Dan, your comments are going to set some folks off. Part of the limitations on field accuracy with smoothbores is due to the use of competition guns that have to conform to the silly ass rules concerning no rear sights. They may have been built that way but the users often put a form of rear sight on them. More originals have been found to have rear sights added than didn't. I love smoothbores, and if limited to one gun would have a smoothbore 12 gauge. On the other hand I am building a 12 gauge now that likely will not see a deer. I am not limited to one gun and will use my 54 rifle on deer because I can shoot one farther away and can shoot finer up close. I think smoothbores can add to the challenge in hunting and can be a good choice, but need to be used within closer ranges. People are getting game with them.
DP
If I ruffle some feathers I apologise before hand. But my experience with the smooth bore has been pretty dismal. I am not a shotgun hunter. I don't care for shooting birds or water fowl though in years past I have shot my share of grouse and pheasants with various pistols from 22 rf to 54 flint (its illegal in MT now). I just never liked shooting stuff with small shot. I have always been a rifleman.
I know about sighted smoothbores and those with no rear sight. I have had both. Many original trade guns have rear sights including a sawed off one, butt and barrel cut no front sight now, at the YNP Museum at Mammoth. I stopped at Helena to look at the "Bridger Hawken" and found a 3/4 +- of the trade guns on display have rear sights. Some upset from the barrel with a chisel some are add ons set into the barrel. The 2 I photographed were done in the latter manner.
I am not limited to one gun either. But IMO we collectively have been fed a lot of BS concerning smoothbores. We are told that rifles were virtually unknown in New England but we find the governor of New York mentioning their military use in the 1680s. That the natives used trade guns of one sort or another and they did. But we have accounts that the Indians were buying every rifle they could get their hands on by the F&I war period.
That the Shawnee and Delaware were rifle armed to some significant extent by the 1740s.
I feel the reason the rifle became so prevalent on the frontier was the use of the rifle by natives. It was self defense.
We are told by their proponents that they are far more useful. But this cannot be demonstrated when using a single ball and small shot has limited uses. There are comments from the 1760s that state that the rifle in Indian hands was "prejudicial" to the British due to the way the natives make war and further pointed out that they require less powder and lead and this is bad for trade. By the 1760s there was a concerted attempt to keep rifles from Indian hands. To the point of considering flogging people who sold their rifles to the natives.
Yes there were a lot of smoothbores. There were significant numbers of smooth rifles made and traded to the Indians as well. Whites used smooth rifles too.
But there were a LOT of rifles.
It is impossible to counter people in the woods armed with rifles when you are armed with a smoothbore. This is especially true if the people with the smoothbores are in a fort and the rifle armed people are taking pot shots at them from 150 yards out in the trees and STAY out there. It comes to us from the 1750s that the natives take a rest and "seldom misseth their mark". How are you going to be able to even look over the wall with people out there with rifles unless you have rifles to counter them? Going to shoot "swan shot" at them at 150 yards?
The smooth bore only out performs the rifle in very narrow criteria. Shooting shot or for linear battle tactics which were mortally stupid even in the 1750s. But it was "how it was done". I strongly suspect that this was part of the reason the Militias were known to run during the revolution, they lacked the "discipline" to stand in place and let people shoot them down.
When I was in the military had not yet abandoned what was then called "on line sweeps". I did not like them...
Yet people will use quotes by Rev War American Generals to point out how useless the rifle is when the General simply wanted muskets so he could line up people European style to get shot and the rifleman either would not do it or were ineffective if they did. Thus they wanted muskets and bayonets since they were too bullheaded to use riflemen where they were most effective. In reality were it not for Morgan's Riflemen at the Saratoga battles (especially) and rifle armed troops at other battles who performed critical roles, sometimes small, sometimes significant we might have lost the entire war. It is very doubtful the George Rogers Clark could have taken Vincennes had be been armed only with muskets.
I intentionally built a smooth rifle barrel just to test largely because of the things I have read here and elsewhere. I shot it to the best of my ability at 25 and 50 yards with numerous loads 2 ball sizes, 3 patch thicknesses and FFFG and FFG powder over several days and it will not shoot under 4-5" reliably at 50-55 yards. Under the same conditions on the same day a heavy recoiling rifle will shoot 2" with loads that don't shoot so great (testing wads under the patched ball in this case) and 3/4" with better loads.
So I must ask if shooting solid shot why would someone use a smoothbore? In the words of a friend "if you can hit something with a ball from a smoothbore you can hit it with a ball from a rifle better".
Yes they are "cool" and "different" they can be a lot of fun, but if I had to actually feed and protect myself with a ML it would not be a smoothbore. If I were looking at this from a purely economic standpoint I can eat better armed with a rifle than with a smoothbore. While I can get shots under 50 yards at times I am as likely to have one at 100 or 120.
Smooth rifles had advantages, they did not require as much maintenance as a rifle and they were cheaper to make. Someone wanting a fancy rifle who didn't have any intention of actually using or has such poor eyesight he cannot shoot a gun with any certainty past 20-50 yards no matter how its made or sighted is as well served with a smooth rifle, better since its cheaper.
Just for the record since the 1960s I have owned 1 18 bore double percussion and 4 flintlock smooth bores. a Bess Musketoon, a trade gun, a fowler and now I have a 50 caliber rifle with both rifled and smooth barrels fitted. While I hunted with them all I can count the animals killed on one hand. Shooting solid shot I have had far more misses than hits.
I really liked the Bess but it got traded for something else. I really liked the trade gun except it was totally useless for anything but shooting for fun. Try hunting antelope with one, I have done this as well. Near misses don't count. The fowler had "modern ML quality" barrel and I sold it back to where I bought the parts.
We have Indians of the F&I/Rev war telling people to use smoothbores for war. Some people liked rifles, some liked smoothbores.
I have a friend who told me he killed 3 whitetail in the river bottoms with one shot with a 20 both smoothie using buck and ball. I think he slept at the sight over night and the deer came to him. But I have another friend that shot 4-5 shots as a nice buck and never touched a hair... Kinda like my other friend and the elk.
If you hunt in the east and perhaps from a blind or tree stand the smoothie is probably going to work. I grew up in Iowa BTW. But if you hunt were I often do.
You might find a rifle more useful.
Dan
