Most accurate flintlock rifle caliber?

As long as it isn't a game animal - take a crack at it - we used to shoot metal gongs at 200 yds and ring them with relative frequency
:thumbsup:

For now targets to practice, but when October comes around, deer.

At what range does a 50 cal round ball become more of a bruising hazard than a lethal projectile?

:blah:

During the American Revolution many "Brits" fell to the flint lock rifle. Tim Murphy and others were deadly at ranges beyond 300 yards.

I would go with a .50 or better yet a .54 cal and keep your shots on deer to where yea can keep all your shots inside a paper plate when shoot'n off-hand! Now yea do have an advantage over a lot of the old geezers on this site, and that would be your young eyes...use em till yea lose em! After you get your feet wet you can work with shooting long distances at the range and go from there. Best of luck to yea, keep us posted on your progress. :v

Don't let your age affect what you want to do, and those on here giving you a hard time about being young are just jealous.

Get a 50 or 54 caliber with a 1:48 or 1:36 twist (this is not ideal for round ball but will work much better with the longer bullet shaped projectiles). Try it with round ball at 200 and 300 yards just for fun, and then try it with various bullet shapes to see how that works. With good young eyes and practice I don't think you will have any trouble hitting a pie plate at 200 yards from a rest, particularly if you aren't using a round ball as the projectile. An adjustable aperture rear and globe front sight would help a lot with this as would accurate range estimation.

With the right gear this is more than doable for punching paper. For hunting I think you will find the max for a round ball is about a 100 yards, somewhat further with the other projectiles but you must get the range pretty much dead on and may want to use a good range finder if you are shooting over 100 yards. It will also take a lot of practice to build your drop chart at each ten yard interval beyond 125 yards. Good luck and let us know how you make out.

marylander98 said:

Hello everyone. im new to the forum and to flintlocks and wanted to know what the most accurate flintlock rifle caliber is? I've heard some say it would be .45 cal. I know how much powder you use is a big part of accuracy, I want the most accurate shot at 300 yards, so what caliber rifle should i buy?
thank you

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For the stated goal I would start here... http://www.trackofthewolf.com/Categories/PartDetail.aspx/487/1/LYMAN-GPH-50-F
The reason being that the rifle can shoot very accurately at longer ranges. Note that the barrel is specifically made to shoot fifty caliber bullets. The manufacturer's recommended maximum charge of powder with a 420 grain .50 caliber bullet is 100 grains of FFg powder. That is plenty powerful to achieve your objective for target shooting or hunting. If Lyman made a flintlock barrel for the elongated bullets in their left hand flintlocks then I too would have one. But they don't, so I may have the "extra" round ball barrel altered to suit... if I could make up my mind exactly what I wanted. :haha:

P.S.,
How accurately you can shoot a flintlock is going to depend how well you learn to load it and how well you learn to shoot it. You can shoot accurately at hundreds of yards. And if I had 14 year eyes I would shoot much more accurately than I do now!
Best wishes and shoot behind the ear.

First off, to Kodiak13,Dean2, and Good Cheer.
We don’t know this young man. Let’s hope he has good eyes, but although I can’t see as well as I used to, I still have better sight at 61 than some teenagers I’ve been around. Some people are born needing glasses.
What a few posters have ignored is something the average 14 year old doesn’t have. A lot of money.
So, to Marylander98.
You say you are new to flintlocks. Does that mean you have experience with percussion rifles but not flintlocks, or is the whole game new to you? If it’s the latter, and I suspect it is, find a used but not abused traditional Thompson Center, Lyman, Pedersoli, Navy Arms etc. and be willing to settle for starting out with a percussion. For hunting deer, I would opt for a .50 or .54, but lots of ”˜em die with .45 caliber balls as well. Used percussion are easier to find than flintlocks and possibly, in mass-produced guns anyway, a tad more reliable.
The most important thing in getting a “good” flintlock, is the lock itself. No matter how attractive the rifle may be, if you have to cross your fingers and hope it will fire every time you pull the trigger you are going to end up frustrated and discouraged. Admittedly, all of the mass- produced rifles I’ve owned were percussion and so I have no first hand experience with mass-produced flintlocks. But I’ve both heard and read stories from others. With a top-of-the-line lock there should little or none of the learning curve some folks talk about. There shouldn’t be any discernable difference between shooting percussion or flint.
After you get your feet wet (maybe even soaked) with that used rifle and you know that you are hooked, you can start saving toward the fine hand-built flinter you are going to want. And, because you are on here asking questions, it’s almost a certainty you are going to want one. Your own experience will help you decide what fits your needs better than any of us can.
A quick check in Muzzle Blasts shows clubs in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. Find the one nearest you and bum a ride to a shoot or two. Watch, ask questions, and learn. Before you know it, you will find out that there are legal pastimes that are every bit as addicting and costly as doing drugs.
Oh, and about that used rifle.
First off, examine the area around the lock. If there are signs of a lot of pitting, but it back in the rack and don’t waste any more time on it. If that area was neglected it’s an even bet the bore was as well. If the outside looks OK, shine the bore light you bought in the gun department at Wal-Mart down the barrel and check the bore. Hopefully the whole length of it will be bright and shiny, but on some production rifles it’s almost like they blued the bore as well as the outside and they don’t reflect as well. At any rate, you should be able to get a good look at the first two or three inches near the muzzle. If that part looks good the rest is probably good as well. The final step is to run a cleaning patch on a properly sized jag down the barrel. This will find any hidden rough spots and give another indication of how much, if any, rust is in the bore. Personally, I thing a little bit is okay as long as it isn’t enough to have pitted the bore. I’m talking TRACES of brown in the grooves.
Good luck to you. I hope you enjoy the game as much as I have for almost half a century.

200 yards, but I now know that still out of range.

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Not so, according to two fellows who were experts at hunting in the mid 19th century....

"I consider a sporting [rifle] range to be limited to a distance at which the shoulder of a deer may be fairly struck under ordinary circumstances - say 150 yards; shots beyond this range are bright moments, which, though not unfrequent are not the rule. Thus 200 yards may, I think, be accepted as the range required for a sporting rifle, beyond which I think extra sights useless." - Baker The Field, 23 March 1861

"Most practical sportsmen will allow this [the above quote] to be a pretty correct definition, rather over than under the mark as fas as my experience goes: 200 yards may be taken as the very outside limit at which it is ever advisable to fire at ordinary game; not because the rifle may not be accurate enough to ensure frequent hitting at much greater distances, but because the probablility of killing at such ranges is very small indeed; and humanity, not to say sportsmanlike feeling, demands that we shall not knowingly run so strong a chance of wounding, and consigning to a miserable and lingering death, the animals over which we have dominion, to use but not to abuse. - Lt. James Forsyth, The Sporting Rifle and Its Projectiles 1867.

Forsyth came up with a rifling system that would allow him to reach out to 150 yards with a caplock shooting a patched round ball, vs. dangerous game. The minimum size would be .58 in a barrel with 1:104 twist rate, gooves wider than the lands and shallow, and a very hefty powder charge. For game the max range would be 150 yards, for paper you could use this to 200 yards. Rice barrel company has made barrels with "Forsyth" rifling in the past, but you need to directly contact them as they do not offer them online.

LD

Thank you randy, I am either going to buy a used one like you said(any online stores/dealers you recommend?) or, i'm going to my local gunsmith,who my family ANd I are good friends with, and ask if I could build a kit in his shop.

Did it not require 3 shots for Mr. Murphy to hit the British officer, and then in the belly? baxter

Kodiak13,
Just exactly, who are you calling "OLD GEEZERS" :stir:
Fred

The last time I looked in the mirror...it was me! :shocked2:

Musta been standin' beside ya :v
Fred

Now, a few years back, I participated in muzzle loading riflr silhouette matches. Targets started with a crow at 50 yards to a standing bear at 200 yards. These are pretty difficult even when we shortened the range abit on the bears. I used a 45, but that didn't always have the oomph to knock a bear from the stand. Best I ever did was 3 of 4. I don't do that well now. Best performance was with a 54 caliber. Trajectory was a problem and holding above the bear was needed for the round to drop in.

It was great to touch off a round. About the time the smoke cleared you might hear the impact ringing the bear. Finally the bear would fall. Sometimes you would hear the clang and the bear would still be standing.

No matter what caliber you choose, the trajectory arc will be pretty much of a rainbow and groups will be pretty well dispersed.

So, what do you want to shoot at thats 200 yards away?

marylander98 said:

Thank you randy, I am either going to buy a used one like you said(any online stores/dealers you recommend?) or, i'm going to my local gunsmith,who my family ANd I are good friends with, and ask if I could build a kit in his shop.

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Since you are going to have to bum transportation it might be a little harder, but the best bet would probably be a pawn shop. Several members here have posted with guns they bought at pawn shops that were incredibly good deals.
Large flea markets are always worth checking out. I wasn’t in the market for a gun at the time, but last summer I even found a good deal on two TC rifles in a garage sale.
Gun Shows are a possibility. But. It might be a good idea to ask around a little before going to one though. They are not all created equal. Some are a good cross-section of the shooting sport. Some look like a convention of survivalists.
Gun shops proper are worth at least checking from time to time. I bought a TC Renegade for $100 last week at one of the local shops.
An online auction site like Gun Broker or Guns America will have a wide selection. However, as I read the buyer protection policy it may not cover condition. You could pay for something in “near mint” condition and get something with a bore that is ruined. A disclaimer. I have never bought a gun from either of these sites so I could be totally wrong about this.
One of the safest places to buy a used gun on line is Track of the Wolf. But you are not going to find any fantastic “deals” there. It will be, at best, full market price. Or a little higher.
The good news, is that due to the popularity of certain unmentionable types of muzzleloaders, used traditional style rifles can be found at great prices because they are not as popular as they were when regulations required their use in special seasons. You will just have to look a little.

I'd say .50 generally but maybe not out quite to 300 yards. .54 then, but, I'd probably use this if I had to put one of my ML guns to my shoulder...

Grenadier1758 said:

So, what do you want to shoot at thats 200 yards away?

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I've asked this twice, with no reply.

I think the OP said he wanted to do targets for now and deer in October.