The Red Coats are Coming--Long Range Flintlocking

In honor of the 235th anniversary of Paul Revere's Ride, and the battle's at Concord and Lexington (April 19th, 1775), and because it was a good excuse to get the flintlocks out, my friends and I had a "Red Coat Shoot" today. We put up a couple British-soldier-like targets at 200 and 300 yards and tested our marksmanship. None of us are Tim Murphy, but we had fun. This is the second time we have done this--the first time was last year for the 4th of July. We don't keep score and the only rules are you have to shoot a flintlock & round balls.

At 200 hundred yards any British soldier was in serious danger and the vast majority of our shots were good torso hits. With my .50 cal. I was 5 for 5 and the balls fell about 25 to 30" from where they hit at 100. My friends with .54's and .58's did just about as well. Windage was more a problem than elevation.

At 300 yards everything was a problem! That extra 100 yards made a huge difference and trying to get the elevation right with swirling wind conditions was tough, at least for me. I fired 15 shots at 300 and connected with only 4, but did hit with three of my last 5. Five of us all managed a few hits and Roger was the definite "winner" at 300. He got his big .58 figured out and was getting good body hits 80 or 90% of the time. We figured the drop at 300 was 6 to 10 feet, depending on caliber and load. When I finally connected a couple times at 300 I was holding over the white X about 7 to 8 feet! And the wind was tough--we had a couple hits on the left target that were aimed at the right. Barry had the right idea--when asked which target he was shooting at, he said, "Whichever one I hit!"

We had a good time and have even greater respect for those Revolutionary riflemen who helped win our independence.

the targets from the firing line--


Roger takes a shot at 300--


Barry and Eric fire away--



Three of our rifles, with Jim Chamber's locks and Getz barrels--a .50, a .58 and a .54--and all built by Barry in the last two or three years--


The targets at 200--


And the targets at 300. We had a few shots at 300 that missed the paper entirely and were mysteries... After "round 1" we taped over the holes and tried again... Notice that at 300 there were a lot of near misses--half a dozen shots right between the targets and a bunch low (that would have hit the legs, I guess).

Looks like fun..

Chris,
It was a great idea and lots of fun! :thumbsup: As you say 200 yards wasn't all that much of a challenge, so that's why there were far fewer shots fired at the shorter distance.

I fully expected to be handicapped by the .58's trajectory at 300 compared to the .50 and .54s, but the wind seem to have much more affect on the smaller bores at the longer distance.

There was shifting wind and mirage, so generally 2 or 3 "spotters" behind spotting scopes for each shot. A shift in the wind could easily cause one or more of the scopes to be "smoked" and unable to call a shot. The mirage was bad enough at times so as to be unable to see holes in the 300 yard target at all. :idunno:

What sort of power charge were you guys using for those long shots?

I've looked in the past for Redcoat targets. Are those just red silhouettes with white athletic tape across them?

I found them by accident last year at Cheaper than Dirt and thought they would make a nice "red coat." They are just red colored B-27 targets--the same thing we used to shoot in the Sheriff's Dept. when I was a deputy years ago. And, yes, that's just white duct tape from Wal-Mart.

I was shooting a .50 with a .480 ball and .023 cotton/canvas patch and 90 grains of Goex3F. I think the bigger bores were shooting more, but don't know for sure.

Great shooting. But I think you guys were cheating a little bit with the white tape. It definitely gave you a good POA :v

Those are some great looking rifles. I am jealous. My FL's do not look anything like that. Tom.

I think that Barry and Mark were using 90gr Swiss fffg in the 54s and Roger 105gr Goex fffg in his 58. I was shooting 120gr KIK ffg in my 58, and never wiped between shots or cleaned until after 20+ shots when I was done for the day.

As for the white tape, it was anything but an aiming point. We were all aiming well over the backboards to drop the PRBs in on target.

YA, you got me on that one. I never thought about that. :grin: :grin: Tom.

Sounds like a great shoot...I'm hoping to shoot my .62cal smoothbore on the anniversary tomorrow...if I do, it'll mean that a longbeard got too close :grin:

Looks like a great time was had. Some fun!

Looks like fun. :thumbsup: GW

I just finished reading a statement by a british officer....he said that the American riflemen were "good for the head at 200 yards and the torso at 300 yards". I was going to do the same experiment! Thanks for the pics. Paul

considering the limitations of the system, that's pretty good results, and remember that these folks were shooting at a massed target- lots of redcoats shoulder to shoulder.

as regards the british officer's assertions that you could make a 'head shot' at 200 yards... well, as a practical matter, most of the troops i worked with couldn't make a head shot at two hundred meters with modern equipment, so i guess the standards have fallen, or the british officer wanted to exaggerate the dangers he faced at the hands of us nasty colonials.

just one guys opinion.

Looks like a lot of fun....wish I was there with you guys!

Nothing quite like guesstimating at long range with good 'ol Kentucky windage & elevation!

Nice story & photos--thanks for sharing!

Dave

What, no offhand shots!?? :blah:

I know even in the field Hangar mentions American riflemen firing from the prone position, so the bench isn't too far off. Can you imagine the reaction of soldiers and officers at 300 yards if even a few of those shots hit their mark - and, as someone mentioned, you'd have been firing at a mass - a line or column of infantry?

I doubt trained troops would have cut and run, but it would certainly affect morale!

You probably wouldn't have need the extra 100 between 200 and 300 considering the enemy's smoothbore muskets had a much more limited range. You could probably steal a hit or two at 300, but given the short supply of powder and shot many of these guy experienced on the American side, they probably found a comfortable range and took their shots from that distance rather than trying the stretch it to the max, but waste ammunition in the effort.

It seems to me the rifles are more demoralizing than truly stopping of a large offensive when targeting normal troops. The real danger seems to reside in the targeting of officers and generals, the loss of which can indeed halt a large offensive.

I'm getting the hankering to try long range shooting once again, and I thank you for the encouragement.

The description of your sighting technique fits my original efforts. But I'm going to try something different this time. Call it the "Elmer Keith" technique: Raising the front sight in the notch while maintaining your aiming point, rather than raising the aiming point. I tried it with handguns, and was downright amazed how well it worked- much better than merely holding over. I could see scribing a line across the flat face of your front sight once you had things zeroed in.

Old Elmer was really on to something! Doing it his way gives the shooter a known aiming point or "point of repeatability" where you're starting with a known instead of an unknown.

Great idea, and works to this day with all sorts of firearms!

Yeah. I got all whinged out at 300 yards by exploding groups, figuring there was some kind of "knuckle ball" effect going on. Others here encouraged that line of thinking, but I suspect I got caught up in keyboard ballistic theorizing in listening to them.

Operator error is a more likely explanation, and anything I can do to improve my own precision is needed at longer ranges. Elmer likely provided the answer.