Aiming trade gun like an archer?

[Canuck Bob]

I just studied the replies carefully on my DAH thread.  I think I've guessed wrong on aiming a trade gun so I'm backing up a bit. 

I figured it was more like pointing where a shooter doesn't scrunch down as sighting a Win 94. This came from references to the rear eye as the rear sight.  That sounded like a traditional bow hunter using a gap or instinctive aiming style.  I imagined the head was held a little more erect with the eye centred on the breech but above the flat of the barrel.  The muzzle was aimed but the geometry required holding a gap to the required impact.  I became reasonably accurate to 20 paces snap shooting my 444 to prepare for hunting grizzly country. 

Assuming and not questiong makes a rump outa me!

[rich pierce]

That kind of shooting takes thousands of reps. Expensive.

[Brokennock]

There are similarities to both "instinctive" (I don't love this term as it is a learned skill) and gap shooting with a bow. More like pointing a regular shotgun, or shooting a bow with just one of those pin sights and no "peep" served into the string like they use now. (I shoot longbow and recurve without sights, but used to shoot compound, then recurve, with just pin sights). I say it is more like these and gap shooting because unlike "instinctive" shooting, you are using the front sight as a reference  in relation to a spot on the target. But, your eye is the rear sight because if it is looking at the front sight from a slightly different orientation for shot number 5 than for the 1st 4 shots, even though you held the front sight in the same place, with the same amount of barrel flat showing or not showing, your eye being in a different place, the shot will go astray. This is why gun fit is so important, along with a good consistent cheek weld. It also means body positioning/orientation to the target and clothing can change things as well.

[Daryl]

Shooting a smoothbore with ball, is like shooting a rifle, except that there usually is no rear sight - yes - your eye is the rear sight.
Most guys "sight" their smoothbore when shooting a single ball, by sighting down the upper flat, or if round bl. over the breech putting the bead or blade the requisite
amount higher or lower & on the intended target to hit at whatever range you are shooting.

If you take such a 'flat' sighting and the gun shoots low, you can bend the barrel so it will shoot higher with that 'firm' sighting, with your cheek on the comb
front sight just poking over the breech, or the wedding bands, depending on the taper of your barrel.

If you have to raise your head above the breech to shoot round balls at close range, it will take many more shots to become proficient with it at any range. Much
easier if you take a sight making the centre of breech the rear sight.

Gap shooting is not instinctive shooting with a bow. Gap shooting is aiming, the string is anchored, finger in the corner of your mouth positioning your eye a consistent
space above the arrow.  For whatever range you are shooting, the proper amount of space is held between the arrow's point and the intended target. So - your eye is
the rear sight and the point of the arrow is the front sight - with the proper GAP between the point and the target/.
Do not attempt to shoot your smoothbore in this fashion-- if you want to hit with it.

[Canuck Bob]

Thanks. I played around with a Quick Skill BB outfit as a kid.  A developed version was called Quick Kill for the US Army I believe.  That is what got me thinking as I did plus once being a bow hunter.  I was decent with a traditional recurve to 30 paces using gap.  Never encountered anything deaf or stupid enough to get that close!

Daryl's post lays it out well.  Now I can plan the stock design properly and save the point shooting for an air rifle.

[recurve]

Yes for shotgunning no for rifle.   Most great shotgun shooters do use instinctive type aiming looking over the barrel fixed on the target. But most who want to hit the mark with a rifle need to line up the sights (bullets go a lot further than arrows)

[recurve]

Dale Dye (not the col.)

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

My smoothbore can be quite accurate out to 80 or so yards.  I place the tip of my front sight level with and in the centre of the wedding band on the barrel, and in the centre of the target out to fifty yards.  Past 50, I include space between the tip of the front sight and the barrel, always holding centre on the target.  At 75 yards or so, that height above the wedding band is the full height of the sight down to its base on the barrel.  At 100 yards, the front sight bisects the length of the barrel...the reflection of the sight sits in the centre of the length of the barrel, always tip of the sight in the centre of the target.
I also am a traditional instinctive shooter, and use longbows.

[Daryl]

Yes he does - and too dang well. I can't even come close to him with a long bow.
I can get close with a smoothie - if 5 less hits in 20 shots is close? LOL

[OldMtnMan]

I've shot a longbow forever and use the instinctive method of shooting it. I've never considered it any form of aiming but more like pointing your finger at a target. There's no thought of aiming and all you look at is the target/game.

Some guys never get good at instinctive shooting because they want to aim.

It's like shooting a handgun from the hip. You certainly can't aim when you do that but can become very accurate.

[Daryl]

Exactly, instinctive shooting is not gap shooting.
 Gap shooting is aimed shooting.

[hanshi]

Since my flint smooth bore has a rear sight it gets aimed just like a rifle with either ball or shot.  I went through the " quick skill" training back in my Army days and I guess it might well be called "instinctive" shooting.  Then there are those with talent, in varying degrees.  Some are so good it's difficult not to think it's a trick of some kind.  They are still around; these "Mozarts" of shooting.  Think Annie Oakley, Ed McGivern and Bob Munden; true masters/magicians.

[Notchy Bob]

Canuck Bob,

I did see your thread about trade gun stocks and drop.  Is that the "DAH thread"?

I'll make a leap of faith and assume that the "trade guns" discussed here are specifically Northwest guns.  As these were smoothbores, the native people used shot for small game and birds, and ball for hunting larger mammals.  In his book, On Snowshoes to the Barren Grounds, Caspar Whitney wrote, "Take from the Indian his copper kettle, steel knife, and .30 bore trade gun, in which he uses ball in winter and shot in summer..." (p. 98).  May we consider that the native hunters "pointed" their trade guns like shotguns when they were loaded with shot, and aimed them like rifles when loaded with ball? 

In Uncle Dick Wootton, by Howard L. Conard, Uncle Dick said, "To shoot with any accuracy whatever, the Indian had to have 'a rest' for his gun, and he was always slow about "taking sight'..." (p. 429).  The Cree hunter in the photo below appears to be taking very deliberate aim with his percussion trade gun. If you Look at the picture carefully, you can see that he is using his wiping stick or spare ramrod as a monopod or prop, holding it in his left hand against the stock:



Notchy Bob

[Canuck Bob]

You nailed it NotchyB.  The only smoothbore that interests me at this time is the Trade Gun and DAH is my short form for drop at heel. I'm going to drop it starting now and use the proper phrase.  I do find the master built contemporary english style fowlers from the late 1700s very pleasing to look at and admire. 

What an outstanding picture of a hunter and marksman. A copy is going on my shop wall tomorrow. Is that book worth tracking down?

[Notchy Bob]

Canuck Bob,

Thanks for your comments!

The photograph of the Cree hunter is from a Canadian website, Our Legacy.  There is more detail about the photo here:  Cree Hunter with Gun.  I think the original image is held in the Saskatchewan Archives Board Photo Collection.  I agree, it is a wonderful image.

I mentioned two books.  One was On Snow-Shoes to the Barren Grounds, by Caspar Whitney (1865-1929).  The author was a keen sportsman who traveled the world.  This book documents his trip to the Canadian Arctic in pursuit of musk oxen and wood bison in 1894 and 1895, in the company of a group of Dogrib hunters. It is a fascinating read.  Whitney himself carried a breechloader, but muzzle-loaders were in common use among the native people.  This is an illustration from the book:



You can find old copies or reprints of On Snow-Shoes to the Barren Grounds from Abe Books or Amazon Marketplace, or you can read it online for free, courtesy of Hathitrust: On Snow-Shoes to the Barren Grounds.  Look for the heading "Item Link," and click any of the ones that say "Full View."  The first one, from Yale University, has very clear text.

Uncle Dick Wootton was a real American mountain man, mentioned by name in Ruxton's Life in the Far West.  At a very advanced age, he dictated his memoirs to Howard L. Conard, who published them as a book, "Uncle Dick" Wootton, in 1890.  This book was republished as a very high quality exact facsimile by Time-Life Books in 1980.  I acquired a copy of this many years ago, and still have it.  You might find a copy from one of the sellers mentioned above.  This book is a classic of the old west, and Wootton had much to say in it about the firearms that interest all of us.

Best regards,

Notchy Bob