Amikee said:
Hello folks
My friend and I were discussing bp guns last night and he asked me a question I really wasn't sure the answer to.
If we "put" rifling on the smooth barrel, does this barrel "becomes" or "acquires a status of" a rifle? For example, we have .54 cal smooth bore. Besides the fact that rifles more than likely will be in octagonal shape of course.
I know about rifled muskets and I do know it can be done. But would a gun like this be considered a rifle? Could the shot be still fired from it?
Just trying to find your opinions on the subject.
This may be a silly question to some, but I find it interesting enough to post it.
Thank you in advance
Michael
Presuming you could successfully cut rifling in a smoothbore barrel, then, for it's very short life thereafter, it would be a rifle. However, it wouldn't last very long. The additional pressures caused by firing it as a rifle would tear it apart pretty quickly.
Take a look at the thin barrel of a smoothbore musket and take a look at the thick barrel of a rifle. You see how thick the rifle is and how thin the musket, fowler, or other smoothbore is? The rifle barrel is much thicker to withstand the pressures developed by firing a lead ball that fits tightly enough to force the patch material tightly into the rifling and twist the ball as it travels down the barrel. Those pressures don't exist in a smoothbore because even a "tightly patched" lead ball in a smoothbore will move far easier than a rifle round and it never has to develop the torque needed to twist the ball.
Of course, your first problem would be to get the rifling cut into the barrel. Depth of rifling will make the barrel thickness at the bottom of the grooves awfully thin. After getting it cut into the barrel, it would not stand the much higher pressures of a rifle for very long. I certainly wouldn't shoot it and I wouldn't let any of my friends shoot it. Good friends are too hard to come by...
As far as firing shot from a rifled barrel goes, that results in an "O" pattern with no shot in the middle. So it's like firing a ring of shot. Not suitable for bird-hunting if that's what you are thinking about.
Now one more thing about the "rifled muskets" you mention. During the Revolutionary War, there were no such things. A "musket" was a heavily built, muzzle-loading, military smoothbore firearm (or firelock as it was called then). A fowler was also a smoothbore, but it was s civilian arm used for both bird hunting (fowl) and deer. It didn't have the robust build in the stock to break down doors like a musket, and it didn't have a bayonet mount. So if you are looking at what we call the "Brown Bess" or any of the French muskets that were used during the Rev War, those were all smoothbores. None of them were rifled muskets.
The term "musket" continued to be used for the heavily built firearms in the War Between the States, and during that period the rifled musket became common. It featured a rifled barrel of course, but still had the robust build and appearance of a musket including a bayonet. Those were rifled muskets.
Twisted_1in66 :thumbsup:
:rotf:
