How accurate do you shoot your flintlock?

[horsetrader]

I am wondering what your average groups for a 10 rd group at 50 yr offhand is with a flintlock rifle?!
I am shoting somewhere in a 6-7 inch avaerage...
Guess I need to improve a lot .

 

[oldarmy]

Takes practice...
There isn't a "magic load"
Shoot the rifle 300 or 400,500 times in a year. your groups will tighten up, or you will decide the rifle sucks and you will get one that shoots I can't say. We as a culture, IMHO have an instance gratification nature. I was shooting my latest work, letting my friends try it. They were all "where does it shoot"??? Most of them had never even fired a flintlock. I told them to point it that way :haha: They were all amassed at how well it functioned :surrender:
I have said this a hundred times.
Once you shoot a muzzle loading flintlock well..
Any center fire rifle is a piece of cake

 

[Trench]

That sounds right about where I was when I first started. Actually, I might have been worse. My off hand groups at 50 yds were so bad I wouldn't even measure. It's now been 2.5 years since I started shooting flintlock and my last 50yd off hand group was 4.7 in with my .36 rifle.

Long story short, it takes practice! :grin:

 

[Sunkmanitu Tanka]

Hallo,
It is just a matter of getting used to the different lock... Learn to deal with flinching, learn to deal with ignition time... After shooting percussion locks for most of my addult life, I got myself a flintlock about one year ago and I am totaly hooked! After one year, and about 1000 shots later, I forget totaly about the lock and I am slowly but surely closing in on my former results with the percussion guns... with a lot of help of Paul Van Landigham, Dutch Schoutz and a lot of others... Probably I will in the 55 yard range (50 meters) kill a dear as well as with my percussion gun but concerning my flintlock, I still get some 5 % less points when I shoot targets... But wait and see! I will get there and shoot my flintlock as good as I did formerly shoot my percussion gun... Only difference???? Much more satisfaction! Flintlock is awesome!

 

[John Wasmuth]

2 inches at 100 yards. .90 grains of FFg goex, .480 hornady round ball, .010 wonderlube patch. Wouldnt use it if it was any bigger than that.

 

[aap2]

Wow, you guys are good. My flintlocks will shoot a 10 shot 100 yard group from the benchrest that's pretty tight, but I can't do that offhand, even with an iron-sighted cartridge rifle. A 10 shot 100 yard 2 inch group offhand group with a flintlock is really good shooting.

 

[roundball]

2 inches at 100 yards. .90 grains of FFg goex, .480 hornady round ball, .010 wonderlube patch. Wouldnt use it if it was any bigger than that.

Since the question was about offhand shooting at 50yds, I just want to be clear that you're saying you routinely shoot a 2" group at 100 yards offhand?

 

[John Wasmuth]

Ah, miss read it, 2 inches is from the bench, spreads out to about 5 off hand. My apologies.
Mater of fact, I'll post a scan off a target tomorrow morning.

 

[roundball]

No need to do that...I was just trying to clarify if you meant offhand or not.
I'm a poor offhand shot at distance using 32" barrels...I recently got a longer 38" barreled Flintlock and it'll be interesting to see if that makes a difference

 

[rabjr]

I can cover my shots at 50 with my palm no problem shooting off hand with my .58. Actually surprised me last year how well I can shoot it off hand, something I try to avoid as much as possible. I always shoot/hunt from some kind of a good rest. From the bench It generally makes one big ragged hole long as I do my part. :thumbsup:

 

[John Wasmuth]

I think you will do well with the longer barrel at that range. ML's are capable of extrememly good accuracy providing us oldsters can still see that far! LOL! Mostly my shooting now is hunting, or preperation for hunting, as you know, Texas is blessed, or cursed, with hogs, so we can hunt them 24/7/365. I practice on 5 inch or so rocks out at 100 yards regularly. If I can hit them on a regular basis I feel confident on hogs at that distance with the flinter. But to clarify, in no way will I state that I can hold a 2 inch group off hand at 100 yards, I miss read the first post.

 

[hanshi]

I've always been able to tack up a 25 yard pistol target at 300 yards and put 5 shots in the black off hand with my flintlock. I don't do that any longer as I got real tired of having to walk up 285 yards to the target, fire my 5 shots and then go all the way back to the truck to reload. :rotf: :rotf:

All seriousness aside, I am still able to shoot pretty small groups (in the neighborhood of 2 and 1/2" for 5 shots) regularly at 50 yards with my 42" .50 TVM Early Virginia. Have trouble matching that with any other rifle. It's just muzzle heavy enough to not move around on target so much. Can't hold it up for too long though.

 

[horsetrader]

Checked with the mlaic. World record 50 m ( approx 55yr) flintlock free standing and the best 10 shot out of 13 is a score of 96. The 10 ring is 1.96 inch.... quite impressive!

 

[J.D.]

I shot for the first time in about a year, last week, and shot about a 4- 5" group, at 50 yards, off hand. That ain't bad for someone who hasn't shot a pound of powder in the last coupla years, but it ain't good either.

I gotta get out more. :redface:

God bless

 

[MikeChapin]

I do about the same offhand with flint or percussion. The flint groups will widen out a little due to the the occasional hang but that's about it.

I can generally keep everything in the scoring rings on a standard six bull at 50 yards what ever size that is. I can do this with all my flinters that go from .32 on up to .58.

Back in my thirties I could average in the mid thirties with occasional forays into the low forties on the six bull scores. Now I average from the mid to high twenties and occasionally get into the mid thirties.

 

[Dphar]

You mean before or after I turned 50?? :grin: :grin:
Benched:
I shot a couple of 5 shot groups at 122 with the 16 bore last week that went 4 1/2" or so. One before that was a lot worse. Had a "mechanical" problem with the standing breech.
Shot a 10 shot 60 yard match last Sat in the wind that was worse than that with the 54. Think the bench needed to be longer, the rifle likely needed to be rested near the muzzle.
I have not been practicing offhand enough. Shooting is a "perishable skill" after all. Need to get back to shooting 50ft smallbore I guess.
Or more dry firing with a wooden "flint".

Dan

 

[Leonredbeard]

Ah, well, good enough in the past that I could often hit the little steel bear sillouttes at 130 yards offhand. They are a hoot to shoot! with the .60 rifled barrel it was morte fun because I could fire the shot and then, as I was lowering the rifle the bear would go down. The .54 rifled barrel wasn't as much fun because the bear was down before I could see through the smoke. Oh, the bears stood 3 feet tall and about 14 inches wide at the shoulders. They were standing facing the firing line. My yeager has 31" barrels. (Switch, not rotating)
volatpluvia

 

[single shot]

when i was younger i was a pretty good shot i guess..But as i got older my eyes dont see like they once did, hands shake some. im kind of new to the flintlock but its fun. all im trying to say is sometime it is what it is and for me i learned to laugh at myself at times. But come deer season i will not miss.

 

[hanshi]

I probably should add that I do have bad days when nothing goes right but that rifle always seems to eventually come through for me. And while I "usually" keep that nice group (50yds), when I have fliers they are normally several inches from the group, not just an enlarged group. Bad eyesight AND twitchy, I guess. :cursing:

 

[2172]

I only shoot offhand, no rest. We just did a silhouette shoot, and I did 6 out of 12 squirrels at 30 yds, 5 out of 10 buffalo at 60...the squirrels are about equal to a 2"x3" target, the buffalo about the same, I reckon. At a paper target, I guess my 50 yd group would be about 4", 3.5" on a good day. I'm now 77, and feeling the effect of the years...holding for 30 shots just plain wears me out. On the bright side, new glasses let me see the front sight and target clearly for the first time in about 6 months, so I'm hopeful...Hank. oh, I shoot .48 ball, .018 ticking patch, lubed with wonder lube...