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Smooth rifles, were they made as new guns?

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MountainSmoke

MountainSmoke

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Smooth rifles seem to have been fairly common in the 18th century from what I can gather. Most of the information that I can find states that a smooth rifle was nearly always a rifle first and then re bored smooth after the rifle barrel " wore out". Is it possible that a smooth rifle was made with a smooth barrel to begin with as a new gun or were they most likely always a rifle first? Thanks
 
They were sold called at times smooth rifles or rifle mounted fusils
Although glasses had been around in Europe since the thirteenth century it wasn’t until the twentieth century corrected vision was common. One’s vision might not be so poor to keep a man from living and farming or running an inn it might not be good enough for rifle shooting.
A near sighted man can well see a deer shape at fifty yards, enough to put a smooth bore ball in to the lights, and could see a rabbit or squirrel or turkey, he may not need a rifle. Still would not want to look out of place with the rifle shooters around him.
So he got one in smooth.
 
Yes. Yes they were. They appear often in period advertising, often referred to a "smooth rifle guns." Generally in a list of guns a merchant has available or is expecting to come in with his next delivery. A former member used to post a lot of these ads, not always directly about guns but he would post the entire ad and they would be there. Might find them in the reenacting section under various subforums.

If I ever get organized so I can find my screenshots of them more easily I will post them.
 
YES, they were. Rifling took time and cost more. So to save money they were purchased or made without rifling. Example of the 38 known "rifles" made by George Schreyer in Hanover PA, of calibers from .34 to .60, 26 were smooth bore. .50 caliber being the most common (9), 2 were rifled, and the other 7 were smooth! (Shumway's book on book on Schreyer, pg. 140.)

I personally do not believe the old yarn of barrels being "shot out". While barrels were made of softer iron than the steel we use today, they were still loading with lead ball and patch, which is softer than iron. They cleaned their guns with tow or linen cloth (softer still). So the only thing to "wear out a barrel" would be harsh abrasive cleaning to remove rust, and corrosion from a neglected bore. TDY
 
The Damned Yankee said:
YES, they were. Rifling took time and cost more. So to save money they were purchased or made without rifling. Example of the 38 known "rifles" made by George Schreyer in Hanover PA, of calibers from .34 to .60, 26 were smooth bore. .50 caliber being the most common (9), 2 were rifled, and the other 7 were smooth! (Shumway's book on book on Schreyer, pg. 140.)

I personally do not believe the old yarn of barrels being "shot out". While barrels were made of softer iron than the steel we use today, they were still loading with lead ball and patch, which is softer than iron. They cleaned their guns with tow or linen cloth (softer still). So the only thing to "wear out a barrel" would be harsh abrasive cleaning to remove rust, and corrosion from a neglected bore. TDY
Click to expand...
From personal experience I would have to disagree. The first rifle I built in the late 70's had a .40 caliber Douglas barrel. It was the only rifle I had for several years. I shot in matches every weekend sometimes 2 different clubs per weekend plus several 3 day shoots, shot at friendship plus usually practiced 2 or 3 times a week. Shot offhand, cross stick and light bench so it got used a lot. When I started was using .390 ball with .010 patch, as the barrel wore had to go to a thicker patch. Then went to a .395 ball and when that got loose went to a .400 ball. When I finally retired it there was very little rifling left. Shot only patched round balls and cleaned with only water with a little dawn. If I can wear out a steel barrel I have to believe that someone using a soft iron barrel a lot could wear it out.
 
Zutt-man said:
How many shots does it take to wear out the rifling in a barrel?
Click to expand...
Depends on who is loading and cleaning the rifle and how. Most barrels will lose accuracy after 10,000 rounds but this is easily remedied by “freshing” which is deepening the grooves and trimming the lands. I’m not referring to drilling out, re-boring, and re-rifling as Bobby Hoyt does so well. This is not a period practice.

There are probably 20 threads here on smooth rifles.
 
There are LOTS of antique flintlock and percussion examples of original smooth rifles. They are especially easy to recognize in swivel breech over under guns that were made with one barrel smooth and the other rifled...... and having rifle sights on both barrels
 
rich pierce said:
Depends on who is loading and cleaning the rifle and how. Most barrels will lose accuracy after 10,000 rounds but this is easily remedied by “freshing” which is deepening the grooves and trimming the lands. I’m not referring to drilling out, re-boring, and re-rifling as Bobby Hoyt does so well. This is not a period practice.

There are probably 20 threads here on smooth rifles.
Click to expand...
I was genuinely curious. There has seemingly been a lot of talk about ‘shooting out barrels’ and turning them into smoothies. I know these guys lived and died by their guns, but holy cow that’s a lot of shooting
 
ronaldrothb49 said:
From personal experience I would have to disagree. The first rifle I built in the late 70's had a .40 caliber Douglas barrel. It was the only rifle I had for several years. I shot in matches every weekend sometimes 2 different clubs per weekend plus several 3 day shoots, shot at friendship plus usually practiced 2 or 3 times a week. Shot offhand, cross stick and light bench so it got used a lot. When I started was using .390 ball with .010 patch, as the barrel wore had to go to a thicker patch. Then went to a .395 ball and when that got loose went to a .400 ball. When I finally retired it there was very little rifling left. Shot only patched round balls and cleaned with only water with a little dawn. If I can wear out a steel barrel I have to believe that someone using a soft iron barrel a lot could wear it out.
Click to expand...
Wow! That's a lot of shooting! I don't know how many balls per shoot you did (50-100?) but it still sounds like a lot of shooting. Would be interesting to know what the bore / groove measurements were before and after.

I doubt that even during war time anyone put that many balls thru a gun. I will concede that these guns were used for YEARS, so yes, there was some wear on them. I also understand the effects of friction / pressure over time on anything. However, most "smoot Rifles" were made that way and not "shot out" or recut. TDY
 
This may be a stupid question… but a shot-out rifle barrel would be a smoothbore. (?) wouldn’t some rifling be better than none or would it make such a difference that it’d need to be bored smooth? Considering the cost issues discussed, I’d think switching to a different ball/patch would get you to 50 yards.

I’ve never shot one anything that many times. Maybe a .22 or a shotgun, but I usually end up buying something new for fun before I get that far.
 
More barrels were rotted out than shot out. The 30 year old gun was given to the 12 year old boy. He abused it for a while and eventually traded it to another kid for a knife. Or it got traded to a greenhorn. I’ve seen barrels so pitted you could hide a crawdad in some of the pits. So the idea that they got shot till smooth is a non-starter.
When a rifle got worn out and was converted to smoothbore, this is what happened. B1 below.
1) Rifle bore gets worn and rusty and pitted.
A) It gets freshed out and remains a rifle.
B) It gets worse till nobody can load and shoot it.
1. Somebody wants it restored to shooting condition on the cheap. Gunsmith drills and reams it. What was a rifle has become a smoothbore.
2. It gets junked or becomes a wall-hanger “ used by my ancestor at Bunker Hill”.
 
Zutt-man said:
I was genuinely curious. There has seemingly been a lot of talk about ‘shooting out barrels’ and turning them into smoothies. I know these guys lived and died by their guns, but holy cow that’s a lot of shooting
Click to expand...
I can't help but think a wood loading rod used without any kind of muzzle protector and inadequate cleaning is the real reason these guns needed freshed out and doubt the rifling was actually worn smooth down bore.
I've hand lead lapped a lot of barrels over the years with abrasive paste and it takes forever to lap out even .001 in the whole bore. There's no way a cloth/linen patch is going to do this even close to as fast.
 
ronaldrothb49 said:
From personal experience I would have to disagree. The first rifle I built in the late 70's had a .40 caliber Douglas barrel. It was the only rifle I had for several years. I shot in matches every weekend sometimes 2 different clubs per weekend plus several 3 day shoots, shot at friendship plus usually practiced 2 or 3 times a week. Shot offhand, cross stick and light bench so it got used a lot. When I started was using .390 ball with .010 patch, as the barrel wore had to go to a thicker patch. Then went to a .395 ball and when that got loose went to a .400 ball. When I finally retired it there was very little rifling left. Shot only patched round balls and cleaned with only water with a little dawn. If I can wear out a steel barrel I have to believe that someone using a soft iron barrel a lot could wear it out.
Click to expand...
You both make good points
The average deer hunter or even market hunter probably didn’t shoot as much as a ‘hard core’ competitor today.
I’m a fair shot, but I can’t run with the big dogs. Two inches is good for me and the game is won based on 1/2 or 1/4 inch. And for all the lube and patch thickness questions the thing that make the tightest groups is practice, and lots of it.
Certainly in the old days gunsmiths freshened bores. If we can say Boone shot less then we might today, we can also say are steel barrels won’t ware like iron
Six of one half dozen of the other
I bet eighty percent of us will never shoot a gun to worn out, bet eighty percent of the old timers didn’t either
 
rich pierce said:
More barrels were rotted out than shot out. The 30 year old gun was given to the 12 year old boy. He abused it for a while and eventually traded it to another kid for a knife. Or it got traded to a greenhorn. I’ve seen barrels so pitted you could hide a crawdad in some of the pits. So the idea that they got shot till smooth is a non-starter.
When a rifle got worn out and was converted to smoothbore, this is what happened. B1 below.
1) Rifle bore gets worn and rusty and pitted.
A) It gets freshed out and remains a rifle.
B) It gets worse till nobody can load and shoot it.
1. Somebody wants it restored to shooting condition on the cheap. Gunsmith drills and reams it. What was a rifle has become a smoothbore.
2. It gets junked or becomes a wall-hanger “ used by my ancestor at Bunker Hill”.
Click to expand...
What he said^^^
 
Quicksilver said:
A lot. Only one time did I do this and it was a used 22lr Winchester pump I got as a kid. A rough estimate of around 100,000 rounds went down that pipe when I owned it.
Click to expand...
It may have just needed a good lead stripping and walla the rifling reappears ! Gallery rifles are the only ones that ever see any where near this round count and the truth is I don't believe it ever has happened with any muzzle loading gun. I shoot competitively most every month of the year and if I have shot over 25 K in my entire 50 years of practice and competition I'd be greatly surprised.
An outing or competition will almost always be around 50 shots per day excepting Territorials or Friendship on average and that is probably a bit high so add it up. That would be 500 days of competition and or practice just to get to 25 K now quadruple that ( 100,000).
I'm not calling any one a liar but most folks unknowingly exaggerate round count over many years of shooting wither cartridge or muzzle loader !
 
Last edited:
M. De Land said:
It may have just needed a good lead stripping and walla the rifling reappears ! Gallery rifles are the only ones that ever see any where near this round count and the truth is I don't believe it ever has happened with any muzzle loading gun. I shoot competitively most every month of the year and if I have shot over 25 K in my entire 50 years of practice and competition I'd be greatly surprised.
An outing or competition will almost always be around 50 shots per day excepting Territorials or Friendship on average and that is probably a bit high so add it up. That would be 500 days of competition and or practice just to get to 25 K now quadruple that ( 100,000).
I'm not calling any one a liar but most folks unknowingly exaggerate round count over many years of shooting wither cartridge or muzzle loader !
Click to expand...
Crazy how someone on a forum will come to conclusions about what was posted without even knowing all the facts or the person.
Look the gun had the lead stripped out of it a few times before it was retired. The gun had a round count of around 100,000 down the pipe. This is a estimate. How would I know this you might ask? Well I’ll tell you.. I spent my allowance on 100 round boxes of cci mini mags. Most weekends I was able to buy 10 boxes. Not much else to do being a kid growing up in the back woods of the Sierra Nevadas. I think you need to find a hobby Mr. @M. De Land
 

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