18th-century accuracy?

I've found very few detailed descriptions of rifle accuracy in the 18th-century literature. They talk a lot about good shooting, tell some impressive tales...killed a horse at 400 yards, shot a board between the knees, broke a head at 200 yards, shot the nose off the king at 150 yards...but exactly what that meant is difficult to come by. Here are a couple with a bit more detail, does anyone have others?

Running Mad for Kentucky
Frontier Travel Accounts, edited by Ellen Eslinger

Journal of John May: 1788”¦.Saturday, May 17 This afternoon I proved my [new] rifle gun----fir’d her 4 times and made excellent shot. 3 times out of 4 I put the ball within 2 inches of the spot which was the bigness of a dollar”¦.

_Indian Captivity: A true narrative of the capture of Rev. O. M. Spencer by the Indians, in the neighborhood of Cincinnati_ , in 1792

Describing one William Moore:

"...a practiced marksman, who at fifty steps, with his rifle, “off hand,” often “drove the centre,” and seldom failed to “cut the black:””¦.

Spence

I have done quite a bit of reading about Rev. era rifle shooting and accuracy. The examples you mention, and others, come up quite often. The English officers nose is the one that convinced me most of the cited examples are pure nonsense. The nose example I have most seen was a nose drawn with pencil shot at 300 yards. A potential member of the squad was not qualified unless he could put ten straight shots into the nose offhand at that range. Simply not possible IMHO. A pencil drawn anything would be hard to see across the room, fuggit in the sun at 300 yards. The horse at 400 yards is believable as it was probably miss where the officer was the target. I'm not discrediting what the riflemen could do or their contribution but reality is most shots were not very long range.

Pass the salt shaker please.... :haha:

Hi Spence,
There is colonel Hangers description of being shot at by an American rifleman. The shooter fired a series of shots which eventually killed a horse and wounded an aide. Hanger paced the distance to be 400 yards after the battle. Of course no one can tell what the shooter was aiming at except a group of soldiers on horseback. There is also the feat of Thomas Plunkett of the 95th rifles during the Peninsula campaign. During the retreat to Corunna, Plunkett killed a French general and his aide at 300 yds with his Baker rifle. He fired using the method of laying on his back and resting the rifle on his thigh and foot.

dave

Rifleman1776 said:

The nose example I have most seen was a nose drawn with pencil shot at 300 yards. A potential member of the squad was not qualified unless he could put ten straight shots into the nose offhand at that range.

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Ah, the child's game of telephone comes to mind. The story changes and is exaggerated by each teller until it barely resembles the original.

THE VIRGINIA GAZETTE 3
July 21, 1775
PHILADELPHIA, July11. A CORRESPONDENT informs us that one of the gentlemen appointed to command a company of rifle-men, to be raised in one of our frontier counties, had so many applications from the people in his neighbourhood, to be enrolled for the service, that a greater number presented than his instructions permitted him to engage, and being unwilling to give offence to any, thought of the following expedient, viz. He, with a piece of a chalk , drew on a board the figure of a nose of the common size, which he placed at the distance of one hundred and fifty yards, declaring that those who should come nearest the mark should be enlisted, when sixty odd hit the object.””[General Gage, take care of your nose]

Chalk, 150 yards, one shot.

Spence

This was one of the earliest forms of a documented program of propaganda and disinformation. Revolutionary leaders initiated such reports with the expectation they would make it over to England and give their troops the willies.

Some reports from London would make you think it worked, too. In this instance, though, there is an individual named as the source of the information, so I guess it's possible there is something to it.

_Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolution through the Eyes of Those Who Fought and Lived It_, 1957, George F. Scheer and Hugh F. Rankin:

Down on the Rappahannock River in Virginia, John Harrower, an indentured servant teaching a plantation school, watched a rifle captain choose his company. The number of volunteers far exceeded the number of men called for, so to avoid offending the men, the captain set up a competition: “He took a board of a foot square and with chalk drew the shape of a moderate nose in the center and nailed it up to a tree at one hundred and fifty yards distance, and those who came nighest the mark with a single ball was to go. By the first forty or fifty that fired, the nose was all blown out of the board, and by the time his company was up, the board shared the same fate.”

Spence

The original Creedmore position.

Yards were shorter back then. :wink:

Actually, I think then and now MOST people GREATLY exaggerate distance (and size), simply because they are incapable of discerning it correctly....of course, you can't tell them that.

Hi Dave,

We did a super long thread on 18th century rifle accuracy a year or two ago and I won't bore everyone with the details, but the instance of the Rifleman who shot at British Colonel Hanger was truly unique.

First, "there was not a breath of wind," which meant no side wind that day that otherwise would have made shooting at 400 yards impossible to hit a single man.

Second, I forget the exact language, but the field between the Rifleman and Colonel Hanger was flat and with no obstructions.

Third at 400 yards, the drop of the bullet would have been 40 feet or more.

Fourth and I think this the most important. Colonel Hanger mentioned he and General Tarleton and the "Bugle Horn Man" had advanced a little way out of the woods behind them, where the rest of the British Dragoons/Cavalry awaited and basically under cover so their numbers could not be detected. That meant there were trees behind them and probably high enough to give the Rifleman an immovable aiming point to make up for that 40 foot bullet drop.

Fifth, the Rifleman MISSED BOTH Tarleton and Hanger and their horses!! The Rifleman's ball passed between them sitting on their horses and hit the "Bugle Horn Man's" Horse behind them.

Now don't get me wrong, that was still quite a shot all things considered; but the almost perfect environmental conditions, the trees behind Hanger and Tarleton to aim at and a whole lot of luck/circumstance were all involved with that shot.

Gus

I think I worded my question poorly. I'm not looking for those spectacular long range shots we all know and love to talk about, or tales of barking squirrels at 50 yards time after time without a miss, I'm looking for info on the accuracy expected in the day by the ordinary man, shooters like you and me. Like John May in my post above, who was pleased when he hit within two inches of the target three out of four times. Common men making common shots with common rifles, as it were.

Spence

Stophel said:

Yards were shorter back then. :wink:

Actually, I think then and now MOST people GREATLY exaggerate distance (and size), simply because they are incapable of discerning it correctly....of course, you can't tell them that.

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I think our fore fathers did not let facts get in the way of a good story.

Shooters today are obsessed with perfect accuracy. If a gun, any gun, can't put 5 shots touching each other at a zillion yards away, it's total junk...


It wasn't that long ago that "good enough" was good enough. If people could hit what they were aiming at at a reasonable distance, they were happy. The average shooter (and even the above average shooter) wasn't spending all day, every day, at a shooting bench (or a loading bench) contriving the most perfect possible gun and load, as so many today are. They had not the time, nor means to do so. Where Patrick Ferguson was proud to be able to "seldom miss a sheet of paper", the modern shooter would be aghast at such "poor" accuracy, demanding as much of a muzzleloading rifle as their high-tech, refined centerfire rifles.

Hit or miss





By the way, note how the guy on the half dollar note is shooting with his left arm folded up and resting the gun on top of it. I sometimes shoot like this, but didn't know before that I was actually being historically accurate! :haha:

I'm looking for info on the accuracy expected in the day by the ordinary man, shooters like you and me.

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OK. Yes, would love to be able to step back in time and see that. From what I have read, most casual competitions were at ranges of 20 to 60 yards at an 'X' scratched onto a charred board.
FWIW, I believe we are better today.

We have 200+ years of technology and precision measuring advancements over the 18th century shooter. Even with our muzzleloading rifles, where every aspect is measured in thousandths, or even ten thousandths of an inch! People today actually go into a fabric store with calipers or a micrometer to measure and find the "perfect" patching material! (not me! :haha: )....that just didn't happen 200 years ago.

I read that John Adams was amazed to see a company of riflemen shoot a 9”X6” pine board at sixty yards. The avarage eyesight is 20/20. Half of the people alive don’t have that good. My right eye used to have 20/15. I do doubt that out of a population of two million there was a company sized group of people who could see a.nose sized target at one hundred and fifty yards.
The first entry of men shooting at a target the size of a silver dollar, about one and a half inches, and coming within two inches of that means they were hitting about a six inch group, and he put three out of four shots in that six inch group.. .
When the Baker was being tested the Brits were proudly demonstrating about one foot groups at a hundred yards.

Semisane said:

This was one of the earliest forms of a documented program of propaganda and disinformation. Revolutionary leaders initiated such reports with the expectation they would make it over to England and give their troops the willies.

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If the tale of shooting the nose was part of a propaganda campaign, this might be a sign it worked. :grin:

London Newspaper in 1775 ”“ “The shirt-tail men, with their cursed twisted guns, the most fatal widow-and-orphan-makers in the world.”

Spence

Yeah but that’s the way it works, an illegal alien kills some one we see illegals as killers. An illegal dies in the desert we see illegals as victims.
Shark attacks make nation wide news, allergic reactions to bee stings or jellyfish not so much.
Rifelman Tom kills someone in battle, it’s that rifle that got him, even if he was well within musket range.
We tend to keep track of the outstanding shots, and forget about the misses.
I like to tell folks a fusil is the best gun to shoot. When you get a hit you can talk about practice and the work of getting the right load and knowing your gun, if you miss you can blame it in it being a smoothie.

Remember that back 300 years ago the average man owned one or maybe 2 rifles, which were likely carried daily for the majority of their lifetime. They had ample opportunity to become proficient with them.

I own more firearms than I have fingers and toes; and an additional near-dozen flint and percussion rifles & muskets. Not even counting cap & ball or pistols. I am proficient with a few, and at the longest time, prolly' have about 9-10 months tops on the clock for the one or 2 I'd carried the most during my several decades of ownership of them ...

There is no reason to suppose our ancestors were capable of better shooting than we are today, with superior equipment we have. Good eyesight today is 20/20, and I have about 20/25 at 73 years old, a fact of which I'm proud, and I am quite sure I couldn't hit a "nose" at 100 yards, especially off-hand. Or even off a bench. I couldn't even SEE a nose at that range. Today is the New Golden Age of ML rifles, given the modern machinist techniques and measurements.