Habu,
My apology for not being more clear that your shooting was for accuracy of the first round and overall accuracy. I tried to make that clear, but I may not have explained that well enough.
Thanks for the clarification on the erosion at the breech. I wasn’t sure if the powder charge kept the patched ball ahead of the corroded area or not.
Your information on how the wind affected accuracy points out it was just as important, if not a little more important, to be able to judge the effects of wind to hit a man size target at further ranges.
What I really got excited about was your description of how you sighted the rifle at the different ranges. This provides “real world” information on HOW a rifle could hit at longer ranges,
Your mention that the limitations of the period sights caused one to get less accuracy out of the rifle than it would otherwise been capable of, does not surprise me in the least.
As I mentioned in earlier posts, I’ve been discussing this thread with a person who is a better shot than I and has an impressive background in both NSSA and RB shooting and has won a lot of Gold and Silver medals at both Regional and the World Championships of the International Muzzleloading Committee, where for many years the only guns one was allowed to shoot were original guns. Just a few weeks ago, he was telling me about an original flintlock Longrifle of about the 1820 time period he bought/traded for in the early 80’s at a very good price because someone had drilled the barrel for adjustable sights. (Yes, he considered if blasphemous as most of us would. Grin.) Since the rifle no longer had the original sights and because it was already in that condition, he decided to put Olympic Style sights on it and took it out and shot it at what turned out to be a maximum range of 535 yards.
He mentioned that once they figured out the windage, he and others averaged hitting a man sized silhouette 7 to 8 times out of 10 BECAUSE the sights were that good. Of course, after that testing, he took those sights off, plugged the screw holes in the barrel and put “legal” original type sights on the rifle to shoot it in International Competition.
To Everyone,
There was an episode on the Battle of Shiloh on the History Channel within the past couple of weeks that brought out something VERY important to accurate shooting and combat effectiveness, that was just as true in the Rev War. This goes against the original quotes about how Rangers or Riflemen could “subsist on a handful of parched corn per day, along with good water and remain in robust health for long periods of time.” It doesn’t matter if the original person/s who wrote that were exaggerating or believed the exaggerations of others, it just wasn’t true even then.
Nutritionists from that History Channel Show pointed out that one needs between 3,000 and 3,500 calories per day for sustained defensive combat while for sustained offensive combat, one needs about 5,000 calories per day. As an example of modern combat rations, the “C Rats” meals my generation used right up to modern MRE meals have about 1,200 calories per meal. They were and are SUPPOSED to have been issued for a maximum of 21 days before better “hot rations” are served, but many of us remember eating them for longer periods than that right up to the early 90’s in Somalia.) They pointed out that the Confederate Soldiers had “used up” the calories they had on the first day of the battle in offensive combat and were therefore not physically capable of delivering the “knock out blow” on the first day. Thus, a handful of parched corn and water will NOT keep one in effective fighting condition for very long and especially not in offensive combat. .
If one looks at the diet British Soldiers got here in the French and Indian War and the Revolution, it was of far better nutritional value and overall number of calories than what Americans (including Riflemen) often got. Though it may not have significantly changed the outcomes of some or even most of the battles of the Rev War, the general lack of good rations often were a key factor in the Americans not doing as well as the British.
One of the best examples of combat fatigue from extended marching and lack of food was when Horatio Gates foolishly and against the advice of his subordinate commanders, decided to march into South Carolina through Loyalist controlled lands. His army not only was not very combat experienced, but what made it worse was rations had been and were very low. Gates wound up marching his men right up to their physical limits while promising them great food and Rum when they got near Camden while KNOWING there were no such rations available. THEN to make things MUCH worse, the night before the battle, the only thing the Americans had to eat was green corn AND Gates issued molasses instead of the Rum he had promised them. That led to rampant dysentery and destroyed the American’s combat effectiveness even though they outnumbered the British. American Infantry, Artillery and Rifleman most assuredly were nowhere near as accurate as they otherwise might have been and lost the Battle of Camden, even though they outnumbered the British.
Gus
