficient increases with the increased diameter of the ball.

What this means is that you are pushing a freight train car out the muzzle of those large bore guns, and they just keep on going, once started. YOU DON'T NEED 1700 fps. with a .75 caliber RB to get it to kill anything it hits at 100 yds. It will kill at twice that distance if its only going 500 fps! Think about what is going through the air. And ounce is 427.5 grains, and these Large Balls 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 oz each!Would you really want to be standing out at 200 yards, and have someone fire one of these huge balls at you?
 
Moloch said:
I shoot a rifled .69 with conicals weighing 735 pounds over 75 grain of swiss FFFG at about 870 fp/s, and the recoil is killing me.

Do the conicals weigh 735 pounds, or the rifle?

Either way , how do you shoulder that thing? :confused: :grin:
 
Well I know what a big .715 ball will do driven by only 82 grains of powder. The big 8 point I shot last year at 30 yards was quartering to me and I hit him just above the shoulder in the spine. When the smoke cleared he was on his back, hind legs straight up and I was looking at his rear end. That big ball which fully penetrated flipped him over.
 
Anthony Darling in "Red Coat and Brown Bess" published by the Museum Restoration Service 1970 at p. 11 specifies the service load was 6 to 8 drams of powder. 164 to 218 grains at 27.34 grains per dram.

Neumann in "The History of Weapons of the American Revolution" 1967 at p.52 says the British Musket cartridge load was aproximatley 6 drams 164 grains
 
Stopping power of large, slow moving projectiles is best figured useing the TKO (Taylor Knock Out) formula ...not foot pounds of energy.

Dia x Weight in grains x velocity in FPS divided by 7000(number of grains in a pound)

Dia=.750
weight= 640gr.
FPS =1000
divided by 7000

This gives the old BB a KO value over 68!

Try this formula with a 44mag and it's less than 20! in most cases.

Penitration is greatly reduced due to the huge frontal area, but this really adds to the impact the big ball makes. The formula doesn't apply as well to modern highpowers...when the bullet reaches around 3000fps the impact becomes hydrolic shock. But for handguns and Thunderguns this formula really gives a good idea of how hard they hit. :hatsoff:
 
Would you really want to be standing out at 200 yards, and have someone fire one of these huge balls at you?

How accurate is a Brown Bess at 200 yards? What is the bullet drop by that point? Is that considered a proper hunting distance for a smoothbore?
 
My Bess goes through three phone books and dents the fourth. That is with a .715 ball, .010 patching and 90 grains of 2F. The ball had turned into a large chunk of lead with lots of edges by the time it stopped, it was not a flat pizza of lead.

Many Klatch
 
Cosmoline said:
Would you really want to be standing out at 200 yards, and have someone fire one of these huge balls at you?

How accurate is a Brown Bess at 200 yards? What is the bullet drop by that point? Is that considered a proper hunting distance for a smoothbore?

Remember, during the era this gun was used in warfare, they employed volley fire tactics. Now imagine 50 or more of these flying towards you.
 
Do the conicals weigh 735 pounds, or the rifle?

I am manly enough to shoot 700 pounds conicals out of a 10 pounds rifle, if I am wearing my steel shoulder. :haha:
Of course I meant 735 GRAIN. :yakyak:
 
Of course a smoothbore shooting any RB is not going to be accurate at 200 yds. And, NO, its not a proper hunting distance to use with such a gun and load. Most deer are shot at under 50 yards, and quite a few at less than half that distance. After two years as a deer checker, back in the 60s, I can also tell you that even where shotguns are using shotgun slugs, more deer are killed at less than 25 yds, than at 100 yds.

The purpose of the comment was to remind you that the RB out of a .75 cal. gun weighs a lot- way more than 1 oz. and all the MASS carries very far, and is more than enough to kill any thin skinned animal( including you) at 200 yards, if you are hit. Hitting you may be a function of bad luck.

As for trajectory at 200 yards, it depends on the load used. Use that 60 grains charge of FFg in a paper cartridge, which we are told was the standard military load, and velocity at the muzzle is less than 1,000 fps. Start using those 4 and 6 dram load now being discussed above, and the velocity is going to be much higher, and the trajectory flatter- but you will probably still have to aim at his head to hit him in the feet at 200 yards. ( The faster it goes, the faster it slows!)

I can't find any trajectory information for the Brown Bess in the literature I have on hand. I do have some idea of what a 12 gauge( .729) diameter slug does out to that kind of yardage, fired from both a rifled barrel, and from a smoothbore.) Considering the larger diameter of the Brown Bess ball, look to 10 gauge loading data to get some kind of idea about its power, velocities, and trajectory. ( 10 Ga. is .775" nominally).
 
The terminal range-musket held level when fired- of the Brown Bess with the military service charge was supposed to be 225 yds.

From my own experience, shooting at a six foot diameter target at 185 yds with a 130 grain powder charge, I found that I had to hold 3ft high. That is I held on the top of the target to hit in the center.
 
I can tell you the brown bess is a killer on moose out to 50 yards. I have taken 2 moose with my bess the first was at 25 yards broadside, the ball hit center of the lungs, the moose fell instantly got up ran about 50 feet and was down for good. the second was shot at about 50 yards, the moose was broadside, the shot was lowin the chest, the shot removed the top of the heart, the moose just stood still for a few seconds took 3 steps and fell down dead. Both shots exited the off side and left a 3" hole. My standard load is 90grs of 3F and a .705 PRB. Ihave absolute confidence in its ability to kill big game.I would not shoot if the range was over 80 yards, I can keep all my shots in 12" at 100yards.
but i keep big game shots closer.
 
I can consistently hit a 6 foot in diameter frying pan at 165yds with my Pedersoli Bess using a .735 RB and 90gr 2f out of a paper cartridge. I have to aim at the top of it to be able to hear the "tink" of the hit. At closer distances, I've turned "swinging" targets into "spinning" targets with the same loading. :rotf:
 
For many years a group of experienced deer hunters in New York used shotguns, usually with Foster type standard 12 gauge slugs, and shot many, many deer--several dozen, anyway, and more. 90 % of these were shot at under 40 yards in woods, and my best bet would be that 90 % of the under forty were twenty-five yards or less. Usually the deer just fell over in place or went a very few yards before collapsing. These were careful, skilled hunters making good shots, usually. The effect of a soft lead projectile with a large frontal area, is considerable. Good smoke, Ron
 
Musketman said:
Remember, during the era this gun was used in warfare, they employed volley fire tactics. Now imagine 50 or more of these flying towards you.

Sure, but I was thinking of the Bess and similar smoothbores vs. griz and large game. I doubt most shooters could have zeroed in on the sweet spot from 100 yards. And buckshot at that range won't reliably bring down a large animal--at least I've never been tempted to try it. So my thought is that the "weak" results of trade guns and muskets on the frontier may have been the result of clean misses or poor hits at excess range.

Remember back then there were no game laws. If a homesteader or explorer saw Ephriam, he took a shot at him as he would with any pest. The reports of multiple roundballs found under the skin of some of the great griz may have been the result of such pot shots. Rather than the result of some inherent weakness of the musket. From the mass of the ball and the velocity, I continue to believe that at close range when you can reliably hit the key spot, the big smooth bore can take anything on the continent.

a 6 foot in diameter frying pan

That's fine shooting. But I have to ask--where did you get a six foot frying pan?
 
I believe the Lansing Muzzle Loading Gun, Laingsburgh, Michigan USA got the frying pan from a local VFW post that used is for pancake breakfasts. It is made of sheet steel. It was lodged on the primitive camp portion of the club and covered a neat fire pit.
During my tenure as Primitive Booshway, I and the primitive committee decided to move it to the primite range as a long range woodswalk target.

It was,and is,an easy rifle target and a some what challenging smoothbore target.
 
Sir Duke,
It is true the Bess has no rear sight, but it does have a tang screw that you used a referance point. Center the tang screw with the bayonet lug
and you have your sight picture. In the American Rifleman a few years back they had an story about the Redcoats Brown bess. They pictured a bunch of original Besses. One of them, the civillian owner has filed a narrow grove dead center of the tang
all the way up the the barrel band. This makes a very large referance point. Sir Wellington, you also have to remember us upstart former colonists
are talking about shooting patches in our Besses
not the loose undersized paper cartridge rounds.
Patches are slower to load but shoot much more accurate at the longer distances.
:thumbsup:
 
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