early rifle charges

Artificer said:

Elnathan said:

OK, I can normally figure out what is meant in period written English, but this time I am not so sure. Perhaps I am mistaken, but it seems to me that he meant ball sizes of American Rifles were larger than that and down to AS SMALL as 36 to the pound?


Don't think so. I think he meant that since American longrifles carried such a small ball (in comparison with other firearms) that they could load as much as 1/2 ball weight in powder, a ratio impractical with other, larger caliber firearms.

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Hanger was known as having used rifles before he came on duty in America, so he may have meant in comparison to other arms, but here he still mentions 36 balls to the pound as the smallest caliber of a rifle - compared to that size being the largest caliber he mentioned in the other quote.

Gus

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That is exactly it - I don't think he means that 36 balls to the pound is the smallest bore at all. I think that he means that 36 to the pound, as small as that is, allows for that proportion of powder.

It might be worth remembering that when he was writing this Hanger actually owned an American longrifle that is, if my memory serves me correctly, .47 caliber or about 45 balls to the pound.

OK, had to go back and read the original quote a few times, but I believe I follow what you mean.

However, it seems to me one would already have to know of his later quote and/or his American Rifle (as you pointed out) to understand it that way.

Gus

54ball said:

Artificer said:

Spence, neat info as always.

Haven't we discussed before that Duane's manual was a direct rip off/plagiarism of the English manual, except Duane added some rather unusual/strange/almost inexplicable stuff as well?

Gus

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It was the British Rifle and Light Infantry manual of 1805..maybe 03. I used to have it saved before a Computer crash as it's free. Duane plagiarized nearly word for word.

He did remove the Baker Rifle Mallet reference found in the original British Manual.

Some New England States used the British Manual out right. You'll see these New England/British manuals quoted in debates about Short Starters and mallets. In truth that was really Baker Rifle or Brit specific.

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I didn't know that some New England States used the British manual outright. Thank you.

So they were saved some of the bizarre stuff that Duane added to the British manual, that just does not make sense?

Gus

Elnathan said:

OK, I can normally figure out what is meant in period written English, but this time I am not so sure. Perhaps I am mistaken, but it seems to me that he meant ball sizes of American Rifles were larger than that and down to AS SMALL as 36 to the pound?


Don't think so. I think he meant that since American longrifles carried such a small ball (in comparison with other firearms) that they could load as much as 1/2 ball weight in powder, a ratio impractical with other, larger caliber firearms.

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I think he meant American Long rifles were seldom (or never, to his testing) LARGER than 36 balls per pound. About .47 caliber?

That was what Hanger wrote in his earlier account when he and Tarleton were shot at.

Now, if someone had not read that early account previously or knew Hanger had a .47 American Rifle, it is not so clear.

Other research has shown that .52 caliber rifles (and some larger than that) were very popular in the Pre AWI and AWI periods. So...... if Hanger had seen "hundreds and hundreds" of American Rifles as he claimed, he surely would have seen larger caliber rifles than 36 balls to the pound or .47 caliber.

Gus

An interesting item which seems to touch on this question, maybe coincidentally.

Journal of John James Henry, 1775, a Pennsylvania rifleman on Benedict Arnold's march to Quebec:

Henry's canoe capsized and he said, "".... to be sure my horn, with a pound of powder, and my pouch, with seventy bullets, were unharmed by the water, though around my neck in the course of our swimming: yet I had lost my knapsack, my hat, and my most precious rifle."

He arranged to buy another rifle from a man returning because of illness.

"Money was out of the question. An order upon my father, dated at this place, for the sum of twelve dollars, was accepted, and afterwards honorably paid. This gun was short, and carried about 45 balls to the pound [.47 cal.]. The stock was much shattered, and it was worth about five dollars. Necessity has no law. Never did a gun, ill as its appearance was, shoot with greater certainty, and where the ball touched, from its size it was sure to kill. This observation, trifling as it may seem, ought to induce government to adopt guns of this size, as to length of barrel and size of ball. There are many reasons to enforce this opinion."

Spence

Neat quotes.:hatsoff:

Well, when the government actually adopted a rifle in 1792/1794 they began with .47 and then moved up to .49 caliber and then finally .54 caliber for the M 1803 and future rifles. Seemed they had to re-learn what was fairly commonly known in the Pre AWI and AWI period.

Gus

The ball size of the American military rifle may have been a response to the British Military rifle of the time (1800) which was a 62 caliber, 20 balls to the pound.
The thing we REALLY need to look at here is surviving rifles civilian rifles that have not been bored smooth. If we do this then our findings are close to Hanger stating that he never saw one over 36 to the pound. There are spikes in the numbers of rifle calibers at 44 and 50. This from the reported bore sizes in a number of picture books on the Kentucky Rifle.
Then we have to ask about PRACTICALITY. The 44 to 50 caliber will serve very well in the east as a rifle caliber. The ranges animals were shot were relatively short and the 50 caliber especially is adequate. So there was little reason for larger bores and the greatly increased cost of operation of, for example, a 58 caliber (common for the Rev-War and later English trade rifles) vs a 44 or 50 caliber.
One of the early complaints by traders was that the natives use of rifles greatly reduced their sales of powder and lead. Both the traders and the military of the 1750s were opposed to the natives having rifles. The traders for profit reasons and the military because of the way the natives made war. This is detailed in DeWitt Bailey's " British Military Flintlock Rifles 1740-1840"
People in the colonies were not rich, especially on the frontier, so economy was a major factor. Were their rifles larger than 50, sure, but if we study the numbers its not as many as some might think. And we must remember that rifles that were used much were often "freshed" and a new ball mould made or the mould enlarged.

Dan

Dan Phariss said:

And we must remember that rifles that were used much were often "freshed" and a new ball mould made or the mould enlarged.

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I don't have any statistics or citations for it, but it's worth pondering the point of economy. In their shoes I'd have purchased a smaller caliber, allowing the bore to be "freshed" several times to ever-larger calibers, thus greatly prolonging the useful life of a rifle. Maybe it's coincidence, but I've often wondered if the final freshing to smoothbore didn't correspond to about the time a guy's eyes were getting old and he couldn't see rifle sights any longer. And he wasn't out scouting on the frontier. He was settled in at home and the rifle of his youth just might have made the final transition through freshing to become the "barn gun" of an old man. Same gun following a guy through his whole life.

Just from curiosity, does anyone have a citation from the period of a rifle being bored out to a smoothbore?

Spence

AYE,

and for that matter, I know folks who suppose that because a rifle is "odd" in caliber for our modern times, .47, .48, .52,. 56 that it must have started out smaller in rifled bore, and was "refreshed" one or more times before it became the caliber that it holds today..., yet how do we KNOW this? Is there any way to determine if the bore was reamed and recut, or the rifling "freshed" or is that another of those things theorized but untested? And how many extant rifles are identified as having been tested so are known having been originally a smaller caliber?

Another example are the "smooth rifles" originally all thought to have been rifled, and were later reamed smooth, simply because they resembled a rifle, but now many if not all are identified as always having been smooth bore.

LD

Dan,

There is a story in either the Fox Fire Books or Ned Robert's Book about a man in the 19th century who made some or most of living killing black bears. For a while he used a .38 caliber, but found it was not enough gun. He was thinking about "going up" to (I think I remember) a .47 caliber, but found a rifle in .42 and "that was enough." Now, he hunted bears with bear dogs, so it wasn't the same thing as one shot all by himself and then follow up with tomahawk and knife, as necessary. Personally, I would use nothing less than a .50 caliber when hunting black bear without dogs.

Yet, as the Eastern Bison and Elk were wiped out and/or driven westward, they still had to deal with panthers and wolves. But as they retreated back, sure a smaller caliber would have worked fine for deer and smaller game.

However, Hanger said he saw "hundreds and hundreds" of American rifles and none of them were larger than .47 caliber. He didn't say some were larger or even a few or very few were larger - he said none were larger. Considering the popularity of .52 caliber prior to the AWI and some older rifles in larger calibers, I just can't believe Hanger fully.

Gus

Couple of observations:

While I don't know of any citations for boring rifles out smooth, there are a couple of surviving smoothrifles that show traces of rifling. The Brass Barrel Gun, which was bored out too big and burst in consequences, may be one. So it was done.

Smoothrifles are mentioned in period accounts and are known from Germany, though, so it is likely that many were made smooth to begin with. The design of many surviving smoothrifles (octagon to round or round barrels) supports this.

Depends on the gun.



Second, while over the years I have come to agree with Dan Phariss that the average Pre-Rev rifle was probably a bit smaller than surviving rifles would suggest (i.e., around .45-.52, with more outliers above than below though sub-.45 calibers ARE extent), but I'm not sure that the usual explanations of weight and economy really hold water. Light smoothbores of around .60 caliber were and continued to be popular among the Indians in particular, and I don't think that we can chalk that up to greedy traders and ignorant customers. I think any discussion of rifle design has to account for that.

It has occurred to me that period rifles tend to be significantly heavier than the average reproduction, particularly if the thesis that the majority of originals were a bit smaller in the bore than they are today. A six-pound trade gun plus 100 balls at 20 to the pound weighs 11 pounds total, whereas a 10 pound longrifle with a similar ammunition supply at 40 to the pound weighs 12 1/2 pounds. Makes me wonder if the smaller size of the rifle isn't as compensation for the increased weight of the barrel - of course, then we start wondering why they they didn't make lighter rifles...

Finally,
If you want to assess Hanger's remarks on rifles, it might be worth getting to know the man himself. His autobiography (which may not have been published in his lifetime), The Life, Adventures, and Opinions of Col George Hanger is available online. When I skimmed it several years ago I came to the conclusion that he was a conceited snob, and while I still believe that he is a valuable resource I think that his claims to being the best shot in the British Army and seen many hundreds and hundreds of American rifles should be taken with a grain of salt.

Finally,
I think that any multi-hundred-yard shots that may have been made during the Revolution, the ones that the conversation inevitably ends up focusing on when the subject of Kentucky rifle accuracy comes up, are a poor basis for analysis, as are any comparison with 19th century rifles used out west. I am very firmly of the opinion that the 18th century longrifle was never designed as a long range weapon, and those that used them neither normally practiced such shooting nor took such shots save under exceptional circumstances, such as war against a European enemy in somebody's wheat field. Instead, the longrifle was designed for precise shots at fairly close range under low-light conditions - the small caliber, moderate twist, and low sights all indicate use at 125 yards or less. Period shooting matches, I believe, tended to feature single shots at very small targets at ranges less than 100 yards. I also grew up in the Appalachian woodlands, and even accounting for the difference between secondary growth and old growth forests (and how much of the Eastern woodlands was really old growth in 1775? I'm not sure we know) and I can assure y'all that shots over 125 yards are not going to be common.

Those three- and four-hundred yard shots at British officers may make for "rattling good history" but I think they are ultimately a distraction.

Original rifles are more usually valued higher by collectors than similar smooth rifles. Funny how many of the traces of rifling are found at the muzzle. Exactly where it should be most worn from the ramrod, but exactly the easiest spot for some creative filework.

Rich Pierce said:

Original rifles are more usually valued higher by collectors than similar smooth rifles. Funny how many of the traces of rifling are found at the muzzle. Exactly where it should be most worn from the ramrod, but exactly the easiest spot for some creative filework.

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Point taken, though I'd observe that if the grooves were relieved a bit at the muzzle, as I am told was done as part of at least one period crowning technique, the muzzle would actually be the hardest place to eradicate all the rifling with a reamer.

Also, we can be pretty certain that the Brass Barrel rifle was bored out to a significantly larger bore at one point, which caused it to burst, and I can think of no other reason to do such a thing other than to convert a rifle into a smoothbore.


Incidentally, on another thread you asked if anyone had ever seen a smoothrifle with set triggers. I have seen a couple - a Beck and a Beyer, IIRC - but I don't own a copy of the book I say them in. I don't think that the presence of set triggers proves that they were originally rifles, though. Just as likely to be a fashion thing...

Finding actual bore sizes is a PITA in my experience, often the same rifle is listed with two different bore sizes in two different descriptions. There is a lot of conflicting information. We have some, after the fact I might add, that claim the early rifles were large bore. Then we have JJ Henry who seems to indicate the 48 caliber ball is large, larger from my reading than the rifle he lost.
Hanger is a lot of fun and has some interesting things to say and I like to quote him, but he does run off the rails a little, at least in later writings. Like the no larger than 36 to the pound and the no smaller than 36 to the pound "conflict". I don't think either is correct. But suspect that the FRONTIER guys were not using large bore rifles when there was not need. HOWEVER, then as now I am sure that there were different opinions on the subject. Studies of surviving rifles with RIFLED bores are in line with the no larger than 36 to the pound (which is between 50 and 54 caliber). If we look at the Haymaker rifle, and some rifles that are in England or returned from there, we find calibers in the 40s or perhaps 50. We need a larger study of THESE rifles since most were not used well into the percussion era and thus the bore size is closer, or still, as they were made in the 1770s. Photobucket prevents me posting the data and I am not interested going though this hassle with another site so...

George said:

Just from curiosity, does anyone have a citation from the period of a rifle being bored out to a smoothbore?

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So nobody can point to an instance of it being recorded that a rifle was bored out to a smoothbore.....

Spence

George said:

George said:

Just from curiosity, does anyone have a citation from the period of a rifle being bored out to a smoothbore?

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So nobody can point to an instance of it being recorded that a rifle was bored out to a smoothbore.....

Spence

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Spence,

In my case and in a nutshell, short answer, no. The problem, though, is that though there are references to what kinds of gunsmithing was done in the 18th century; there is a lot of important information missing.

For example, the well known Geddy brothers gunsmiths in Colonial Williamsburg offered a gunsmithing service of rifling barrels in I think 1751 or so, but they were never known to have made any complete and new rifles. We don't even know if and how many smooth barrels they rifled. Further, if they did rifle at least some smoothbore guns, that might have skewed the figures into some larger "rifle" calibers than what we might commonly expect. The reason for that would have been even the smallest smoothbores commonly used, would have become a large to really large rifle caliber when the bore was rifled. For example, if a .58 to .62 caliber smooth bore was rifled by them or others, that would make a large/larger caliber rifle than we might commonly expect.

The next thing is how often did gunsmiths "freshen" rifle barrels and what did they actually do each time they "freshened" them? For example, one of the few times I know that at least some rifles were documented as freshened was on the Lewis and Clark journey. The problem is I don't have access to the journals to know when and where the rifle/s were freshened. I don't know if the rifle/s mentioned were the ones they got from Harpers Ferry or civilian rifles. But what we can pretty much figure out is if the rifle/s were freshened outside of some kind of shop, then all that probably was done was the grooves were scraped out a bit. Otherwise, it would have required a fairly good sized bench of some kind to have done more accurate/in depth recutting of the grooves and certainly to have slightly reamed out the lands (bore diameter).

Unless there is documentation I have never heard of, and there could well be, we don't know how often re-cutting the rifling grooves was necessary, let alone enlarging the bore size (lands diameter) and deepening existing grooves or cutting new grooves. We don't know if it was required after so many rounds fired, or more often due to corrosion/rust in the Iron Barrels. Of course the better quality the Iron and the better care the owner took of the rifle, the less often it may/would have to have been done.

Gus

Artificer said:

The reason for that would have been even the smallest smoothbores commonly used, would have become a large to really large rifle caliber when the bore was rifled.

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I don't follow your reasoning on this. My understanding of the rifling process during original making of the barrel is that the bore was reamed to the desired size and then the grooves were cut. That didn't increase the land diameter. I can see if an old, shot-out, rifled barrel were to be "freshed" that might involve reaming the lands larger, but it doesn't follow that rifling a barrel necessarily enlarges the caliber.

Yes, the Geddy brothers worked in 1751. They offered "Barrels blued, bored, and rifled." That could have indicated freshening barrels, of course, but it might also have been offering that service to gunsmiths or others who either made or bought blank barrels. There are quite a few ads for imported gun barrels, many of which don't indicate if rifled or smooth.

Spence

I think the point re making a smoothbore into a rifle is that smoothbore calibers tend to start at large rifle size & go up from there. So if one were to rifle say a .54 and .62, then they would tend to skew the "average size rifle bore" upwards. Re "freshing" a rifle bore, I can see two possibilities - the "freshing" could have consisted of removing built up uncleaned crud in the groves (which would not change the caliber) or, since a "worn out" barrel would have the lands worn down , when the groves were cut deeper, the result would be a slightly larger caliber than originally made. If the freshing process began with reaming out the remaining rifling & then cutting new rifling, the resulting caliber would be even larger. Did the term "freshing" have more than one meaning in the period or was it a bit generic meaning simply that work was done to restore the shooting ability of the rifle barrel?