My terminology may be off when I'm saying smoothrifle. I'm really including any type made in a TN or Southern style without rifling. Am I wrong that they do show up in VA and other areas during the early 1800s?
Good points. Again, in my opinion it does look like guns without rifling come into favor after the invention of the percussion cap. Perhaps powder was more available and cheaper too. Also machined barrels rather than hand forged. Rifling is pretty simple if you have already spent the time to forge and bore a barrel. I can't help but think the cutting of virgin timber may have even influenced the usefullness of rifle vs. shotguns as far as range of game.
Ken
In the book "1491" it is explained that the early colonial forest was more open than we see today since the natives burnt the underbrush. The author talks of colonists riding in carriages though the forest and there are apparently diaries and such that he gets this from. There is a great deal of info about North and South America in this but NA is not as comprehensive but very interesting just the same.
There were smooth rifles. They were being made fairly late it would seem. Henry was trying to sell them to one for the upper Missouri fur companies. They would not buy them since the indians would not use a smoothbore of that weight. Apparently the whites would not either.
Please bear in mind significant theory and "I think" follows. Nor am I a great fan of smooth "ball guns" so I might be prejudiced.
I have puzzled over this for quite some time. The question: "Why would someone pay for all the features of a golden age Longrifle then have it made smooth?"
The next fly in the ointment is rebored rifles. I am fairly confidant that in later years when the bore became too large for the owners use, the new owner could not shoot a rifle (eyesight or whatever), the original owner lost his ability to see the sights etc, the rifle needed recut and boring was cheaper, they were bored for shot.
Then we have Walter Cline and others boring and rifling or freshing a number of rifles in the early 20th century. This was pretty widespread before ww-II it would seem, getting rifles shootable again as the NMLRA was starting up, some matches really never died and originals were fairly common and cheap.
There ARE fairly small bore smooth rifles. Calibers in the 40s that were likely made that way, #44 in RCA for example. But I really don't see the point. There had to be some reason but I just can't think of what it could be aside from someone who could not see well enough to shoot a rifle, had no real need of a firearm but wanted something that at looked like a rifle.
Remember that what you OWNED was an indication of WHO you were. If someone who was not a shooter for what ever reason wanted a fancy "rifle" with carving etc as an piece of art or something to show off at militia musters, why would he pay for rifling? Every time I look at the Verner rifle #63 in RCA I wonder why he would cut "Rifle" on the patchbox rather than "Gun" if it was made as a smooth rifle. But we will never know. But 40-42 caliber rifles were know by circa 1770 so theoretically it could be a rebore. Its one of the tanatalizing little questions.
People will say that the SB is more practical. But in calibers under 50-54 (or even bigger) and with the AVAILABLE shot and wadding I am not sure this is a valid argument. We virtually all shoot shotguns with modern shot and wads. Using tow for wadding and poor quality cut or tailed shot will greatly change the effectiveness. A 45 caliber rifle will handle most needs in the east in 1770 and provide a massive savings in powder and lead over a 54-62 smoothbore .
I wish someone would do some testing with period shot and wadding. I have read that the shotgun really was not all that effective with the poor quality shot and wads of the mid-1750s.
On one of the historical websites someone posted an account of a group of 1680s French using "Goose shot" shooting several shots at turkeys in trees and the turkeys did not fly away until some had shot 3-4 shots. But they killed no turkeys and the birds finally did fly away.
Finally there were a lot of shooting matches from what I have read and its hard to compete with a smoothbore at 40-60 yards or more if everyone else has a rifle. They generally shot from a rest.
As a side note, sometime after the Civil War, probably in the 1870s there was a turkey match for smoothbores only. One of the gunsmiths in the area scratch rifled a barrel with a lap and coarse emery in his rifling machine. Took the gun to the match resulting in he and the guy with him winning all the turkeys. The rifling was not easily detectable. This is in the "Warner-Lowe papers". It was said that the gun would shoot almost as well as a rifle for 100 shots or so.
Matches are found in journals in the 18th century with varying levels value of being shot for. One at a fort in Rev-War Kentucky was for the lead in the sump used as a backstop. It was like horse racing etc. My rifle is better than yours, matches between makers etc etc.
Dan
