Before the micrometer

[tenngun]

.010 .015 .020 all feel a lot different and that may have been good enough :idunno:

 

[necchi]

.010 .015 .020 all feel a lot different and that may have been good enough :idunno:

Yes,, heck I do that today, the mic only comes out when I start checking between .018-.021(crushed)
and if a man knew "thick" worked better for him then "thin" or vice versa,, that's the selection that was made of available fabric. Then as I mentioned earlier other variables are tweaked for the best results

 

[Rifleman1776]

I don't think many rifles of that period would shoot a MOA at 200 yards. That's a 20th century thing. I do know Americans wrote their friends in England making claims of extraordinary accuracy (or so I've read) in order to use a primitive form of Psy-ops, in other words. I seem to remember a letter claiming it common practice of hitting a 12" board held between another rifleman's legs at 60 yards.

Gene, those stories do abound. I have read a lot of Rev. history and I simply do not believe most of the claims made by many academics. The board thing at 60 yards was most often a silver dollar being shot out of the board at that range. :shocked2: I sure wouldn't hold that board between my legs and let someone shoot at it. :shake: The claimed accuracy of 'back then' can be largely disproven by looking at the targets that come to the scoring shed at any organized ml shoot. Even bench matches with high grade rifles at 50 yards might not have any hits inside the 8 ring. We ain't as great as our claims. :wink:

 

[Gene L]

Timothy Murphy was an expert marksman, able to hit a seven inch target at 250 yards.

 

[tenngun]

In 1775 one Virginian rifle men left folks amazed by shooting a a 5x7 target at sixty yards,eight times in row. We write dowthe amazing shot. Most of us had some over the top shot, but what do we do 98 shots in a hundred. I dropped a dove at seventy plus yards, once.

 

[tenngun]

Timothy Murphy was an expert marksman, able to hit a seven inch target at 250 yards.

I seem to recall he had several misses first. What was his gun sighted for. Should he have been sighted st hundred yards he would have had to aim at a guestsmated spot some feet high. And we remember this shot.however we don't remember how many tree rats were head shot at fifty.
We have to keep in mind our front sight is wider then seven inches as seen at two hundred and fifty yards.

 

[Gene L]

When he shot the British general, the range was 300 yards and it took him two ranging shots with the third scoring. The general's aide rode out to help and Murphy got him with one shot.

I think the seven inch targets were that size to represent a human head.

 

[azmntman]

Timothy Murphy was an expert marksman, able to hit a seven inch target at 250 yards.

I would think he would have had trouble SEEING a 7" target at 250 yds

 

[Zonie]

I think a 7 inch target at 250 yards would look about like a 1/32" dot at the distance of your front rifle sight.

At least the math says it does.

 

[Artificer]

Timothy Murphy was an expert marksman, able to hit a seven inch target at 250 yards.

When he shot the British general, the range was 300 yards and it took him two ranging shots with the third scoring. The general's aide rode out to help and Murphy got him with one shot.

I think the seven inch targets were that size to represent a human head.

This information tells us at least a couple of interesting things.

First, it has been fairly well documented that Timothy Murphy was known at the time as at least one of the better, if not best shots of all the Riflemen at Saratoga. No doubt that’s why Dan Morgan picked him and at least one to perhaps four other Riflemen (depending on which account is read) to shoot at General Fraser. At the second battle of Saratoga, Tim was 26 years old, which would have put him well up on frontier experience shooting a rifle.

However, in the example above, it took two ranging shots for him to hit a man at 300 yards, which tells us that Tim Murphy was only at best, slightly used to shooting at that distance and it was further than the normal distances Tim Murphy had shot at. The reason I say that is because had Tim Murphy commonly taken deer at that range before the war, a man is easier to hit at that distance and would not have required two ranging shots.

The second thing it tells us is that Tim Murphy’s Rifle was more accurate than that, though it does not tell us what was the possible accuracy potential of his rifle. Tim was under stress because there was a battle going on, he probably had not had as good of food and rest as he was used to in everyday civilian life. What that means is Tim Murphy was physically not up to his best shooting, so he was not able to shoot the rifle as accurately as the rifle was capable.

This last is something that some people don’t seem to separate, the difference between how accurate a rifle is compared to how accurately a man can shoot the rifle. There are very few marksmen in the country, or even the world; who can shoot a rifled gun, with accuracy as good as the rifle is capable. No one can shoot a rifle with more accuracy than what the rifle has in it. No matter how good a rifleman is, he/she cannot hold it perfectly steady to get the true accuracy out of the rifle.

Gus

 

[Artificer]

I think the seven inch targets were that size to represent a human head.

The average size of a man's head today is:
Head length: around 9 inches
Width: around 6 inches

Americans in that time period were only about an inch shorter overall than todays average. British Soldiers from having much poorer diets when growing up than Americans, were about 2 to 2 1/2 inches shorter than the average American. So generally, yes, a 7 inch circle was pretty close to the size of a man's head.

Yes, you most certainly can see a man's head at 300 yards with the naked eye, but of course you can not recognize his features. Also, don't forget that the head of a British Soldier had a "cocked hat" on it that since the 19th century has generally been called a "tri corn" hat.

Actually the man's hat/head is a great aiming point at that distance to quite a bit further distance away and yes with Iron Sights. Now, you don't expect to hit the head, but rather it sort of centers your aim on the middle of the body to drop hits down into his torso.

Gus

 

[tenngun]

I am put in mind of a demo I was at with a friend. We were loading rifles and letting tourist take shots. We had a double ply wood back stop on 2x6s filled with sand, and balloons as targets. We were going through the loading and both of us had shot. My friend had a golden age arms harken pistol I had made for him as a gift on his belt. I had a cva my pistol on my belt.
As we were both empty some tourist called out "the injuns are coming, now whatcha going to do?" My friend and I both drew our pistols and shot at the same balloon hitting no more then an inch apart. There was not half a second between the two shots. We had not planned this. We both came up with the decision to pull and shoot, and we both chose the same balloon just by happenstance. That looked just amazing.
No doubt Murphy was a fine shot. However I wonder how many American rifleman took shots beyond 200 yards that missed. A .50 at 2000 fps would have a ten foot drop at 300 yards,a midrange of four feet and a 5mph wind would give it a drift of four feet, a five mph wind is hard to feel.

 

[Artificer]

Another problem with firing ranging shots at long range during the period, that even those of us who shoot or have shot ML rifles a lot tend to forget, is how difficult it was to SEE where the missed shots landed by the person/s who fired the shots. This unless there was a strong enough wind blowing to quickly blow the cloud of black powder smoke away. Of course a wind that strong would cause windage problems with the shots, as you mentioned before.

This is part of the reason I tend to give more credence to the accounts of Tim Murphy at Saratoga being one of at least two or three riflemen, if not four or five. The ones not shooting could have marked the ranging shots for Murphy (and others) while they waited to shoot.

Gus

 

[rich pierce]

Back to micrometers. I agree that cloth of different diameters can be easily discerned by feel. I can tell cotton 0.013 from 0.015 side by side by feel if they are of same weave. Easy to feel the difference between 0.013 and 0.018 thick linen. I like Gus's explanation of how to make a mold the right size by testing the cutter meant to make the mold, in the muzzle.

I could see using a tapered square reamer with a set-screw collar to measure diameter at muzzle, using that same reamer to finish the hole in the steel plate used to form the mold cutting cherry, and ending up with a good fit.

To get a mold of close to perfect diameter one could also slug the bore, cut off the grooves from the slug, and use this to test the hole being finalized in the steel plate used to make the mold cherry. One doesn't need to know the diameter precisely. Just the fit.

 

[Artificer]

I could see using a tapered square reamer with a set-screw collar to measure diameter at muzzle, using that same reamer to finish the hole in the steel plate used to form the mold cutting cherry, and ending up with a good fit.

Great point. Not sure if they would have used a set-screw, but rather a wedge to hold the collar, which was much more common in that period?

Gus

 

[rich pierce]

Good point Gus!

 

[M. De Land]

We do some off hand shooting at 8 and 10 inch plates at 200 meters with cast bullet cartridge guns using aperture sights and they are indeed small but are hit fairly regular.
It is possible to put the plate on top of the front post and lower the rear open sight top in relation to the height of the front, to get the right elevation.
Elmer Kieth used to do this with his long range pistol shooting by putting brass cross bars on the ramp of the front sight to reference the hold on the top of the rear with the target perched on top of the front sight. He could get hits on targets from his back reclining method of shooting over his pulled up knees at 600-700 yards. Course he wasn't shooting at a 7 inch wide target either. More like a half sheet of plywood or large boulder.
A hit on a seven inch target with a round ball over open sights at 250 yards is indeed remarkable shooting and would require unusually acute eye sight.

 

[coloradoclyde]

A hit on a seven inch target with a round ball over open sights at 250 yards is indeed remarkable shooting and would require unusually acute eye sight.

I think we just found the next monthly postal match...Hey Jethro.......

 

[B.Habermehl]

It would seem to me that. Using a mold cherry with a patch on it as a gauge, during the boring process as a go or stop gauge would be the easiest way to get a ball of the correct dia. Especially being the reaming is a incremental process. Expierience in feeling the difference in fit between smooth bore and later rifled would be needed of course. BJH

 

[Billnpatti]

I wonder how our ancestors determined patch thickness before the micrometer. They were stuck with mostly linen, I think, with weaving techniques not as advanced as ours today. So how did they cope with coarse (by modern standards) cloth? Are we overly concerned with patch thickness that can only be determined in with a mechanical device in 1/1000"? How did our ancestors survive with such cloth materials they were forced to use?

I wonder if any original moulds exist that can be related to standard calibers.

One day a friend of mine and I went to Jo-Ann's to get some patching for our rifles. In the store, I took out my micrometer and started measuring fabric thicknesses. My friend was just going through the fabrics feeling each with his fingers. He thought I was a bit nutty for using a micrometer to select my patching material. He used just his fingers to select his material. He seemed to do quite well selecting his patching material with his finger technique and I suspect that was the same technique used by our forefathers.