Accuracy of a Civil War Musket

[Russianblood]

What was the 'standard' accuracy of a rifled musket during the Civil War? Was there a standard that was expected?

 

[Tom Compton]

IMO accurate musket is an oxymoron.

 

[poordevil]

I believe the Rifle Musket can make 4" at 100yrds.

I treat my Musketoon like a modern rifle and if I can see it with open sights, I can hit it (mostly)

At one event there were about 50 or so of us shooting at 50 to 200 yrds. One shot each distance, miss and you are out. I was one of 2 to finish. I hit the 200 yrd gong with my Parker-Hale Musketoon with 55 gr of 3FFFg. I just moved the sight to 200 yrds and aimed right on. My Musketoon has the 24" barrel. The other finisher cheated. He had a 40" barreled musket....So he was closer to the target! :hmm:
P

 

[brubincam]

-----what's 16 inches ??-----

 

[rafterob]

I was just reading something the other night that mentioned a British enfield of that period could get 6" at 100 yards and 4' at 1000 yards. Probably typical of the Military rifles of that time. The same book mentions sub 6" groups at 1000 with target rifles of the day.

 

[nkbj]

There's some documents on-line concerning rifle developement from the first half of the 19th century. You can google Reports Of Experiments With Small Arms For The Military Service and get the 1855 report with great big bunches of info. 200 yard groups of around 6"-8" seem to have been the norm with expanding base bullets. Not too shabby.

 

[CoyoteJoe]

I think there is probably a great deal of difference between what modern day target shooters accomplish with loads tuned for accuracy and what was actually done in the Civil War with issue ammo.

 

[wulf]

You are so right!!!!! The guys at the range when
I was learning shot '63 Colts and Springfields and
had groups less than 2" at 100 yds with mini's..
I never did because I was a "plinker" and they were serious...

 

[Zonie]

hawkeye

Claud E. Fuller in his book "THE RIFLED MUSKET" , THE STACKPOLE COMPANY, HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA shows the results obtained by Government testing on dozens of targets.

These results showing the accuracy of not only the issued rifles but test rifles that were considered for adoption by the U.S. Army.

On page 52 and 53, the author says:


"The .58 caliber rifled musket, at that time the regulation infantry arm, was given exhaustive tests and some of the results are most interesting, especially in view of the contempt that these old arms are held in today by some shooters.

"With deliberate aim, 10 shots at 100 yards all struck within 8 X 12 inches, at 300 yards all struck within 2 1/2 feet and at 500 yards one struck within the space of 4 square feet.

"For the rapidity test, one man firing for 5 minutes, off-hand, loading from his cartridge box fired 12 times, putting 33 percent of the shots in 2 square feet at 100 yards, when using the Maynard primer, and in the same length of time, using regular percussion caps, he fired 10 times, putting 60 percent of the shots in 2 square feet at 100 yards."

I suspect that this sort of accuracy was somewhat better than the run of the mill soldier would be expected to produce as these tests usually used people who were very familiar with the guns and the tests were conducted to determine the accuracy of the gun, not the shooter.

IMO, modern shooters seem to forget that the Rifled Musket was intended to kill and maim people, not to win precision target shooting matches.
This explains the somewhat primitive sights found on these old military (and the newly made reproductions) guns.

In my opinion, a man or woman who can shoot a 5 shot string at 100 yards and keep all shots in a 4 inch diameter circle can consider themselves an excellent shot who has worked long and hard to find the most accurate load.

 

[CoyoteJoe]

Thanks for that very informative post Zonie! :thumbsup:
I downloaded the results of the government test of 1855 but they expressed accuracy in terms of "mean radius of dispersion", a figure which cannot in any way be converted to our more familiar group size. I believe the military still uses that arcane method when setting standards for small arms accuracy.
I certainly concur with your last paragraph, to get consistent 4" groups would take some work. But none of the tests take into account the horrible trajectory of the minie ball which is a very serious limitation if shooting at unknown distances where it becomes more of a test of range estimation than pure accuracy.

 

[Russianblood]

Thank you Zonie! That's what I was looking for.

I have a 'reissued' Colt Contract Rifled Musket and am working on an accuracy load using the standard Minie Ball (Lee Mould 575-500M). So far I'm getting around 4" groups at 50 yards using 70gr 2f.

 

[CoyoteJoe]

There are a lot of folks who know more about it than I do but generally speaking the minie should be as close as possible to bore diameter. An undersize minie will expand its' base to fit the bore but the nose will still be undersize, will not be held centered and thus will wobble in flight. It also takes practice to learn to cast perfect minies, the skirts of the base are very difficult to get flawless and to shoot anything less than perfect bullets is a waste of time, powder and lead. It can be pretty frustrating to spend an hour pouring minie balls and end up tossing 75% of them back into the pot but shooting those imperfect bullets is an even greater waste.

 

[59sharps]

Drop your load down to 44-50 of 2ffg work between those 2 #s until you find something it likes. If you use 3fffg try 40 - 48. If you thy Swiss you can drop the load it likes by 10% -+.
these loads will work well out to 100 yrds. I do not shoot mine past that so I can not help.
you do not need to kill your shoulder target shooting.

 

[Russianblood]

I'm working up a load for deer hunting with this musket. In the southern half of Michigan, we are only allowed to use shotguns, handguns or muzzleloader for deer.

 

[CoyoteJoe]

I'm working up a load for deer hunting with this musket.

Well now why didn't you say that in the first place?
For hunting I wouldn't waste time with minie balls. Most muskets will shoot a patched .570 ball with 80-100 grains of powder very nicely and accuracy comes much easier than with minies, plus they shoot flatter, are easier to cast or can be purchased at most larger gun shops for half the price of minie balls. Find a patch thickness which starts with a fairly hard slap on the short starter, lube with any non-running patch lube and start shooting from the bench. Musket sights are not easily adjustable but with some tinkering you can get it zeroed fairly well. I have used a .58 Zouave as my elk rifle in the past with a .570 ball, .018" cotton patch over 80 grains 2f. I can't tell you how it worked because I never got a shot with that rifle but it looked good on paper. :haha:

 

[Semisane]

Most muskets will shoot a patched .570 ball with 80-100 grains of powder very nicely and accuracy comes much easier than with minies, plus they shoot flatter, are easier to cast

Dang right! I don't bother with Minnies at all.

 

[Russianblood]

I'm going to be testing round balls as well. I have a box of Hornady .570s to try. I was just curious what kind of Civil War accuracy the rifled musket had.

 

[varsity07840]

Getting a musket to shoot to it's potential can take alot more time at the range and at home, compared to shooting a roundball rifle. With the roundball, you can usually buy several different ball diameters , patch thickess and grades of powder, take them to the range and come up with a decent load. Muskets, even repros can have bores that vary quite a bit in the same caliber, and knowing that size is paramount when using a minie.
Patched roundballs can be more forgiving in repros that don't have progressive depth rifling. Measuring the bore size can be tedious with odd number lands and grooves. Finding store bought minies the right size and quality can also be a pain, so buying a mould and casting you own
comes next, along with sizing them correctly. You may have to try several die sizes. Pure, soft lead is a must or you're just wasting your time.

Having said all of that, If you spend the time(and money), a musket with a quality barrel(Hoyt or Whitacre are the best), a musket with minies will be very accurate. I have two .69 cal and one
.58 cal originals with Hoyt relines that will shoot one big hole at 50 yards. I have another .58 still with the original bore that does almost as well. That one needs a .585 minie, which you're not going to find at DGW. They're all fun to shoot and I've taken deer with 3 of them.

One last thing about roundballs in a musket. Make sure you can reload it easily under field conditions. If you're using a stout range rod to reload at the range, you may find that it's hard to ram home a tight patched ball in a fouled bore with that thin ramrod.

Duane

 

[ResearchPress]

I was just curious what kind of Civil War accuracy the rifled musket had.

See this thread: http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/225184/

David

 

[ResearchPress]

I was just reading something the other night that mentioned a British enfield of that period could get 6" at 100 yards and 4' at 1000 yards. Probably typical of the Military rifles of that time. The same book mentions sub 6" groups at 1000 with target rifles of the day.

What was this source? It is overly optimistic by a long way.

The long range target used for NRA(GB) competition had a 36" square bull's eye (later circular). Even in the international matches the top marksmen were not placing all shots in the bull as the 6" grouping above suggests.

David