Pedersoli's smooth bore Le Page flintlock accuracy?

Hi everyone! I've just bought a brand new smoothbore pedersoli Le Page flintlock pistol and yesterday i tried it on the shooting range. I was not very happy with the accuracy, the shots were in a 30 cm diameter group on 25 meters. I used 445 cal. round ball with 24 - 30 grain swiss powder and different patches. Does anyone have the same pistol who should help me what to try? I saw that on shooting competitions in "Cominazzo" these smoothbore pistols are very accurare. Thanks for any help! Dénes

This fellow is from Hungary and has a video (or two) on the pistol. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJgPT9Gzhuc

Yes i know him and his videos but he never used a smoothbore Le Page

Denes72 said:

Hi everyone! I've just bought a brand new smoothbore pedersoli Le Page flintlock pistol and yesterday i tried it on the shooting range. I was not very happy with the accuracy, the shots were in a 30 cm diameter group on 25 meters. I used 445 cal. round ball with 24 - 30 grain swiss powder and different patches. Does anyone have the same pistol who should help me what to try? I saw that on shooting competitions in "Cominazzo" these smoothbore pistols are very accurare. Thanks for any help! Dénes

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I do not have the same pistol, but have talked with the smoothbore pistol shooters a lot at Friendship.

They would be shooting about 40 to 45 grains of powder. I shoot 40 grains in my .44.

They say you have to get the velocity up to make a smooth bore shoot well.

They place a ball between 2 wood rasps and move the top rasp back and forth to dimple the ball, need to dimple it deep.

Shoot it from sandbags. You should be getting a group under 10 cm at 25m. Try a load of 30 grains of Swiss #2, possibly Swiss #1. Stippling the round balls works for some people.

I don't have any experience with a smooth-bore pistol, but I have to ask, what are your requirements and needs for 25 meters? Eleven inches at 25 meters isn't all that bad, IMO. You're not going to use it to defend your life, hopefully, and it's a smooth bore pistol! Have fun with it and blast away...not a pistol for hunting or self defense. It's for making holes in paper. Experiment with loads and patches for the tightest pattern you can get. I think 25 meters is an extreme range for a ML smoothbore hand gun, personally.

Thanks for the tips. Anyway i've just checked Pedersoli's site and they say i should use 464. cal round ball for the 45. cal smoothbore so i will try it when i can get those balls. Gene L, i want to use the pistol in shooting competitions. The world record with a smoothbore flintlock pistol was reached this year on a competition in Austria with 100 points which means all of the ten shots were in a 4 cm. group on 25 meters.

That's extremely good shooting for any kind of pistol. Good luck.

I shoot a Pedersoli Mortimer Flintlock smooth-bore (very similar) and load mine with a .437 swaged ball and a 12 thou patch over 35 grains of Swiss 1 powder. I believe that the recommended ball is a .435 but don't quote me on this.



It's a very accurate gun but can be a nightmare where flints are concerned. I am currently using some French amber flints that seem to work well.
PB score is a 91 which was during a competition on a very blustery day! I have never managed to get past 88 ever since (too many 7's!)
Incidentally the Cominazzo R was won with a 92 and I placed 4th on group size!!

This Mortimer is beautiful. It has a 44 cal smoothbore, not the same barrel of Le Page which has a 45 cal. I dont understand why makes Pedersoli two different barrels. I also have problems with flints, even the smallest ones are too large for the Le Page lock.

A smoothbore flint pistol is probably a bit challenging to shoot well I'd bet. I'm sure a rifled percussion gun would be a bit easier to hit the target, but maybe not as satisfying! Just work on you're load. You'll get it down.

I've never shot a LePage but I do have a set of the American historical society Hamilton Burr flintlock duelers that are copies of the set by Robert Wogdon that were used in that duel.
They are .54 cal and I use a lightly patched .530 ball over 35gr of 3f and on a good day can keep them within 5inches at 25yds. I haven't tried heavier charges but lighter ones do not deliver accuracy wise.

Granted it's a percussion, but this is a decent group I made with my smoothbore Pedersoli .54 Harpers Ferry pistol a while back:

Denes, I also used to shoot a Pedersoli Mortimer flintlock smoothbore with good success. I used 40gns of FFFg with a slightly damp felt wad over the powder, then a stippled .433" ball (unpatched). On the B-17 target 9-ring & better groups were pretty common. I also had fairly short flint life with knapped flints, but switched over to machine cut ones & that helped tremendously.

Gene L said:

I don't have any experience with a smooth-bore pistol, but I have to ask, what are your requirements and needs for 25 meters?

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Good enough performance to win a World Championship. 13 shots into about a 2-inch group at 25 meters.