Smooth Rifles

[Dphariss]

To give my perspective on the smooth rifle subject somewhat. Probably sticking my head in a meat grinder but here goes.
Honestly, from the historical context I see the smooth rifle as something for wannabe types, at least if originally made as such. What I mean is that apparently some that could not use a rifle either from simple inability or bad eyesight still wanted a "rifle gun".   It was useless as a rifle but fulfilled some need. Did people laugh at people who carried an obvious fowler as was apparently the case circa 1790s in some western areas?
In some areas, such as Ohio/Kentucky in the 1790s the smoothbore was not very well thought of and as near as I can tell the natives used more rifles than smooth guns. But here we fall victim to the observer.
Many rifles are called guns and guns called rifles etc etc. But shooting at people on a flat boat in the middle of the Ohio with a trade gun? Lots of eastern tribes were very well versed in the rifle.

Then, most people away from the frontier had little use for a rifle.
And.
There have always been riflemen and shooters and gun owners. The rifleman likes accuracy. The shooter may not need a rifle, the gun owner may only have a gun for shooting hogs, militia or shooting the fox in the hen house. While the last two can get by with almost anything that goes "bang" the  rifleman cannot.
With this is mind when I see a decked out full blown "rifle" without rifling I wonder why.
If we consider these things, especially someone whose only need is militia duty we begin to understand the numbers of smoothbores. If your only need for a firearm was militia then the cheapest thing that was acceptable was OK. These are the people that are largely useless on the battlefield.
If the farmer is only shooting hogs to butcher or the fox his firearms needs are limited as well.
The man that hunts deer commercially or goes into the woods to scout for the enemy has different requirements and a different, far different in fact, skill set.
The inability of the average recruit to use firearms proficiently in the military context is far from new. It was the reason for the development of the old DCM (Department of Civilian Marksmanship) which due to PC has now become the somewhat emasculated CMP.  The DCM was meant to increase the proficiency of people so that if they enlisted or were drafted they had SOME skill because frankly the Military, even the Marines do not do enough training with the rifle even today. In the 19th century rifle practice was nearly unknown in the military.
In my experience many people who graduated basic training as "qualified" really only knew which end of the rifle the bullet out of.  But being competent? Nope.
So if we step back in time to Colonial America we will see the same thing. Some folks could use firearms, some owned firearms and some didn't even have one for self-defense. 
So when we see a smooth rifle with caving and an engraved box we need to ask a few questions.
How does one compete in a rifle match on Sunday afternoon with a SB?
Was it always smooth?
Was it owned by some rich, near sighted pig farmer who only had if for show?  To "keep up with the Jone's"?
Was it bored for shot in 1830 and given to some 10 year old to hunt with? After all a rifle that started as a 44 or 50 in 1775 and was used by a couple of generations as a rifle is now probably 52 to 58 caliber, to big for practical use in many places in the east by 1830. Besides boring it for shot makes it light enough for a boy to use. It might be so large as to make grooving it again questionable so it was bored to groove size (??
Did the owners eyes fail and he had it bored for shot?
Finally. We have a huge number of reenactors who have looked at various documents and decided that SBs out numbered rifles so the can have a SB and be HC. Or they live someplace here rifles were unknown (if not corrected they will stretch this to the Mississippi and beyond) and many of them only use it as  costume PROP so it does not even have to shoot to be "effective". So we have what I call the "cult of the smoothbore" which, if they shoot them, attribute all sorts of non-existent advantages to the SB. I put a smooth 50 cal  barrel in a rifle I built just because of this. If one's eyes were so bad he could not shoot a rifle I guess it would do to shoot rabbits with shot. But I did not have any 4s or 5s to test it with so I only patterned it with 7 1/2. It did very well at 25 yards with 75 gr volume of shot. This was good since with a round ball it was not very good with light loads and could not see how shooting 100 grs of powder was useful for shooting small game.

Yes there is a lot of supposition here. Yes here were smooth rifles made. But its also supposition to assume that all the rifles with no rifling in Kindig's book, for example, were made this way originally. Or that they are smooth even when so listed.

Dan

[northmn]

When I read a story on the development of the choke it was claimed that they overchoked their barrels.  Forsyth thought he was reaming out the choke and got his full choke pattern when he thought it was reamed out.  The claims made on chokes and range at that time were optimistic.  I do not know about the development of the jug choke.  Today every one seems to think a shotgun has to have a choke to get game.  I got a few ducks before the non-toxic laws with a no-choke muzzle loader.  That was over decoys.  Up to about 30 yards they work OK.  When I shot the grouse with my 20 bore smooth rifle it was amazing the number of leaves that flew up in the air around the birds.  To say that a smoothbore is "useless" as a rifle is hogwash.  They can easily take game out to 75 yards with a roundball.  Roundball got two deer with his smooth rifle.  Many riflemen have the mentality that to get a deer you have to be able to hit cockroaches at 100 yards (A comment made by Frank Marshall concerning cast bullets)  If I had one ML it would be my 20 bore smooth rifle.  I have more than one ML so use a rifle for larger game or squirrels.  Also, the smoothbore permits one to line up a few ducks or geese and get more than one with one shot.  The sights permit a fair shot with roundball and on grounded game like turkeys permits one to center a pattern. 
Many of the smooth rifles one sees pictured are smaller calibers.  I go back to Taylor's experiences shooting elephant with a 10 bore smooth rifle.  He claimed it was easier to clean and accurate enough for its uses.  Russel talks about encountering natives using "fusees" in his book Journal of a Trapper which implys that in the earlier days they used the standard trade gun.  The rifle was more popular West of the Mississippi because of longer ranges. In the wooded areas a smoothbore commonly is all that is needed.  When I competed the one thing that was obvious was that the average person is not all that good with a rifle.  I used a 2 foot rapid fire pistol target at 100 yards so taht competitors could have a reasonable score.  The handful of good shots kept them in the black.  Then there is the fact that some interesting objects were fired out of smoothbores that were not made out of lead.

DP

[blunderbuss]

 Where I hunt there are some beasties ,large Russian hogs that will eat you,so I decided to switch from my Jaeger to my double 12 ga if I could make it shoot well enough. I put a sight on the rib and sighted in the left barrel,the right barrel I keep loaded with 12, 00 buck and 100 ffg. I sighted it for 50 yards and I explained earlier it started grouping like any rifle I ever owned. Problem with this set up is the sight is on the rib which is not directly over the bore and the ball will carry to the right the farther from the gun it is. Well OK I can adjust to this,at a reasonable distance,and have killed deer at 80 yards.
 Point is If that old shot gun will do that what would a smooth rifle do with fine sights a set trigger and a shooter,with confidence ,that really wants to know what a smooth rifle will do.
 I think we're all birds of a feather here the reason we shoot ML in the first place is to prove we can do it .Smooth rifles are just the second stage in that rocket.
 The old fellow that rifled my Jaeger barrel and I had this same discussion years ago he stated that he always wanted to taper a bore on a smooth rifle ,just to see what it'd do

[Daryl]

Dan - although you are undoubtedly a rifleman, you should recall that smooth rifles were ordered from the frontier over and over - seems they were popular with some. See chaper 5 Smoothbores, in Firearms of the American West 1803-1865, starting page 69.

In 1832 Washington Irving endure "many sneers at the double-barreled guns with which we were provided against smaller game: the lads of hte West holding "shot-guns" as they called them, in great contempt, thinking grouse, partridges, and even wild turkeys as beneath thier serious attention, and the rifle the only frie-arm worthy of a hunter".

This chapter also notes that by the end of the '30's, the thoughts on the smoothbore were changing, indeed even during the usual distain for them, " Nonetheless, smoothbores of all types,-- sporting shotguns, military muskets, trade muskets, blunderbusses, and even an occasional smooth-bored rifle"- went West evenint he easrliest years of the fur trade."

The "two-sighted smooth-bore rifle" - shoulder arm of heavy octagonal or 1/2 octgonal barrel equipped with both front and rear sights.  The advantage is given in slight range extension of 20 to 25yards over the smoothbore shotgun or musket, handled shot equally and being heavier made, could withstand much tougher use than the normal smoothbores.

There are numerous reprinted 'orders' from the West by businesses or explorers for smooth-bored rifles as well.

Makers Bryan & Morrison, Deringer, Henry and Tryon also made and sold smoothbore rifles for the frontier market.  By the 1850's, smoothbores seemed quite popular - on the frontier. The ability of large bored smoothbores to handle buck and ball, along with the proliferation of cheap old muskets sold to the public by the military, must helped their popularity.

[rich pierce]

Dan,

It's not reasonable to think that our choices and preferences somehow influence the past.  We don't have to like something and agree it was the best choice or most efficient tool for it to have been popular and deemed useful in the past.  Arguing that "many (or most) smooth rifles must be bored out rifles" seems a bit like a religious or political view.  

Were plenty of rifles bored out to smoothbores?  Yes, particularly in the percussion period, and especially after the Civil War.  But some basic principles are commonly ignored in these arguments.  If you've unbreeched many original guns, whether fowling pieces or rifles, you'll probably note that the breechplugs are usually closer to bore diameter than we see today.  Whether this often results from freshing out or not I do not know.  But you cannot bore out a rifle from a .44 caliber to a .62 smoothie without re-breeching if the original breechplug was 5/8" or less.  If you find a gun that is now 20 ga smooth, it is not plausible to argue it was once a .44 rifle, unless there is evidence of re-breeching.  Re-breeching is normally accompanied by setting the barrel back, so there are multiple clues to a re-breeched barrel.

If I see a smooth rifle (smooth today) with a double set trigger and rifle sights, I allow it was probably a rifle and has been bored out.  If it sports a single trigger and an octagon to round barrel, it being rifled originally is not likely IMHO.  These are features that change the likelihood that it was rifled or not.  But even in the east, in specific areas in Pennsylvania, we see very few rifles made that retain rifling.  How many Bucks County rifles are there that have evidence of rifling or that have double set triggers?  Heck there are some with round barrels and hooked breeches.  We can can mock the people who would own such a gun, calling them pig farmers or dandies who probably could not hit a hat at 20 yards, but that does not change evidence one bit.

Painting the "rifle" label on smoothbore, rifle-built guns with no evidence of ever being re-worked is wishful thinking.  It really doesn't matter whether they would be good guns to have in Wyoming or Montana or Colorado today or 180 years ago.  There are plenty enough double barreled swivel breech rifles remaining with one smooth and one rifled barrel of the same bore, to tell us that some of our forefathers found some utility in small bore smoothies.

"I hate them, therefore they didn't exist, or real men didn't own them" is not a convincing argument.

[Daryl]

There are numerous reprinted 'orders' from the West by businesses or explorers for smooth-bored rifles in the book. (Firearms of the American West)

Makers Bryan & Morrison, Deringer, Henry and Tryon also made and sold smoothbore rifles for the frontier market.  These were as noted, straight octagonal, or octagonal/round in the barrel. 

By the 1850's, smoothbores seemed quite popular - on the frontier. The ability of large bored smoothbores to handle buck and ball, along with the proliferation of cheap old muskets sold to the public by the military, must helped their popularity.
 

[northmn]

I might add that the "freshing" of rifle to smoothbore may have served a purpose in itself.  Even if originally rifled, when were they freshed to smooth?  A flintlock rifle in original condition that was converted to smoothbore must have been that way for a reason. The weapon is preserved but converted which is a history of its own.  One of my uncles from Missouri shot everyhing from quail to deer with a standard hammer break open single shot 16 gauge.  It was probably full choked but he got his deer with slugs.  I remember when my aunt bought him a 22 from the change she saved out of his pocket when she washed his clothes.  A shotgun was a pretty standard item in most rural households.  About the most specialized weapon is a larger bore rifle.  The Tennessee rifles were commonly made in small bore which would permit a generalized use.  Anything over and including a 40 starts to become a gun dedicated to larger game.  Even a smaller bore smooth rifle in 45 caliber or so can handle both.  At 25 yards a smoothbore will come very close to a rifle in grouping.  Even some small caliber smoothbores could pop a squirrel at that range.

DP

[Daryl]

Many of the rifles going West, were purposely .42 cal to .48 cal.  They were thought to be normal to be sold in the Western gun shops.  There were a few smaller, but .45 cal was an average size, it seems.  Of course, heavy game reguired heavier balls.  They seemed to appreciate the .45 cal. rifles more than we do today.

[Dphariss]

OK
First I did not say there were no smooth rifles. I did not say they were ineffective within their range. I was trying to address what I see as an over abundance of them as survivors today. And ask why they existed in the first place.

Even in the 1830-40s there were "smooth bore only" shooting contests.
In the Warner-Lowe papers, which to my chagrin I have yet to finish reading, there is an account of Nicanor Kendall of "Robbins, Lawrence and Kendall" fame scratch rifling a barrel with coarse emery that he and a friend then used at a "smoothbore only" turkey match to win all the turkeys that were put up.

I would also point out that it has been posted, either here or on a similar site that some rifles listed as "smooth" have faint traces of rifling when closely examined.
The British, when the supply of American rifles was largely cut off during the American Revolution, resorted to rifles made in England but patterned after an early Landcaster rifle to supply the need.

Western Fur Trade smooth rifles.
"Firearms of The American West 1803-1865" pg 355
From Ramsey Crooks (American Fur Company) in response to James Henry trying to sell them smooth rifles:
"We said in ours of July 29 (1840) that smooth bored rifles will not suit us. ... When Indians use a rifle it must be a real one, and they will not carry a smooth bore of such weight so long as they can get a North West gun."

We also have to understand that the western Indians often did not have the mind set that many of the eastern Indians did in using firearms. For them the trade gun was fully equal to the rifle since they apparently considered "medicine" more important than aiming.
While the Delaware, Shawnee, Iroquois, Creeks, Cherokees and others farther west like the Sacs and Foxes were accomplished riflemen the great tribes of the West did not seem to have a full grasp of the technology.
The rifle was apparently used to such effect in the F&I War buy the French allied natives (and friendlies as well) that there was an effort to ban all rifle sales to natives. The ban was never workable of course.
I believe the use of rifles by the Shawnee and others from at least the 1740s was one reason for the larger percentage of rifles on the frontier by the 1770s. The Musket/smoothbore is not an adequate counter to the rifle when used as the natives and frontiersmen made war. Then we have to ask "where did the natives LEARN of the rifle in the 1740s if there were no rifles as some will maintain?

There is an excellent example of WHY the rifle was so important in the west on pg 356 of a party of Sacs & Foxes on the Kansas River in 1854, through the use of rifles holding larger party of hostiles beyond the range of the bows and smooth bores they were armed with.
This strategy worked well in the western prairies it was also used in the east in clearings around fortifications.

So you see my real question is not were there smooth rifles but WHY were there smooth rifles. Why pay for a rifle stocked gun when a Northwest Gun or a cheap fowler with a hind sight installed or even upset into the barrel will work as well at 1/3-1/2 the cost?
There is no logic to it from the utilitarian stand point. UNLESS its more for appearance than utility.

Dan

[Dphariss]

I might add that the "freshing" of rifle to smoothbore may have served a purpose in itself.  Even if originally rifled, when were they freshed to smooth?  A flintlock rifle in original condition that was converted to smoothbore must have been that way for a reason. The weapon is preserved but converted which is a history of its own.  One of my uncles from Missouri shot everyhing from quail to deer with a standard hammer break open single shot 16 gauge.  It was probably full choked but he got his deer with slugs.  I remember when my aunt bought him a 22 from the change she saved out of his pocket when she washed his clothes.  A shotgun was a pretty standard item in most rural households.  About the most specialized weapon is a larger bore rifle.  The Tennessee rifles were commonly made in small bore which would permit a generalized use.  Anything over and including a 40 starts to become a gun dedicated to larger game.  Even a smaller bore smooth rifle in 45 caliber or so can handle both.  At 25 yards a smoothbore will come very close to a rifle in grouping.  Even some small caliber smoothbores could pop a squirrel at that range.

DP

I suggest that people make up a small bore smooth rifle and shoot it against an identical rifle at various ranges using a target the size of a squirrels head as a target. The easiest way is to make up a second barrel for a rifle with identical sights. I found in doing this that with loads light enough to be practical for small game the accuracy was not there in a 50 caliber. The accuracy load for the SB barrel was 100+ gr of powder.  The accuracy was so poor at 25 yards with lighter loads that it would hit a squirrels head only about 1/3 the time at this distance.
I can and have killed rabbits at 40 yards with a 50 caliber flintlock with head shots. Why 40 yards? Because where I live its often as close as you get. Why would I need or even want a shotgun? If someone can get a 50 caliber SB with 180 grains weight of shot to kill a rabbit at any significant distance I would be surprised.
This is the advantage of the rifle, ECONOMY. Yes its possible to kill a squirrel or rabbit with a smoothbore. But is is as efficient as the rifle. How much powder and shot does it require to kill a squirrel with a smooth bore compared to a rifle of the typical bore sizes for the time. Even in the 1760s traders were complaining the native use of rifles REDUCED powder and lean sales compared to trade guns.
Muskets/trade guns/low end fowlers were cheap, if they were so great as all around hunting guns why would poor people own rifles instead at 3-4 times the cost?

Dan

[Daryl]

Points made, Dan, and well put.

[northmn]

There have been smoothbores made in smaller calibers.  One contributer mentioned a 38 smoothbore with which he took small game.  As to rabbits at 40 yards, in the western states one encounters them.  Where I am at theres too much brush to see one at 40 yards and have shot a lot of small game at less than 40 feet.  One cannot legaly hunt ducks with a rifle and in some states turkeys must be hunted with shot.  Shooting at squirrels with a rifle may be hazardous in some populated areas and a shot gun is handier.  I also have seen them moving through tree tops where a rifle did not work but where I likely could have gotten one with the smooth bore and shot.  It is not that a rifle may be better in some hands and in some areas, it is that it is ridiculous to claim that a smoothbore is "worthless" considering their popularity and the uses many have for them.   My 25 is much more economical to shoot than my 20 bore, but if I get nothing with it what good is the economy

DP

[Dphariss]

The 50 cal rifle is now in a friends possession.
It was plenty accurate enough for deer at 60 yards with the right load. I would bet 100$ it would shoot 5 shots into 4.5" at this distance with 100 gr and it would put 2-3 into a nice group.  But the externally identical rifle barrel would shoot a lot smaller with 75 gr and will hit a man sized silhouette at 300 yards even though this is not the accuracy load.
I never tested the accuracy of the heavy SB loads at 25 since its pointless from the standpoint of practicality for small game.
I should have shot it at 100 yards I guess but I just can't warm up to 4-5" groups at 50-60 yards. It answered my question after 3-4 range sessions.
The problem is the inevitable fliers. In my experience they will rise up and bite the hunter.
I have no issue with people using smooth bores. Its a choice.
But I put the 50 sb barrel in the rifle because the accounts I continually read did not match my experiences with SBs in various calibers over the years.
A few years ago I shot a match, a pretty easy one, with a new rifle that was not even fully sighted in using a load that was too light it subsequently turned out. I still outshot ALL the scores in the SB match over the same course even though it was not one of my better days. This after being regaled with a "my SB shoots like a rifle" story by one of the competitors the day before. This fallacy is why I went to the trouble of installing a SB barrel in a completed rifle.

The smoothbore, especially if over 20 bore is very effective for some purposes. The shotgun loaded with buckshot has been a standby for close range and/or poor light "social events". They have used for this in one form or another for centuries. Almost 2 years ago I entered the main gate of the USMC Recruit Depot San Diego. There were two young Marines on the Gate. One with a M16 variant and one with a short barreled semi-auto shotgun since they are virtually in San Diego and border the airport, lots of people right outside the wire. A shotgun is a very logical and perhaps the best choice for checking cars at the gate.
But if the Marine is on patrol in Afghanistan the shotgun is not of much use, its just a useless boat anchor.
While many consider the SB to be very versatile I see it as a limited use firearm. Shooting RBs from a SB is like shooting shot from a rifle.
If people live in the east and they shoot deer from blinds and tree stands at 20-30 yards they could just as well use a pistol and save having a long gun in the stand or blind. Most of the animals I shot this year were at SB ranges. Even though I hunt a lot of open country. I tend to hunt areas that give shots under 200 yards


and it usually works.  But even in this piece of state land, which has trees on one side of the creek, shots under 120 are hard to come by.


Though the last shot I had at antelope was 187 yards and I blew it. Forgot to put up the second leaf But it had been a long strenuous stalk that involved running, hill climbing and crawling and the antelope were on the verge of going over a ridge. 1/2 to 1 mile stalks are not unknown BTW and sometimes you gotta run. I LIKE to hunt like this. I could not set in a tree stand or a blind, just as well shoot out a pickup window. But where people live is often a controlling factor.
I have no use for a SB in this context.
I hunt alone and often kill stuff 1/2 to 1 1/2 miles (dumb but I did it last year, hunting was really tough and the hunting God put the deer there...) from the closest point I can drive. So its often a lot of work. Busting my butt for 30 minutes to an hour crawling etc, then missing the shot because I am hunting with a SB because its "cool" is not very satisfying and YES I HAVE DONE THIS but it was a long time ago, relatively,  when I thought a trade gun was "cool". So I hunt with a rifle.
My gripe is the shotgun only spring turkey but I don't hunt turkey though I have a tag... Maybe in the fall.

BTW I have shot rabbits in Iowa with 15 grains of powder in a 32 rifle shooting patched 0 buckshot. Hunting brush piles in the grove using head shots at 15-20 ft. Ball just pokes a hole in their head. What would I gain with a SB in this context? Would I be able to shoot something like a fox (worth 10$ in the late 1960s) at 100-150 with my normal load?  The rifle will do both, the smoothbore is just a rabbit gun in this context.
For a bear at 30 yards? Brown Bess trumps the 32 rifle every time.
Yeah I have had one of these too, a BB Musketoon assembled by Ron Paul. Shoulda kept that one.

Gotta get to the shop and get the radio on, Rush should be on a roll today given the good news.

Dan

[Leatherbelly]

  Dan,
   I'm with you on the long range stuff regarding rifles. Up here we used to have (five years ago) lots of pine woods that were thick as the hair on a dogs back. Now all logged off. Even for deer, the shots are usually really long, like 200 yards or more. So that rules the muzzleloader out of the question,smoothie or rifle.
  Two autumns ago, I was fortunate enough to draw a moose permit for any bull. I looked hard for a good spot to hunt with my sixty two smoothie but found it very frustrating regarding the huge, and I mean huge logging slashes. So I packed a large centerfire with long range capability.I decided to look at an old haunt of mine that was logged 25-30 years ago. Surprise surprise, moose sign everywhere, second growth  pine about 20 foot high.
  I sit and call for moose, no brush busting. Called in a nice bull that evening and shot it at sixty feet, with my suppository gun,Yikes! So getting back to the topic, a smoothbore or smoothrifle would have worked excellent at this game , that being short range and thick brush. Smoothies do have their place in the realm of things, just as rifles do.I enjoy the challenge of the single sighted smooth guns.I like rifles too, but the tradegun/fowler is by far, more fun! Using it to it's limited potential is up to the individual,just stay within it's limited boundaries and your good to go hunting with it.

[northmn]

When one talks of uses you can make a statement for either.  Rifles are kind of frowned on for clay target competition which is kind of fun with a smoothbore.  I enjoy busting a few clays from my home thrower on occasion.  Someday I may have time to get out and shoot a few ducks or a pheasant with a flintlock.  My smooth rifle would work as well as a fowler.  There are a lot of young deer running around now, but I suspect the season will still be limited this year.

DP

[Dphariss]

when one talks of uses you can make a statement for either.  Rifles are kind of frowned on for clay target competition whcih is kind of fun with a smoothbore.  I enjoy busting a few slays from my home thrower on occasion.  Someday I may have time to get out and shoot a few ducks or a pheasant with a flintlock.  My smooth rifle would work as well as a fowler.  There are a lot of young deer running around now, but I suspect the season will still be limited this year.

DP

A friend of mine used to joke about shooting pheasants and such with the comment "they can FLY?"

Sorry just had to put that in, it was always good for a laugh.
I am fully aware of the shotguns pluses and minuses.
My favorite way of shooting game birds is a 22 pistol. I have killed more game birds with a pistol than with either rifle or shotgun. Be its a 22 RF or 54 flint.

I don't hunt waterfowl and can't shoot game birds with anything but a shotgun or longbow now
But I don't shoot stuff  for sport or challenge, I don't fly fish either. I don't think the colonists did either. I know my Dad didn't during the Great Depression. When his father bought him a gun to hunt with it was not a shotgun. It was a SS Winchester in 22 short. Cheap but effective. He shot a lot of rabbits and such with it.
He was a fine shotgun shot as well but only hunted birds with them. He killed enough geese for the whole neighborhood in rural Missouri once with a 97 Win and a Parker double. Whistled to get their heads up then gave them both barrels with the Parker and emptied the 97 into them as then rose from the water. He was not interested in sport.
I know how to feed myself with a smoothbore if I need to but I just consider them too limited in usefulness. 
BUT this is personal choice. MY choice is not necessarily the correct one for everyone else.
My initial posting here was to put forth ideas/opinion give my views on the subject of smooth rifles.

Dan

[arkrivco]

I might not know a lot about muzzleloaders; but fishing is a different story.  With all due respect, the only way to fish in the colonial days was with a fly rod as casting reels did not exist.  Read the Orvis books and there are many accounts of rich colonists setting up lanterns on their favorite waters to attract bugs which attracted the bluegills so prevalent in southern waters.  And they would "fly fish"(more like "dapping") and hammer them.

arkrivco

[Daryl]

Dapping with dapping flies (English term) is a correct term, adkrivco. I've an English fly tying book with many of the old "Dapping" patterns. Long & very heavy rods (for Salmon in England), with a line the length of the rod or perhaps just a bit longer.  Green Hart (apparently) was popular.

[northmn]

Just for kicks I looked up a history of fly fishing and a reference was made about it in ancient Macedonia.  This was a from a book written by a Roman in about 100AD or so. There was another reference to fly fishing in the Mideval times.  What I think is interesting is that we seem to attribute the colonists with hunting as a necessity for survival or as a means of adding to the larder.  If one looks at the fowlers and other equipment, they seemed to like to go out and have a little fun like we do today.  As that equipment was the latest and greatest of the times, they did not go out for the "challenge" like we do today but I am sure a lot for enjoyment.  If I add up what it costs to get a fish or a deer today I could likely eat top cuts of steak or lobster for less.  Yet I go.  I like to hunt wild pheasants but could get by cheaper going to game farms.   I wonder about back then

DP

[doug]

 This begs a question that I have been wanting to ask and one of the reasons I joined the forum so I could ask it.
  
  My question is, what is you all's experience with “long range” accuracy with the smooth “rifle”?  Do you find you can hit generally as well as a rifled gun out at distance ?

     I have one in 5 guage complete with front and rear sights and double set triggers.  It seems to shoot fairly straight out to about 100 yards but I have noticed it seems to drift sideways quite a bit at 200.  I am not saying that I hit what I was aiming at but that the ball struck more or less in line at 100 and several feet to one side at 200.  

     It is some years since I have shot the gun partly because I develop a flinch at times and partly because it goes through so much powder and lead.  A .935 round ball weighs roughly 3 oz.  (1200 grains)

cheers Doug

[doug]

     Worth mentioning that I have seen several trade guns with a rear sight chopped into the barrel with a cold chisel and a small notch in the center of the fin of metal that was lifted up.  They must have been used as smooth rifles at least part of the time or they would not have had a rear sight

cheers Doug

[Daryl]

I hold that the larger the ball, the greater the accuracy potential.  Being able to utilize or prove that potential is another thing.  We know that some fairly accurate long range shooting was done and has been done with 3" and larger cannons, much better than could be done with a musket at the same range, ie: 1,000 yards, therefore the bore size 'potential' statement.

We had a fellow hit a steel plate at 140yards with a 20 bore smoothbore - aimed right at it and used 140gr. of 2F - straight luck? Probably, but he hit it and if somone was going to hit it, it would be him. His normal 'trail' scores usually beat most of the rifle scores on the same course of fire.

He and the the fellow who always 'tests' him beat all the rifle scores on a metalic silhouette course of fire, to 100 yards.

Since the question was is a smoothbore as accurate over the same ranges as a rifle - not a chance - ever, even at 25 yards, yet a smoothbore will shoot an inch at 25 yards. A smoothbore just won't hold that ratio of accuracy at 50 yards or further, whereas a rifle can. An inch at 25, is 2" at 100 & I daresay NO smoothbore can do that more than once on an absolutely lucky day.   2" is about twice the size of many of the groups I've shot from my favourite rifle at the same range - it usually runs 1" to 1 1/2" for 5 shots on a calm day. 

[northmn]

Even ML cannons were rifled toward the end of that type of artillery use.  A smoothbore has its place, but if you are shooting at any distance the rifle is better.  One reason I mostly deer hunt with a rifle is that I get more than a few shots over 75 yards.  I have started to change my hunting style, as I have gotten deer with traditional bows, but it is easier when I can set up where I can see farther.  I could still on a open shot be prety confident of getting deer consistantly with my smooth rifle, BUT, I am very particular about loading it. I double check the ball and weigh them, and load with the parting line from the mold up.  I am going to mark the mold and use that for an index.  It is a short started load and I am careful about not damaging the ball.  In my 58 rifle,  at 75 yards I could load about any ball casted with finger pressure and get similar results to the smoothbore. 
A good rifle shot, with a smaller bore rifle, as in up to and including a 45, could if laws permitted, live off the land very comfortably.  I have shot grouse in the head during deer season with deer rifles.  Same for rabbits.  But laws permitting, I have also played with large shot like BB shot, and have found it to be effective also.  I have known of poachers who have taken deer with duckloads by shooting them in back of the head at close range.  In the Rainy River area, they have claimed that many NWTG's were found loaded with shot.  Many were dug out  of the river which may have meant waterfowl hunting, but the Natives using them were also hunters of opportunity.  I also suspect that a few fur bearers were taken with shot loads as they do not tear up pelts so badly and a few deer. Probably hunting out of birchbark canoes, which is also why they were found in the bottoms of the river as they are a bit tippy.  As we also have moose in the area round ball were used from the NWTG's on them and deer.  A large number of NWTG's had rear sights of sorts fashioned.  Rear sights are not all bad for shot either.  Considering that the local Anishinabe drove the Lakota out of the Nortern regions of Minnesota in 1790 the NWTG had that type of use also.    Dan has commented on Native use of rifles, but evidence is overwhelming that in the Great Lakes region, the natives used trade muskets.  One consideration, however, is that it is possible that NWTG's were a sort of starter weapon for some and as they were able to accumulate wealth, like we do, some may have moved up to trade rifles also.  The fur trade was such that what was desired was what was made available.  A NWTG cost 20 beaver pelts.  A rifle???  Still once a firearm was acquired it was easier to then harvest more pelts for trade. 
When one looks at the role of the smoothbore in the Great Lakes region, once appreciates its versatility as used by a people that truly lived off the land.  As I ahve stated, if I ahd one ML, it would likely be a smoothbore with sights, probably wither a 16 or 12 bore.

DP   

[bob in the woods]

The folks here who win matches with smoothbores against rifles, win because they are better shots than the rifle guys/gals. If they used rifles, they'd win with higher scores. I never claim that my NE 10 bore is more accurate than my .40 or .54 or .62 rifles. It is however, accurate enough for my purpose of hunting here , where a 25 yd shot is more often the rule. I use it 'cause I like it, and it works. If I need the range, I will take a rifle. That's the reason I built my Edward Marshall Chamber's .62 cal for moose hunting. By summer's end, I hope to have it worked out for up to a 200 yd shot [ maximum }which is  possible, though unlikely in our area.

[bob in the woods]

I love my smoothbores. That said first !  Putting things in context, if off alone in a survival survival situation, I'd pick a shotgun for defense.......but re: eating ,  a .22 RF rifle would keep me well fed. One brick is 500 rounds, and it takes up little space. Here is an example. My great Grandfather, Great Uncle, homesteaded in N.W. Ontario
[ Vermillion Bay area ]  Woods, lakes etc. They owned 30-30 's and .22 RF.  Never owned a shotgun.
Moose, bears were usually taken with the 30-30 but everything else was .22 That included ducks and geese ,partridge, beavers, etc.   Life was pretty tough, and I sstill remember as a kid how hard it was to get my Uncle to take a day off and take us fishing. If he went, it was to get fish, and that usually involved a net
When it was time for a moose, he went and got one. With as little fuss as possible, which meant from the boat in one of the bays close to home. When I think about subsistence living, I remember my relatives just trying to make do.
Now, move over to the prairies...my other side of the family were out in Manitoba. Different county, no moose there but lots of deer, and birds galore. They did have a shotgun and used it for birds , fox and deer, but they still had and used .22RF a lot. [ even deer if the opportunity came up ]  Funny thing, because you'd think that being open space and all, they'd choose the rifle, but the deer held in the stands of woods, or creek/river bottoms so long shots weren't a real issue.
Picking one gun only sure sucks !!!!!