Long range Round Ball

[Scout]

I don't think that BP revolver will shoot 600 yards, much less hit anything.   

Josey Wales could........................

[Dphariss]

A period writing, witnessed at the time, stated that a Walker would throw a ball farther than a Mississippi rifle.
I expect the Walker was using a picket bullet shaped projectile though.
This is pg 145 of "Firearms of the American West 1803-1865" Garavaglia and Worman.

Dan

[Daryl]

We were sighting in a .54 last year in the back yard at my son's house.  I was using a 3/4" thick pipe flange about 14" in dia.  We noticed that small branches and leaves from the surrounding trees near the target would drop with each shot.

We suspected ricochets but on closer examination we noticed a cardboard box beside the target was peppered with tiny holes.  It turns out the balls were literaly disintegrating about 1/2 their mass and leaving a nickel sized squashed slug on the ground.  This was at about 40 yards with 85 grains 2f, Hornady swaged ball.

Given ball divots in that steel surface, ie: pock marks, that sort of thing, the particles of various sizes rebounding take on slightly different directions and angles fro the original surface.  Usually pure lead splatters only in a radial pattern.  You saw it on the leaves, we see it in chewed up trees (after a period of shooting targets at the location)  It's when the surface is changed and pocked the rebounds take on directions relative to the surface struck. Some of those surfaces are parallel to where you are standing, and that 'splatter' is coming back at you. It's all physics. Part of the ball enters a crater on one side, then continues into the bottom of the crater, to be directed straight back at you by the other side, top and bottom. These particals are usually very small, tiny in fact and the higher the impact speed, the smaller the particals. The slower the speed, harder the alloy used, larger the ball, the more 'material' there is to rebound. Perhaps rebound is not the proper term here, perhaps deflection or ricochet is more accurate.

[Dave Faletti]

Best to use steel that is flat and hard enough not to crater.

[38_Cal]

I'll jump in a bit late on this one.  Conveyor belting in front of your steel plate is a good idea, especially if you move your target around a bit in front of the belting from one session to the next.  To spot most misses from your actual target, think about foam insulation board, the stuff that's covered one side with metallic foil and is about 4'x8' by about 1 1/4" thick.  You can paint the foil side with latex paint, cover bullet holes with masking tape or duct tape, and pain that as well.  Place the foam boards a foot or so in front of the belting.  Make wooden frames for the foam sheets to hold them side by side to get whatever dimensions you'll need for your long range backing.  An advantage here is that paper targets can be stapled directly to the foam sheeting.

David Kaiser
Montezuma, IA

[VAshooter]

I was at Quantico Marine Base on the 1000 yard rifle range watching a black powder cartridge rifle match a couple years ago. They allowed muzzle loaders in the match and two guys' were shooting them. I'm pretty sure they were shooting some sort of conical bullet but whatever, they were holding their own against the 45/110 and big 50 rifles at 1000 yards.

VAshooter

[Daryl]

VAshooter - the guys with  ML's actually have an advantage over the fellows shooting Sharps, other falling block or Rolling Block rifles due to their being loaded from the muzzle.  A good ML with good shooter gives up nothing in a contest to the fellow with fixed ammunition, as long as time is not involved.  The ML will have less vertical dispersion due to extreme velocity variations, shot to shot, than the fellow shooting a BP ctg. gun.  The ML can be held to 5fps with good loading & cleaning practises.  Good loads in a ctg. might run double if really good, or 3 times that, normally.  

The shooters with muzzleloaders most definitley would have been shooting elongated balls (bullets). Many of the most popular calibres of round ball, for example .45 and .50 - maybe even to .58, will not maintain flight that far-  1,000 yards is a long distance for a round ball to travel, hense the shotgun/ML only seasons and areas set up 30 years ago.

This is easily demonstrated using a computer generated bullet drop program. Once the drop exceeds the maximum height above the ground level the gun was fired from (ie: bench + bags height of 40" -+ trajectory height) the ball has then struck the gound.

 It's fun to play with this, as increasing the height even further, results in a shortened maximum range. So- this must be done to ensure the maximum range is found.  This holds true with all projectiles - and the alngle for maximum range is less than 45 degrees, of course.   If shooting from a hill crest well above the target, the elvation above the target at discharge will increase the absolute range considerably but will it's accuracy range be increased?

I'm not sure if it's still available, but the "Point Blank" computer program used to be a free download- ie; google it just to find out.

I still use Point Blank and find it quite accurate to my ML's as well as my .17 "Rat Guns", as long as care to actual sight height above the bore axis is observed. Eleveation and even temperature have an effect on trajectories. It's computed trajectories very closley matched what I get an the fairely expensive Sierra Program as well.

Many of you know this stuff - so ignore my rambling - unless I make a mistake of course.

[Pete G.]

We had a section of conveyor belt laid flat in front of our firing line, mostly for weed control. One day, on a whim one of the members shot the belt with a 44 Special 240 gr lead SWC. The bullet bounced straight up into the air and came back down on the roof of the firing line. The time lag between the shot and hearing it hit the roof seemed like a couple of seconds, so the rebound had to have gone pretty high. This, no dooubt occured because of the belting being on hard ground, but it makes me wonder if a round ball at long range would even penetrate.