AmericanLongRifles Forums
General discussion => Black Powder Shooting => Topic started by: MuskratMike on July 03, 2019, 01:51:22 AM
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Here is a question that should generate a lot of interest and debate:
If the American "long hunter" of the 1750's-1770's was out for very prolonged periods of time with little or no way of being resupplied, what caliber do you think most carried? Please back up your opinions with why you think it is so.
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I’d vote for a .45. Big enough for deer yet lite on powder and lead. I’m still in Virginia, and still hunting for that same type of game...
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Im with Jeremiah Johnson. .50 cal. Ain’t nobody got time to chase down an injured deer or be mauled by an injured bear. Give me range and oohmph. The mule can haul the powder....
And I’m pretty sure the knucklehead who showed up with a Smoothbore would have been assigned KP.
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Agin I repeat myself 1750's-1770's colonial "long hunter". Mr. J. Johnson would be more like 1825-1840 and in the Rocky Mountains, not the Shanadoah Valley and Kentucky.
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You have to go with what was, not what we would choose. I’d say 1750-1770 the majority of rifles would be .45-.55 with some outliers. Someone here compiled the data from Kindig’s book once on calibers. There are a couple as small as .42 and some bigger than .54 from that era.
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Agin I repeat myself 1750's-1770's colonial "long hunter". Mr. J. Johnson would be more like 1825-1840 and in the Rocky Mountains, not the Shanadoah Valley and Kentucky.
A distinction without a difference. They both would have made that decision based on the same factors. It was a business decision. .50 cal was a good compromise between stopping power and economy. That is the reason it was among the most used calibers in the period of your hypothetical professional long hunter and a professional trapper c1825-1840. That’s my guess and it would have been my choice. It’s not my choice today, but , in that business, then.... .50 cal.
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What's the motive for the question, Mike?
Personally, i'd never carry a .45 if I had the option for a bigger caliber. If just one guy carried a .54 back then. I'd do the same now.
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1750-1780, remember there were still buffalo and elk running around in the East back then. I just looked through the first ten rifles in Kindig's book and there was everything there from .45 to .72. Those rifles he considered to be pre Revolutionary War .
The John Schreit rifle was signed 1761. It was.60 caliber and rifled. The famous Edward Marshall rifle was .58 caliber.
Again 1750-1780, we are talking early rifles here, and they tended to be big bored.
So to the question as to what would I carry? It would have to be a .58 caliber rifle, considering the game that was available and the hostile natives I might have to contend with.
A .54 would also be a good choice since you do get more balls to the pound and less powder is needed .
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I agree the .54 is best all around, but 90% of the time a .50 would have been more than enough.
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The problem with your question is that the time span is too great. 1750's would see much larger calibers being more common. By the 1770's the bore sizes were in general , tending to the .45 to 50 range . There was an article some years back which summarized a great many rifles and their calibers through the mid 1700's and then through the revolution period . If I recall correctly, an average of .54 for the earlier rifles and an average of .47 cal for the later rifles was the result . So, it's hard to go wrong if you choose a .50 . That said, you will still need to decide on a style for your stock, barrel, furniture etc. Look at the difference between Chamber's Edward Marshall, Lancaster, and others. These span the time frame you're looking at , and are very different styles. Caliber is only one small part.
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to OldMtnMan: The motive?
No one knows everything and I most of all. I was reading a book on a Colonial ear long hunter in the 1770's it talked about lots of things and mentioned the need to conserve powder and lead as resupply was not an option unless you took it from a dead native you shot. I suspect in that era most shot the smallest bore they could get by with but I just don't know. There is so much knowledge in this forum I just wanted to pick your guy's brains a little and see what you all think.
HAPPY 4th OF JULY TO ALL THE PATRIOTS OUT THERE. GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!!
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Ok, relax. I was just wondering if you wanted to copy what they did back then.
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Since the book you were reading was centred on the 1770's, the average , per the scholarly article I read, was .47
Casper Mansker's rifle was a .40 if I recall correctly.
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Sorry if I came across brash, it WAS NOT my intent. Yes I am changing my persona from Rocky mountain man to 1700's Irish/American long hunter. So many of you are fortunate enough to live on the east coast and have access to much more of that eras history than we do out here on the "left coast". Just thought I would pick your brains and see what you thought. The closest decade I can come up with for my rifle would be 1770's to early 1780's. Again thanks for the posts, didn't mean to offend.
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We mountain men lose another one. :)
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Sorry, it's just that it seems everyone out here portrays a Rocky Mountain fur trapper and most are carrying a half stock cap lock. Living a rock throwing distance from Charboneau I can see why, just wanted to be different and my SMR (Jim Kibler), and my Edward Marshall barreled rifle with matching pistol (Lowell Haarer), are flintlocks from a different era. Still a fur trapper just from the "first" western frontier.
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I can see how .47 caliber was about average. Powder and lead can't be lightened so less of those in each shot makes sense. It seems like the longhunters would either use the rifle they already had or choose an appropriate caliber, that in their experience, suited the game to be hunted.
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I think Scorch (rest his soul) did an average of the calibers in RCA #1 and came up with about. 54 average.
I'm not very knowledgeable about the "longhunters" but if, as the term suggests, they went on long hunts then they probably employed multiple horses. Probably more than needed since they might lose one to Indians, disease or injury. They needed to return with meat and/or hides to their point of sale.
Given that, the weight of powder and ball was probably not an issue. How many shots would be fired in the course of a twenty or thirty day (or even more) hunt? Probably less than we might shoot at a weekend multiple match event. When I attend my Association's state shoot I will fire 80 to 100 shots over two or three days.
So I doubt if they chose a light caliber for the sake of weight.
Probably not for economy's sake either. Colonists on the frontier probably had little cash but they were relatively lightly taxed. And were free to sell and barter at will.
I don't accept the commonly stated idea that these folks were "dirt poor".
So, I think they probably carried whatever caliber proved to be adequate for their business. Why would they select barely adequate when a deer, bear, elk or lion might run not to be recovered? That would represent a monetary loss.
This of course is speculative historification without any grounded sources.
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The long treks of the Longhunter required him to carry enough powder and lead to last. I'd say .40 cal would be a good choice
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My take on this is “they used what they had”. Guns were probably the most expensive item they carried and unlike today where one can have several calibers for a variety of game, they likely used what they could find at the local smiths or more likely what was in the family. Sure, a smaller caliber allowed for lead/powder economy but to buy a smaller caliber for that reason seems unlikely.
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Ok, so this is not really a question about caliber, but justifying rifles you already have to a persona you wish to interpret.
The so called "longhunter" encompassed a very short period of time. Even shorter than the fur trapping mountain man. That being said it amuses me that so many want to interpret those types of characters and there were so very few of them. So much easier to be a farmer which is what most colonials did at the time. As a farmer it is easier to justify about any rifle .
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Ok, so this is not really a question about caliber, but justifying rifles you already have to a persona you wish to interpret.
The so called "longhunter" encompassed a very short period of time. Even shorter than the fur trapping mountain man. That being said it amuses me that so many want to interpret those types of characters and there were so very few of them. So much easier to be a farmer which is what most colonials did at the time. As a farmer it is easier to justify about any rifle .
...a gaggle of farmers wouldn’t be spending the weekend sitting around a fire at Rendezvous shooting the breeze. That persona would be at Cracker Barrel.
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Ok, so this is not really a question about caliber, but justifying rifles you already have to a persona you wish to interpret.
The so called "longhunter" encompassed a very short period of time. Even shorter than the fur trapping mountain man. That being said it amuses me that so many want to interpret those types of characters and there were so very few of them. So much easier to be a farmer which is what most colonials did at the time. As a farmer it is easier to justify about any rifle .
What romance is there in portraying a farmer? Yes they were critical just as today but you wouldnt get to have a prized longrifle but some prized farming implements....lol
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The so called "longhunter" encompassed a very short period of time. Even shorter than the fur trapping mountain man. That being said it amuses me that so many want to interpret those types of characters and there were so very few of them.
I believe there were fewer than 100 actual longhunters. Many people assume they were on foot. In actuality, they had horses with them, both to carry supplies and to pack their hides back. They started out well supplied with lead and powder and were primarily in the market for deer hides which were in demand and fetched a good price. Unless attacked by Indians and lost everything, they remained in good shape.
However, one thing has always bothered me. I have the Cahokia court records, 1778-1780, translated from the original French. When Clark was on this way to capture Vincennes, he took both Cahokia and Kaskaskia without a fight, as they willingly surrendered. He resupplied from those towns before assaulting Vincennes. It was noted in the records that there was very little meat and the French told him that the land across the river (Kaintuckee) had virtually been hunted out and deer were in short supply. The French had been hunting and trapping there for decades before the longhunters arrived, as they had a viable commerce along their Mississippi trade routes. Makes me wonder if the longhunters ever made it that far.
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Ok, so this is not really a question about caliber, but justifying rifles you already have to a persona you wish to interpret.
The so called "longhunter" encompassed a very short period of time. Even shorter than the fur trapping mountain man. That being said it amuses me that so many want to interpret those types of characters and there were so very few of them. So much easier to be a farmer which is what most colonials did at the time. As a farmer it is easier to justify about any rifle .
A mountain man was a mountain man all his life. Even if he wasn't trapping beaver for a living.
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Apparenty, General Hand was a fan of .47 calibre. But Secretary Knox had the winning "hand" in favor of .49!
My current personna at all events is "old man”. Appropriate for any time period.
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Someone asked "what romance is there in portraying a farmer?"
I have been a farmer full time since 1970, and haven't noticed any romance yet! LOL.
Farmers would likely have a smooth-bore anyway, and yes, ploughs and such would be more important, but the smooth-bore would do if you get shot at.
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Ok, so this is not really a question about caliber, but justifying rifles you already have to a persona you wish to interpret.
The so called "longhunter" encompassed a very short period of time. Even shorter than the fur trapping mountain man. That being said it amuses me that so many want to interpret those types of characters and there were so very few of them. So much easier to be a farmer which is what most colonials did at the time. As a farmer it is easier to justify about any rifle .
A mountain man was a mountain man all his life. Even if he wasn't trapping beaver for a living.
I remember when hunting on the Yukon River in Alaska back in the early eighties we were about 200 miles west of Circle, where we wouldn’t have expected there to be a single human within 100 miles. We were running a flat bottom boat a few hundred yards from the bank and passed a man with a three foot beard leaning up against a tree. He waved and, astonished, we waved back. Thats the sort of feller who who would have trapped beaver when it suited him...
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Yes, he sounds like the real deal.
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Well’ to my thinking the smaller calibers were primarily farmer calibers. A long hunters prime directive is getting back home. And, the best way to accomplish that is to kill game, and enemies one shot dead, which takes a bigger caliber.
The farmer had to be at least relatively close to a market. This means there is a town near enough for that, and no doubt other farmers. This means large predators, and large animals that could destroy your crops, would likely have already been hunted out. And shooting small game was a good way to supplement your diet, so a small, or medium, caliber would make more sense.
Hungry Horse
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I suppose everyone has a different image in their minds when they think of the word farmer. Lets see, George Washington was a farmer,
so was Thomas Jefferson. Of course very successful farmers in the South were termed to be planters. Planters like Josiah Bartlett,Charles Carroll, Button Gwinnett, Benjamin Harrison V, Patrick Henry.Thomas Lynch Jr., .Thomas Nelson Jr. Thomas Stone, who were all signers to the Declaration of Independence. So was John Morton who was a farmer from Pennsylvania. The fictional character in the movie The Patriot, portrayed such a man. An amalgamate of different characters in History. Of course these were very successful men of varied interests.
But most farmers in the Frontier were for the most part subsistence farmers. The Draper manuscripts describe plenty of farmers who had extensive need of firelocks. They did not live tranquil lives.
In 2018 Mr Wallace Gussler, gave a lecture at Martin's Station. He stated that it was common then as now for farmers to have a rifle and a fowler( shotgun).
I suppose farmers on the Frontier had more chances at Indian fighting than the "Longhunters" did. The farmers were planted on their homesteads , their location and presence known. The "Longhunters" were mobile and probably took pains to mask their presence.
I used farmers as an example of alternative personas. Not to be exclusionary of other occupation of the times. Just that in an agrarian society it would be the most common one.
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George Hanger wrote that they never got bigger than 36 bore (.52); Joseph Doddridge claimed that calibers under 45 bore (.47) were considered too small, and Isaac Weld, writing in the 1790s, gave a range of 30 to 60 bore (.54 to .43). Revolution-era rifles that have come out of European collections, which are unlikely to have been used hard and freshed out often, tend to fall into that .47-.52 caliber range, I believe, with one exception of .42 and two around .60. Of the two large bores, one was at least 14 years old when taken to England (the Schreit rifle dated 1761) and the other (the Lion and Lamb rifle) has been altered considerably for military duty.
I think it entirely possible that some of the big-bored longrifles that have survived were specialist bear or fighting rifles, and may not be good representations of rifles intended for general use. I can't prove it, though. I think it also possible that the occasional references to rifles that shot a "one-ounce ball" may indicate a rifle in the .60s rather than a true 16 bore, but can't prove that either.
Two other observations regarding caliber selection: The Indians did very well with smoothbores in the .55-.60 range, so well that they had managed to severely deplete the deer population by the time the whites starting moving over the mountains, so the weight and cost of ammunition of larger bores doesn't seem to have hurt them much. Second, rifles weighed more than trade guns. A trade gun with a 24 bore barrel and a weight of 6 pounds plus 100 balls will weigh about 10 pounds, and a 9-pound rifle carrying 40 balls to the pound plus 100 balls will come out at around 11 & 1/2 pounds. So while I don't think that the weight of ammunition per se was as significant a problem as some do (particularly given the ubiquity of horses along the frontier among both whites and Indians), I have wondered if the need to keep the weight of everything combined within certain perimeters wasn't a factor after all.
MuskratMike,
If you haven't already got it, look for a copy of My Father Daniel Boone, edited by Neal Hammon. It is a compilation of Nathan Boone's interviews with Lyman Draper concerning the life of his father, and has some good information on longhunting as a business, such as the weight and number of hides one could expect to end up with (about three-quarters of a ton, IIRC), how many horses you needed, etc. Another one to look for is Deerskins and Duffels by Kathryn Braun, which is about the Creek nations' experience as hide hunters, and helps put the longhunters in perspective - deerskins were the lifeblood of the frontier economy, the white hunters were very few in number compared to HUGE trade that the Indians were conducting, and by that time deer were already beginning to be hunted out, so competition for good hunting grounds was fierce.
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To Elnathan:
Wow there has been some great information so far. i will look for both of these books as I am a voracious reader and am trying to absorb as much as I can about our time from the French & Indian war to post revolution era. Thank you for the time you took to write such a thoughtful response.
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Of course, in 1803, Clark (or was it Lewis) chose a .30 to .32? to take "West".
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It was Clark, and and I think it was a .32 or possibly a .36 cal. He mentioned the game that it was not effective on, and the list is quite short. It seems he took most game species with his “small” rifle. Only mentioning it not being effective on buffalo, and the great bear (grizzly).
Hungry Horse
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Another tall tale from the past.
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It was Clark, and and I think it was a .32 or possibly a .36 cal. He mentioned the game that it was not effective on, and the list is quite short. It seems he took most game species with his “small” rifle. Only mentioning it not being effective on buffalo, and the great bear (grizzly).
Hungry Horse
Are you talking about the air rifle?
Mike
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No - he did take an air rifle, .30 cal. I think - but also a long full stocked small for flinter, which was re-stocked on the journey by their gun smith.
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Thanks for the clarification Daryl.
I read their journals several years ago and honestly found it difficult to read. I picked the book up in a secondhand store and it was a printed copy of the original text. Interesting to read if you could wade through their horrible grammar and spelling... I would like to find a version that has been edited for clarity so I wouldn't have to read and reread passages trying to discern exactly what they were trying to convey. Lol.
The misspellings were humorous. Not because they misspelled words... But they often misspelled the same word differently every time they used it... I never knew there were so many ways to spell "mosquito."
A version edited for clarity would help retain most of the details of the expedition.
Mike
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The correct spelling is.........skeeters.
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I know most of you all have plenty of books on Lewis & Clark but if not just get out your latest volume of MUZZLELOADER magazine and read the fine article on the arms and equipment of the L&C expedition.
Any more thoughts on the original topic?
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Years ago I cataloged 400-odd original flintlock rifles from published sources. The average caliber for everything was 0.495. When I narrowed that down to rifles ascribed to the pre-Revolutionary period and Lancaster Co., assuming Lancaster was somewhat early, the average floats up to 0.515. Pre-Revolutionary-only rifles averaged 0.535.
On a parallel track, a while back I was comparing modern pistol cartridges to modern rifle cartridges. I noticed that a 44-40, pushing a 200 gr. bullet (not too dissimilar from a 0.50 roundball) out of a rifle has about the same trajectory as a 0.54 RB. The 44-40 is no dreadnaught.
There is a tendency for people today to used as light equipment as they can (.223 for deer, .410 for grouse, pistols for bear, etc.). But if you are truly remote from assistance and playing for keeps, the old adage of "carry enough gun" rings true. I think the sensible vote would be for a minimum of 0.54 cal.
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Years ago I cataloged 400-odd original flintlock rifles from published sources. The average caliber for everything was 0.495. When I narrowed that down to rifles ascribed to the pre-Revolutionary period and Lancaster Co., assuming Lancaster was somewhat early, the average floats up to 0.515. Pre-Revolutionary-only rifles averaged 0.535.
The problem is that we don't know how many of those rifles were repeatedly freshed out until they weren't considered worth the expense of re-working, or how many of them were rebored and re-rifled to make shooters out of them back in the earlier 20th century before reproductions were commonly available. The point of narrowing the sample size to guns out of European collections is that they appear to have been Rev-war trophies that were taken back and preserved, at least as far as bore size, as they were when more or less new.
I used to believe that pre-Rev rifles were almost all .50 or above until I started looking at those well-preserved rifles with known histories and realized that not only were sub-.50 calibers common, the ranges shown matched period accounts pretty well. It is one of the few areas where I think that the really early researchers, Dillon and the like, actually got it about right - the American rifles were distinctively smaller in the bore than were European rifles.
There is a tendency for people today to used as light equipment as they can (.223 for deer, .410 for grouse, pistols for bear, etc.). But if you are truly remote from assistance and playing for keeps, the old adage of "carry enough gun" rings true. I think the sensible vote would be for a minimum of 0.54 cal.
My impression is exactly the opposite - previous generations well into the 20th century were quite happy with calibers and cartridges that are now considered marginally adequate. They didn't have a gun industry that needed to market their latest Ripper-Claw Xtra-Maim bullet to keep abreast of the competition, didn't have hunting ethics that stressed an instantaneous kill (see Meshach Browning, for example), didn't have modern regulations limiting the tactics they could use (running deer with dogs, jacklighting, etc), and had a lot more familiarity with the outdoors, tracking and wildlife behavior, and their firearms than the average hunter today.
I've seen serious arguments that .30-30 is too light for whitetails, and we are all familiar with the belief that roundballs can't kill anything cleanly. Both statements would have been considered preposterous to the generations that used them quite effectively. I think it was sometime after World War II that hunters got magnumitis, as I've read older books commenting on the phenomenon.
On a more general note:
1) Longhunters WERE farmers who were hunting as a side-gig during the off-season. As far as I know, they were not professional, full-time hunters. Boone's year-plus hunt was as long as it was because it was a disaster and he was trying to salvage something from the ruins.
2) The longhunting period was during a long stretch of peace, and while the longhunters were trespassing and poaching, they could reasonably expect not to have to engage in a serious fight. As a matter of fact, the Shawnee and Cherokee do seem to have been pretty lenient when they caught up with Boone's party. Perhaps we are in danger of overemphasizing the possibility of getting into a shooting scrape while out killing deer.
3) Putting together the necessary supplies for a long hunt was costly, and it WAS possible to borrow money to do so. As a matter of fact virtually everyone, both white and Indian, was already in debt and looking to get out, which was probably one of the motivations for doing a long hunt in the first place (and, while I've never seen it mentioned anywhere, the probability of pre-existing debt and debt incurred for the expedition itself also explains why Boone was so desperate to salvage something from the wreck of his venture). Longhunters could have acquired whatever guns they needed, if they didn't already have them.
4) There is a story going around that Boone used a 16-bore while out in Kentucky, but I don't know the source. It isn't from the Nathan Boone interviews, for sure.
Edited to add:
Another good reason to be careful using averages of surviving rifles is that the published caliber measurements may not be accurate. I've seen a number of instances where re-examination gives a different number than older published works, and the bore size always seems to go down, not up. A lot of this is because rifles are often coned or funneled at the muzzle, so measurements taken right at the muzzle are a little oversized. Also, Shumway did his examinations and photographs in a room that was poorly lit, according to the people who were around at the time, so he missed some things from time to time, like rifling in "smoothbores" that ended before the muzzle. Measuring caliber is a rather more difficult endeavor than one might expect, too, and I think that people tend to overestimate a bit.
I'd subtract about .02" from any average based on Shumway and Kindig, at a guess.
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Good post above. Agree barrels should be measured for bore at least 2” down from the muzzle.
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Good post above. Agree barrels should be measured for bore at least 2” down from the muzzle.
I would add that should include smooth bored barrels as well.. Many in the period had relieved muzzles from their creation.
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Bob in the Woods...The problem with your question is that the time span is too great.
Bingo
The correct answer based on that is whatever folks wanted to shoot with. Keep in mind, also, that the Kindig and Shumway books only show what survived. Documenting is always good, but realize that research never ends.
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Someone asked "what romance is there in portraying a farmer?"
I have been a farmer full time since 1970, and haven't noticed any romance yet! LOL.
and getting a new partner at this stage of the game is too expensive?
just kidding Richard ;D
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Ok, so this is not really a question about caliber, but justifying rifles you already have to a persona you wish to interpret.
The so called "longhunter" encompassed a very short period of time. Even shorter than the fur trapping mountain man. That being said it amuses me that so many want to interpret those types of characters and there were so very few of them. So much easier to be a farmer which is what most colonials did at the time. As a farmer it is easier to justify about any rifle .
I could be wrong but, I think the amount discussions of "longhunter," portrayal, and the kit that goes with it, is overly high, not because so many people want to portray a "longhunter," but, because it has become a generic catch all term for far too many people. They say, "what should I carry for my longhunter portrayal?" But the time period they want to do is wrong, or the geographic area is wrong. What they really mean is a frontiersman, some other market hunter, a scout, or some other type of woods running individual.
As you point out the "longhunter," period was very short. The geographic area they worked was pretty specific. And, the number of them very small compared to the overall population.
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How long do you have to be out to be considered a long hunter?
Would a mountain man in the 19th century who supplied a fort with meat be considered a long hunter? I don't think the game close to the fort would last long and he would have to travel some distance to get game.
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Thanks for the clarification Daryl.
I read their journals several years ago and honestly found it difficult to read. I picked the book up in a secondhand store and it was a printed copy of the original text. Interesting to read if you could wade through their horrible grammar and spelling... I would like to find a version that has been edited for clarity so I wouldn't have to read and reread passages trying to discern exactly what they were trying to convey. Lol.
The misspellings were humorous. Not because they misspelled words... But they often misspelled the same word differently every time they used it... I never knew there were so many ways to spell "mosquito."
A version edited for clarity would help retain most of the details of the expedition.
Mike
Mike- the books I had were 2 volumes, supposedly condensed to remove the boring parts. It was still plenty boring, but I'm glad I read it. now, if I could get them back from the guy I loaded
them to, that would be great. - about 1991 or 2, I think it might have been.