Question about Morgan's Shingle

[Moe ziggley]

Hi,
Or Morgan's shingle is a myth. Perhaps it was 250 paces not yards.

dave

Last time I paced off something one pace was 3 feet..so three would be nine feet..if your old maybe only 8 feet..paces = yards

 

[Moe ziggley]

My peashooter drops about 20-25 at 265yards...I put a propane tank at the fence line aimed at the hand hole and it hits the bottom.. didn't have a shingle..

 

[Moe ziggley]

My Peashooter..maslin warrented..

 

[tenngun]

Last time I paced off something one pace was 3 feet..so three would be nine feet..if your old maybe only 8 feet..paces = yards

Pace is often used for each time a foot hits the ground, two to three feet.
Mostly pace back in the day was every time one foot hit the ground.
Our mile comes from Latin mil, one thousand. As distance it was one thousand paces, standardized as five thousand Roman feet
Our 5280 feet was an attempt to match mile, and rods the standard in England
A nautical mile is a second of a degree on the equator but that worked out to a thousand fathoms, a standard fathom was close to a standard pace

 

[Moe ziggley]

Pace is often used for each time a foot hits the ground, two to three feet.
Mostly pace back in the day was every time one foot hit the ground.
Our mile comes from Latin mil, one thousand. As distance it was one thousand paces, standardized as five thousand Roman feet
Our 5280 feet was an attempt to match mile, and rods the standard in England
A nautical mile is a second of a degree on the equator but that worked out to a thousand fathoms, a standard fathom was close to a standard pace

I paced out pipe lines that we put in for the municipal road dept..then they gave me a wheel counter..my paces matched the Wally Walker..lol..

 

[The Miner '49er]

FWIW, I don't at all doubt that the Morgan's shingle was an attainable target, and one that measured about 7"x 10", and at a distance of 250 yards. Sure, the average guy probably could pull it off on a good day only if luck was with him, but the cream of the shooters could do it pretty regularly. If you disagree, watch some videos of the late and great Bob Munden shooting a .38 revolver, upside town, at arms length, and at 200 yards, and at a balloon which he quickly burst on the first shot. Exceptional people can do exceptional deeds.

 

[tenngun]

Well according to Joseph Plumb Martin he witnesses a shot at a mile with a musket hitting a man.
John Adams records the people of west Massachusetts being amazed at a company of Virginia rifleman who could hit a 7”x9” shingle at sixty yards
That a pretty believable story.
I think it a lot easier to think there was a bit of an exaggeration over the retelling
We all know the guns can do it, finding a company of men who could do it, even good shots is a bit less believable.
Though I am put in mind of the rich guy who was asked on his death bed if he wanted any thing. Yup
A very large needle and a very small camel.
I bet off a big oak with a wide froe you could have a two foot by three foot shingle

 

[Tumbledown]

Well according to Joseph Plumb Martin he witnesses a shot at a mile with a musket hitting a man.

And according to maps of the era, it was less than half that. The member of the guard who made the shot had a gun that was already loaded, and "rested his old six feet barrel across a fence..." That sounds an awful lot like he had a rifle, likely one he brought with him on enlisting, and knew how to use it.

 

[tenngun]

And according to maps of the era, it was less than half that. The member of the guard who made the shot had a gun that was already loaded, and "rested his old six feet barrel across a fence..." That sounds an awful lot like he had a rifle, likely one he brought with him on enlisting, and knew how to use it.

More like Hudson valley fowler

 

[Rifleman1776]

the story abut Morgan's Shingle where the test was to hit a roofing shingle at 250 yards. Well my question concerning this is at what range would most of these frontiersmen have had their rifles zeroed at?

"story" is the operative word here. As a devotee and reenactor of the Rev. Rifleman I have read many "stories" of instances of riflemen making extreme long distance shots of 300 to 500 yards. I simply do not believe them. True, if you shoot a rifle it will hit something eventually. But, to quickly aim a prb ml rifle at a target that far away and hit it is the stuff myths are made of. I doubt many aimed shots were taken beyond 50-60 yards whether in battle or hunting.

 

[Hatman/2nd line]

My thoughts are that since ammunition, powder and ball were so expensive or at least not available all the time that for someone to become so skilled to shoot so good is hogwash! They might have carried their rifle all the time but they sure didn't shoot it that often to be such "sure shots". If you read up on some of the hunts people went on they were half afraid to shoot due to bringing the Indians on to them.

 

[tenngun]

Sites were low ant there was no adjustment. This met that the gun had to be held high at a target over the intended
A front sight is wider then a man at two hundred yards. Even if your gun was zeroed at that range the sight picture was horrible
Me thinks three hundred feet became three hundred yards in the retelling
And although they didn’t have chronos and ballistic tables they would see loss of power at longer ranges.
A skin hunter wouldn’t want a wounded deer he had to track for a mile or more after a two hundred yard shot.
Where did the shooter pick up his expertise? Not daily hunting.
And as said ball and powder were expensive and bulky to carry.
Todays ‘blood shooter’ who can hit a flys eye at a hundred yards and a playing card at two hundred probably shoots more rounds in a year then a longhunter did in his life.
I would bet, though we can’t prove it, that Boone and Kenton and all the nameless would not score real high at a NMLRA match, except on woods walks today.
We have to keep in mind this was pretty new technology. Before the French and Indian wars rifles were pretty much a Pennsylvania thing, with some spillage around. It was that period 1763-1775 that saw rifles take off. There just was little time for expertise to develop, especially with powders that varied in quality. And God knows how many myths, myths that still circulate in the ml community today.
Even the best rifleman probably didn’t get the best from their rifles. Many seem to have shot a looser fit then we do today.
A two inch group at twenty five yards puts a squirrel in the pot, a one foot group at a hundred will give you a nice venison roast. And compared to most smoothie shooting that was some pumpkins….. but not the mythic flys eye at forty rods.
Many have repeated Hickoks eighty yard shot…. But he practiced every day and the story got written down, only reason is it was so unbelievable
He lived at a time when there was a pletheta of supplies, not a three month travel from nearest depot. He could afford his practice

 

[Rifleman1776]

Well said, Tenn

 

[Kev308]

This has the makings of a great idea for a fun shoot!!

 

[Tumbledown]

More like Hudson valley fowler

Based on what?

 

[Tumbledown]

"story" is the operative word here. As a devotee and reenactor of the Rev. Rifleman I have read many "stories" of instances of riflemen making extreme long distance shots of 300 to 500 yards. I simply do not believe them. True, if you shoot a rifle it will hit something eventually. But, to quickly aim a prb ml rifle at a target that far away and hit it is the stuff myths are made of. I doubt many aimed shots were taken beyond 50-60 yards whether in battle or hunting.

They didn't "quickly" aim.

 

[Tumbledown]

Sites were low ant there was no adjustment. This met that the gun had to be held high at a target over the intended
A front sight is wider then a man at two hundred yards. Even if your gun was zeroed at that range the sight picture was horrible

Pick a point higher than your target and aim at that. You don't need to see your target when you pull the trigger because your aim point is above it.

Me thinks three hundred feet became three hundred yards in the retelling

There was a recounting posted elsewhere in this forum not too long ago where a rifleman shot a bugler's horse at 300 YARDS, the ball passing between two British officers on horseback.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Most of us have probably heard the story abut Morgan's Shingle where the test was to hit a roofing shingle at 250 yards. Well my question concerning this is at what range would most of these frontiersmen have had their rifles zeroed at? I got curious and loaded some data from my rifle into a ballistics calculator, in my rifle 90 grains of FFFg powder under a patched round ball gives an average velocity of right at 1850 feet per second. With those parameters and a 100 yard zero it would drop 61.3 inches at 250 yards and with a 200 yard zero it would drop 25 inches at 250 yards.

So with something the size of a shingle you would have nothing to reliably reference your hold over too. Now if it was against a tree that would solve the horizontal reference but not the vertical reference. So obviously if you are zeroed at 250 you are extremely high at closer ranges. Is there any historical record as to how the shoot was actually done was there something there to place vertical and horizontal reference for the shooter to align their sights. Or is this one of those things that has grown in history and the actual distance was much less than 250 yards?

Well first there is the "nose target" for qualifying for the regiment.
On June 14, 1775, Congress voted to raise ten companies of “expert riflemen.” As the legend goes, Daniel Morgan, a frontiersman from rural Virginia, held contests like other rifle captains to determine which volunteers where the best shots. “One captain drew a nose on a flat board one foot square, propped the board against a tree 150 yards away, and announced that we would accept those whose bullets came closest” Daniel Morgan — Revolutionary Rifleman by Don Higginbotham

The next is :
..., described in the Virginia Gazette of September 9, 1775. Riflemen, bound for Boston, gave an exhibition. A man held between his knees a board five inches wide and seven inches long, with a paper bull’s-eye the size of a dollar. A rifleman at sixty yards, without a rest, put eight bullets in succession through the bull’s eye. The Rifle in the American Revolution by John W. Wright from The American Historical Review, Jan.1924
The Virginia Gazette paper also reported ...., We are told that the riflemen, when they joined the army near Boston in August 1775, gave an exhibition, in which a company, on a quick advance, placed their shots in seven-inch targets at 250 yards.

So the rifles were likely sighted in at 100 yards or so, and the shooters knew the hold-over. Further, the report of the 250 yard shots is just that, not an eye witness account, and further more, there is a HUGE difference between an actual measure of 250 yards, and pacing off what seems like 250 yards over uneven ground. You have NO indication as it was a Company of riflemen (50) how many targets and how many misses, eh?

LD

 

[tenngun]

Based on what?

The time, he said it was old, and the barrel leanth, rifles were generally less then 48” at this time, and ‘old’ would likely be shorter if a rifle
And ‘old ‘ gun in New York combined with a six foot barrel points at it being the Hudson Valley fowlers that can’t with those six foot barrels and would be old at the time of the revolution

 

[Tumbledown]

The time, he said it was old, and the barrel leanth, rifles were generally less then 48” at this time, and ‘old’ would likely be shorter if a rifle
And ‘old ‘ gun in New York combined with a six foot barrel points at it being the Hudson Valley fowlers that can’t with those six foot barrels and would be old at the time of the revolution

In this article about this event, a couple comments make a good argument for it being a wall gun.