Colonial Myths

[Steamingspud]

Hey guys,
Not sure if this was covered, I'm still looking through the forum archives.
I belong to a frontiersman reenactment group, and we love black powder shooting. Being a camping group, we have camp fire talk of shooters of the age, involving tall tales and myths that we don't get around with ever testing.

SO, first myth I'm sure a lot of you have heard of, the 400 yard shot. This was apparently done with a caliber larger than .50, and I even heard talks of knocking a mason jar off a fence post. Whether the shot hit the post and not the jar is another small argument.

Second, a legendary 2.00 caliber rifle. This was built by a legend in himself, Bofox. A short bald guy dressed in deerskins and apparently flosses his teeth with a flaming bistle whip. I have a picture of him, but the rifle isn't as clear as I wish it was. The story goes he loaded his rifle while running toward the range on a Seneca run, a myth in itself.

Third is the 9 second load. I know guys who load rifles reeeeaally fast, especially smooth bores. Personally I haven't tried to load fast besides out the back of a golf cart on the way to a range. The original revolutionary backwoodsmen claimed to be able to fire their first shot and within nine seconds fire a second shot. I don't think I have ever or will ever see one that fast, but maybe some of you out there have.

Fourth, a book that we received on joining the group I'm in tells of how a frontiersman lost the flint off his rifle while hunting and used the flash coming from the pan in his flintlock pistol to set off the rifle and killed his game.

Fifth and last I'm gonna bother with, this is a two part debate. One guy said this was a true story. Back when civil war reenactments weren't as safe as they should be, an infantryman loaded his rifle on the field realizing he had not loaded at camp, but because people were shooting pictures, he rushed the load and left his ramrod in the barrel. Shooting up into the air and not remembering that he left his rod loaded, his rod went across the field and hit another member in the shoulder. He was knocked to the ground and someone stopped the entire fight because they thought he had been hit critically. Not sure of all the details of the recognition of the hit, but apparently he got up and walked away without a scratch.
The second part of that myth was at my first black powder shooters safety course. The instructor mentioned that you should 1 always check for your ramrod after loading and 2 never use a too short ramrod for the mistake of leaving the rod in the barrel and forgetting it as it isn't sticking out. One instance that was said was that a ramrod was shot and lodged so far into a sandpile that only a few inches stuck out. 'Smart talk' by the younger ones was made of if you could kill two men with one ramrod since the redcoats were in such close columns.

I'd like to reassure you, all of these are myths. Most of the stories, even of modern myths, went from ear to ear before being told to myself. So if you doubt any of this, yea. It probably didn't happen exactly that way. But I'm asking which of these do you think is possible?
Just have fun, maybe I'll test a few someday.

[SCLoyalist]

Okay, I'll bite:
1.  The 400 yd shot.  Possible.    A 50 cal roundball has a max theoretical range of around 1100 yds. The bullet's got to go somewhere.   How often could such a shot be repeated?  Not often.
2. A 2 caliber rifle -  Dunno.  How big were wall guns and swivel mounted  guns meant for carrying away ship's rigging?   If my math is right, a 2.00 cal rifle would throw a 12000 gr ball.   The biggest bore I ever heard of for carrying and shooting offhand was a 4-bore, used against elephants, and it hurt the shooter about as bad as the pachyderm.
3. Nine second reload?  Maybe for a smoothbore if you dumped the load  (with undersized ball) down the barrel, didn't take time to ram, and had the vent enlarged where a little powder from the main charge  would spill out into the pan for priming.  I've heard the Brits used to do that.
4.  No flint.  No way. Why didn't the bozo just take the flint out of pistol and put into the rifle lock?
5.  Shooting ramrod-have heard of ramrods getting launched when shooter gets flustered, seen it once.   SCL

[jmforge]

Okay, I'll bite:
1.  The 400 yd shot.  Possible.    A 50 cal roundball has a max theoretical range of around 1100 yds. The bullet's got to go somewhere.   How often could such a shot be repeated?  Not often.
2. A 2 caliber rifle -  Dunno.  How big were wall guns and swivel mounted  guns meant for carrying away ship's rigging?   If my math is right, a 2.00 cal rifle would throw a 12000 gr ball.   The biggest bore I ever heard of for carrying and shooting offhand was a 4-bore, used against elephants, and it hurt the shooter about as bad as the pachyderm.
3. Nine second reload?  Maybe for a smoothbore if you dumped the load  (with undersized ball) down the barrel, didn't take time to ram, and had the vent enlarged where a little powder from the main charge  would spill out into the pan for priming.  I've heard the Brits used to do that.
4.  No flint.  No way. Why didn't the bozo just take the flint out of pistol and put into the rifle lock?
5.  Shooting ramrod-have heard of ramrods getting launched when shooter gets flustered, seen it once.   SCL

There were 2 bore rifles that were fired from the shoulder for sure.  As for the ramrod thing, there is a company that make steel cored wood "unbreakable" ramrods and they have a puicture of the one ramrod that was sent back to them after it broke.  It was allegedly recovered 50 yards downrange   As for the 9 second reload, I guess that you could have just torn off the end of a paper cartridge and stuff the whole thing down the barrel.  Some stuff that I have read recently claims that their were only two grades of powder in the late 1700's so, priming powder and the standard loading drill said you primed from the cartridge and then loaded, so no need to prime maybe if you have a large flash hole.  The gun was

[Dphariss]

Col Hangers 400 yard dead horse has to be pretty well taken as he wrote it. He was a military officer and a rifleman. He was very familiar with the area. See pages 76 and 77 of "The Frontier Rifleman" By LaCrosse.

In my limited experience in shooting a 50 cal with 75 grains of powder at 300 yards I can say that even with the wind blowing perhaps 10 mph I can hit a man sized target 1 in three shots once the kentucky windage and elevation are found. From the penetration in a tree at that distance I can assure you it will produce a fatal wound.

400 I have never tried but I know a man who was able to hit a 30-36" steel "gong" target at about 500 with some regularity once the hold over was found on the tall rimrock backstop. He wrote it up in an "Buckskin Report" back in the 1970s I could look it up I suppose, or call him, he was using a 54 caliber.

Washington had some very heavy "wall rifles" made that shot very well indeed to what was at the time long range 4-500 yards. These had bores of about 1" and would have used a ball of 2 to 4 to the pound I suspect.
I cannot find a citation right at the moment.
I think a similar rifle is in "Rifles of Colonial America".
Books are downstairs and once down their I am going to bed.
With a paper cartridge I can likely get a reload in 10 seconds and it is pretty accurate.

Dan

[Dale Halterman]

I don't see why you couldn't use a pistol to ignite the prime in the pan of a rifle. Just prime the pistol and hold it upside down over the open and primed pan of the rifle.

As the Bevel Brothers demonstrated a few years ago, an upside down flintlock will still fire.

But, as SCL said, why not just take the flint out of the pistol and put it in the rifle?

As far as shooting a ramrod out of a rifle, I have done it. Once. Never did find it.

Oh, yeah. Make sure you aren't confusing a 2.00 caliber gun with a 2 bore (or 2 gauge) gun. Big difference. Not that I have fired either.

Dale H

[SCLoyalist]

Wikipedia has an entry for 'wall guns' :
A wall gun's barrel could be as long as 54 inches with a bore of at least 1 inch. This made them more accurate than the standard flintlock or matchlock musket. George Washington acquired several wall guns during the American War of Independence; tests showed that they were capable of hitting a sheet of common writing paper at 600 yards.

Now, a 1 inch bore would shoot a roundball of approximately 1500 grains.  If it were a 2" diameter bore, the weight would go up to 12000 gr.  Interestingly, since wall guns were apparently capable of hitting such  small targets at 600 yds, the entry also applies to the 400 yd 'myth.'

[Don Getz]

A muzzleloading roundball hitting an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of paper at 600 yards??    Sorry, I'm from "Missouri", you'd have to show me before I would believe that.   ......Don

[Dphariss]

A muzzleloading roundball hitting an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of paper at 600 yards??    Sorry, I'm from "Missouri", you'd have to show me before I would believe that.   ......Don

I think we need to consider how large a sheet of "common" writing paper was in the 1770s.
IIRC it is significantly larger than what we expect today.
There has to be someone out there that knows.
Dan

[Dphariss]

A quick search turned up this.

http://www.autographmagazine.com/tabid/76/itemid/394/Pen-Paper--Ink.aspx

It seems to indicate that a sheet of writing paper could be as large as 12x18.

A poster on another site has said that 16x20 was common. But since it was all hand made sizes vary.

This was what I was thinking since I recall that paper was made in sheets that would make 4 +- of todays 8.5x11. But I needed some "backup" before posting.

Dan

[SCLoyalist]

Seems like anytime I've seen replicas of the Declaration of Independence, the sheet was around  12X18, not 8.5X11.  However, even if paper back then was 3X3 ft, hitting it consistently at 600 yards ain't too shabby, IMHO.

Reckon would a big bore 2 cal or whatever have been loaded with a lead or iron ball?  A 2" dia lead ball would weigh around 12000 grains, but at calibers that large we're starting to transition to the realm of artillery, which I believe were loaded with iron, not lead.

[Dphariss]

The wall guns did not have 2" bores. They were, IIRC about .90 to 1.0". A .95" bore would shoot something in the realm of a 4 bore (4 ounce) ball.
Iron balls if this size would greatly hamper the long range performance.

Dan

[northmn]

Myths or facts can sometimes get a little confusing.  Allen Eckert wrote a series of interesting books, but described Simon Kenton as shooting a wild turkey in the head at 300 yards.  I think Eckert tried to describe events as accurately as he knew them while still trying to make a story out of hisorical events.  Somewhere he must have assumed that a ridiculous shot like that was commonplace among the frontiersmen.  Zane Grey described how Lew Wetzel poured powder in his hand, carefully eyed it then hit a tack at 100 yards, etc.  Stories lose nothing in the retelling.  If you shoot enough times at a turkey at 300 yards, quatum mechanics state that a shot will hit one in the head over time with enough shots.  Doing it once does not mean it can be replicated.
As to fast loading, the natives that ran buffalo on horseback for sport were described as putting ball in their mouth, pouring powder out of the horn, spitting the ball down the muzzle and thumping the butt stock on the saddle. If the touch hole as big enough it likely self primed the fusil.  They also claimed that a few barrels were burst doing this.  Not a very safe activity, but probably very fast and might make 9 seconds.  Accuracy was no issue as they shot point blank.  Some buffalo also nailed a few natives.
As to other myths, most of their basis may be based on a one time happening which seem to somehow get established as commonplace.  As stated, you might be able to set off another weapon with the priming from another but you aren't going to hit anything with it.

DP

[doug]

The wall guns did not have 2" bores. They were, IIRC about .90 to 1.0". A .95" bore would shoot something in the realm of a 4 bore (4 ounce) ball.

     My 5 guage with a bore of .95 shoots a .935 round ball that weighs roughly 1200 grains. 

     Farthest I have heard for a recovered ramrod was about 100 or so yards and was one of those flexible plastic ones.  I have seen a solid brass one shot and it struck about 1 1/2 feet low at 50 yards.

      I don't think the length of ramrod sticking out is that important; in my experience it is how much attention the shooter is paying to what he/she is doing or whether or not they are distracted at the last moment of loading.

      firing the rifle using a pistol flash; a couple of times I have used a sideways rifle to fire a loaded second gun with a broken lock (in order to empty it)  Maybe a person in a stand or blind with a deer at very close range might consider firing their gun with a pistol so as not to miss a shot but that myth seems suspect.

cheers Doug

[J.D.]

I seem to remember reading that Walter Kline fired at a man size target at 600 yards, hitting it 5 or 6 times out of 10 shots, with an original flint rifle. IMHO, I would have to see it to believe it.

As to firing a rifle lock using the flash from a pistol lock, why not just shoot the deer with the pistol?

[Dan]

File this under trivia but there is documented research which finds an anomaly with a 1" caliber RB.  For reasons not especially important they exhibit an extraordinarily low coefficient of drag at subsonic velocities.  Not saying it magically appears at that diameter only, but it is a substantial change as compared to a .50 caliber.  See "Modern Exterior Ballistics" by Robert McCoy.  Such bores may well deserve special consideration in context of long range capabilities.

[ottawa]

if remember right at a Roddy when i was a kid a gentlemen showed us one of the dangers of not having a flash guard on our ML besides blasting the guy next to you in line if you were too close this could happen one ML flash setting off another but he demonstrated with a left and right handed ML as two right handed would not be facing each other unless you were facing  back to back beside each other

[Roger Fisher]

Hmm flash guards are good and I use them..  Right hander to Left hander on the shooting line can see that the flying debris out of one on ignition could set off the other shooters piece if he is in the act of priming, and also his priming device.  Once the frizzen is closed I don't see the premise.  Said debris can and often does fly a good 12 feet or more.

[Wyoming Mike]

About twenty years ago I was at a shoot not far from where I lived.  We were shooting at paper targets at about 70 yards.  A fellow stepped up to the line and fired.  He was shooting a borrowed CVA .58 Big Bore.  The ball hit the ground about four feet in front of the backboard.  I fired next and was starting to reload when the fellow started cussing.  It seems he left the ramrod in the barrel when he fired.

After the shoot was finished myself and another person, the one who loaned the rifle,  walked down to see if we could find the ramrod.   We found it on the other side of the backboard.  The backboard was made of rubber reenforced belting.  The ramrod had gone through the belting and buried itself a couple of inches in the berm.   The wooden ramrod broke in two going through the belting.  It definitely had enough force a 70 yards to cause sever injury to someone if it hit them.

[SR James]

As to fast loading, the natives that ran buffalo on horseback for sport were described as putting ball in their mouth, pouring powder out of the horn, spitting the ball down the muzzle and thumping the butt stock on the saddle.


I always wondered how they did that without breaking off all their teeth on the muzzle while galloping on the back of a horse.

[bob in the woods]

Teeth?? I thought most adults didn't have teeth in those pre brushing days

[Mike R]

Teeth?? I thought most adults didn't have teeth in those pre brushing days

...it was a requirement of most military forces in the 18th cent that recruits had to have at least 2 teeth--one upper and one lower, to bite off the end of the paper cartridges...an indication that many folks did lose their teeth...

[northmn]

I have wondered the same thing about losing teeth.  Again they may have spit the ball in their hand and then loaded.  Can't really say as I need both hands to stay on a d--n horse.  Remember an exhibition by a cavalry re-inactment group where one or two cavalry men fell off at the charge.  Bet that was more common than we think in the old days.  Cannot remember the general who said it but the Commanches were called the greatest light cavalry he had ever seen.
As to shooting ramrods, its been done.  Falsemuzzles for target rifles came with a sight block to prevent them from being shot downrange.  Would guess in a tight situation for fastloading a gent might shoot the ramrod off if up close and his life was endangered by whatever. 

DP

[SR James]

As an archaeologist who works a lot with human remains, I can tell you that in prehistoric Native American remains, the teeth are often more sound in the earlier groups than among those after the introduction of horticulture, especially corn.  The sugars in corn resulted in far higher rates of tooth decay than among the earlier hunting and gathering groups.

Teeth or no teeth, I stil wouldn't want to stick a gun muzzle in my mouth while riding full tilt on horseback.

[Pete G.]

I have seen it written (somewhere I can't remember) that you are not an experienced black powder shooter unless you have:
1. Loaded a ball with no powder
2.Loaded two charges, one atop the other, and
3. Fired your ramrod downrange.

I've gotten 1 and 2 down pretty well over the last 35 years. When I get #3 I guess I'll be "Experienced".

[Dale Halterman]

Two out of  three. I'm getting there.

Dale H