Thoughts on long-barreled smoothbores

[Woody Morgan]

@TreeMan's good thread on short-barreled smoothbores got me thinking about barrel lengths in general and long barrels in particular.
I understand short barrels and how performance relates but my main question is this: Why on earth do so many of pre-1860 firearms have barrels in excess of 40 inches? I would think all that barrel length would have a negative impact on portability....especially dense woods such as I'm familiar with in the PacNorWest. Is it balance? Powder charge? Fashion? I dunno. Really.
I bought a 12 gauge fowler from a member but my word, the length (42"). Most early fowlers though have that +40" barrel and I'd like to understand why besides balance. All of my unmentionable modern "fowlers" are all 30 inches and less. Help me wrap my noggin around this.

wm

 

[Feltwad]

@TreeMan's good thread on short-barreled smoothbores got me thinking about barrel lengths in general and long barrels in particular.
I understand short barrels and how performance relates but my main question is this: Why on earth do so many of pre-1860 firearms have barrels in excess of 40 inches? I would think all that barrel length would have a negative impact on portability....especially dense woods such as I'm familiar with in the PacNorWest. Is it balance? Powder charge? Fashion? I dunno. Really.
I bought a 12 gauge fowler from a member but my word, the length (42"). Most early fowlers though have that +40" barrel and I'd like to understand why besides balance. All of my unmentionable modern "fowlers" are all 30 inches and less. Help me wrap my noggin around this.

wm

The question for long barrels on a early fowler is mainly due too the reason of the powder . Black powder in those early days was not say has strong has todays powder and burned a lot slower it took a long barrel for the powder to burn too reach its potential .
Feltwad

 

[Britsmoothy]

Black powder needs more time to work on the payload compared to smokeless.
Also much more gas is produced. In a longer barrel gas velocity and shot velocity are closer matched aiding shot patterns. Especially if only a crude powder was available.
Then there are handling characteristics. Even recently longer barreled smokeless shotguns had a resurgence in preference for slightly longer barrels over the generic 28" for handling characteristics.

 

[hanshi]

My current flint smoothbore is 38" and feels just "right". But I'd probably say that about any barrel length. I did have pedersoli 12 ga. dbl "Coach Gun" that was lots of fun to shoot and play with. While it was a delight to handle and use (clays) it was obvious a longer barrel worked better in the bush.

 

[andy52]

Question, then why did they make SxSs with barrels 32 inches or so if they needed 38 or 40 in a single barrel fowler?

 

[bud in pa]

I cut my fowler down to 36 inches. It made it lighter and more manageable for me. At my age and physical condition every ounce counts. I was going to try to make a new stock for it, but my arthritis had other ideas. I ordered a Tulle pre carve stock from Pecatonica, it arrived today. so now the fun begins.

 

[Jerry Rodgers]

Have a Fowler and NW trade gun with 42" barrels... Which puts the gun a few inches shorter than my 5'6"....Ifin I fit the gun will....

 

[Flintlock]

Question, then why did they make SxSs with barrels 32 inches or so if they needed 38 or 40 in a single barrel fowler?

Most liklely if you could afford a double gun at the time you could afford much better quility powder.

 

[tenngun]

The explanation that poorer grade powder was the typical reason is oft thrown out, and may be correct. However I lean toward style.
the first rifles were made about 1500 and were on straight tiller stocks or a bent short stock and barrel length was about two feet
Spanish matchlocks were often about three.
meanwhile in Central Europe the jagear rifle was invented between 1600 and 1650. Some of these had long barrels but two and a half was common.
English scotts and french set on three and a half to four feet. But between 1650 and 1700 the Dutch went extra long, five to six feet.
Meanwhile German gunmakers began making American jagears and some of our earlier ones are just a tad over three feet. Most of the buyers were English, Scotts and Dutch, and I THINK they wanted longer guns
After 1800 we see good powder more widely available and we start to see shorter barrels in the Ohio,Michigan style and the plains guns after cr 1830. However throughout Appalachia, it to Missouri and Arkansas we see the continuation of long guns up to the WBTS and in Appalachia past WW1
The US and Uk along with Austria would make rifles with shorter barrels but tended to keep muskets long.
The practical side of a long barrel as a bayonet mount makes sense but the shorter military rifles were made to mount bayonets also. Right up to Ww2 our M1 was pretty long. As were German and Japanese guns.
I honestly think style was more important. The ‘give the powder time to burn’ an argument after the fact.
By 1750 the ballistic pendulum had been developed. That was expensive and took a mathematician to use. However shooting a board would give a penetration test that would demonstrate little gain from a longer barrel

 

[user 49399]

My Fusil de Chasse has a 44” barrel. I enjoy shooting it more than any other gun and can shoot it more accurately than shorter guns.

 

[Artificer]

Around 1751, the Royal Society of England did tests on how quickly black powder burned up in the barrel and even then they found it all burnt up within at most two to three inches from the breech. (They did this by using VERY short barrels, including one that was only one inch longer than the loaded powder and ball itself.)

While Boyle's Gas Laws go back to the 17th century, they had no way to test the kind of gas pressure inside a gun barrel in the 18th century. Some 18th century texts describe the gas pressure as a kind of fluid, probably as a way it could be better understood by more people, as they did know a good deal about hydraulics in the period.

It's also clear by the mid 18th century they understood longer barrels gave more "force" to the ball or shot charge and that's why the barrels of smoothbores and rifles were longer and in the case of rifles, smaller diameter balls had good range with enough force to take medium to large game. This as a way to save on both the costs of powder and balls of larger calibers. They may or even probably did not fully understand WHY this was true, but the evidence was clear to them it worked.

Gus

 

[Sidney Smith]

When I built my smooth bore, my plan was to use it on turkeys and the occasional pheasant hunt. I chose a 36 inch barrel. Not the shortest but definitely more manageable when swinging on a moving bird.

 

[SolidLeadSlug]

Has anyone ever made an Arab style jezail? Wonder what am extremely long smoothbore is capable of. Aparently gave the British hell in the 1840s

 

[rich pierce]

Just musing here. Fowling pieces shoot shot. Hunters want to kill birds with their fowling pieces but pattern and shot penetration are often at odds. Bigger shot retains energy better than fine shot but gives a weaker pattern ounce for ounce. Punt guns invariably have very long barrels. These are guns made for shooting sitting birds, often at 30 yards plus. Doubles were more likely to be used for upland hunting than waterfowl in the 1700s. Closer range, over dogs, shooting flying. These things suggest that for denser patterns at longer range, long barrels were favored.

 

[springfield art]

@TreeMan's good thread on short-barreled smoothbores got me thinking about barrel lengths in general and long barrels in particular.
I understand short barrels and how performance relates but my main question is this: Why on earth do so many of pre-1860 firearms have barrels in excess of 40 inches? I would think all that barrel length would have a negative impact on portability....especially dense woods such as I'm familiar with in the PacNorWest. Is it balance? Powder charge? Fashion? I dunno. Really.
I bought a 12 gauge fowler from a member but my word, the length (42"). Most early fowlers though have that +40" barrel and I'd like to understand why besides balance. All of my unmentionable modern "fowlers" are all 30 inches and less. Help me wrap my noggin around this.

wm

Museum of the Revolution in Phila. has fowlers with barrels as much as 60" long!!!

 

[springfield art]

Around 1751, the Royal Society of England did tests on how quickly black powder burned up in the barrel and even then they found it all burnt up within at most two to three inches from the breech. (They did this by using VERY short barrels, including one that was only one inch longer than the loaded powder and ball itself.)

While Boyle's Gas Laws go back to the 17th century, they had no way to test the kind of gas pressure inside a gun barrel in the 18th century. Some 18th century texts describe the gas pressure as a kind of fluid, probably as a way it could be better understood by more people, as they did know a good deal about hydraulics in the period.

It's also clear by the mid 18th century they understood longer barrels gave more "force" to the ball or shot charge and that's why the barrels of smoothbores and rifles were longer and in the case of rifles, smaller diameter balls had good range with enough force to take medium to large game. This as a way to save on both the costs of powder and balls of larger calibers. They may or even probably did not fully understand WHY this was true, but the evidence was clear to them it worked.

Gus

I read somewhere that the "old timers" liked long barrels just for the "looks" of it, too. Don't recall the source of that comment.

 

[godutch]

'Yet another 'take' on the long barrel's potential benefit. A fellow I built a Hudson Valley Fowler for claimed his shot pattern tightened when he used 1F powder. The thought here was that the slower 'push' type burn of the courser powder as opposed to the 'punch' ignition of finer grades was more conducive to holding the shot column together as it exited the muzzle. I've never tried it but it could conceivably make some sense. My own HVF is in 12 ga. w/60" bbl. and it will easily add another 5 yds. or better to your pattern vs. a 42" or 38" . Let's see it I can get a pic up of it.

 

[Artificer]

Museum of the Revolution in Phila. has fowlers with barrels as much as 60" long!!!

Indeed, I should have mentioned earlier that they knew there was an advantage in gaining more velocity in longer barrels until the barrels reached around 7 or more feet, but no one was going to use that length for a hand toted rifle or smoothbore gun.

Gus

 

[Artificer]

Just musing here. Fowling pieces shoot shot. Hunters want to kill birds with their fowling pieces but pattern and shot penetration are often at odds. Bigger shot retains energy better than fine shot but gives a weaker pattern ounce for ounce. Punt guns invariably have very long barrels. These are guns made for shooting sitting birds, often at 30 yards plus. Doubles were more likely to be used for upland hunting than waterfowl in the 1700s. Closer range, over dogs, shooting flying. These things suggest that for denser patterns at longer range, long barrels were favored.

Indeed, Punt Guns took caliber and barrel lengths pretty much to the maximum, to gain the most killing power per shot.

Gus

 

[Flintlock]

The explanation that poorer grade powder was the typical reason is oft thrown out, and may be correct. However I lean toward style.
the first rifles were made about 1500 and were on straight tiller stocks or a bent short stock and barrel length was about two feet
Spanish matchlocks were often about three.
meanwhile in Central Europe the jagear rifle was invented between 1600 and 1650. Some of these had long barrels but two and a half was common.
English scotts and french set on three and a half to four feet. But between 1650 and 1700 the Dutch went extra long, five to six feet.
Meanwhile German gunmakers began making American jagears and some of our earlier ones are just a tad over three feet. Most of the buyers were English, Scotts and Dutch, and I THINK they wanted longer guns
After 1800 we see good powder more widely available and we start to see shorter barrels in the Ohio,Michigan style and the plains guns after cr 1830. However throughout Appalachia, it to Missouri and Arkansas we see the continuation of long guns up to the WBTS and in Appalachia past WW1
The US and Uk along with Austria would make rifles with shorter barrels but tended to keep muskets long.
The practical side of a long barrel as a bayonet mount makes sense but the shorter military rifles were made to mount bayonets also. Right up to Ww2 our M1 was pretty long. As were German and Japanese guns.
I honestly think style was more important. The ‘give the powder time to burn’ an argument after the fact.
By 1750 the ballistic pendulum had been developed. That was expensive and took a mathematician to use. However shooting a board would give a penetration test that would demonstrate little gain from a longer barrel