Rifles versus smoothbores

[rich pierce]

Catchy title but I am for both rifles and smoothbores.

I will propose 3 categories of reasons for choosing whether to have and use a smoothbore or a rifle. Not everyone will give a hoot about some of the categories. This is just for fun. Contrary to what's often said here, there is no right or wrong in a hobby if proper care is taken to ensure a clean kill when you hunt.

1) Practical considerations.
2) Personal preference or "fun factor".
3) Historical representation.

Under practical considerations, I'll include laws (no rifles for turkeys or waterfowl) and effectiveness. A rifle is no good for wingshooting even if legal, and a smoothbore is no good for shots beyond 75 yards with few exceptions. And what's practical for one may not be for another. Some guys will kill every squirrel to 30 yards with the rifle, even as it's hopping around. For others, the running rabbit, hopping squirrel, or coyote responding to the call will be easier to take with a smoothbore with shot.

Under personal preference aside from historical reasons, we have looks (maybe the French fusil form appeals) and fun factor. Which is more fun to load and shoot? For some, variety is fun.

Under historical representation, it is what it is. If you're a militiaman, a Canadian or Northwestern Native American, a soldier in the infantry, or any number of unspecialized persons, a smoothbore will be more likely to fit your historical presentation needs. If you're in a rifle corps, are a "long hunter", a white fur trade trapper, a target shooter (yes they shot targets back in the day) or a later plainsman, likely a rifle will be your ticket to a good representation.

 

[cynthialee]

My only experiance with a smooth bore is modern shot guns. So there is all that. But I do want a smooth bore ML so we can get rid of Sevans' modern shot gun.
The smooth bore is able to put shot or a ball down range. I can't put shot in my rifle and hope to get a patern that will get the job done.
Every shot I would be likely to take around these parts is 70 yards or less.
State law won't let me shoot a turkey with a rifle.
So a smooth bore is a good option around these parts.

 

[Zonie]

Just remember, these smoothbore rifles are rifles in every sense except they lack rifling.

Their heavy barrels (compared with a real smooth bore) makes snap shooting or wing shooting rather slow and clumsy.

If Sevan likes hunting flying birds, IMO he doesn't want a smooth rifle.

 

[asbrown]

:bow: To true, but that can be fixed by using an oct/rd barrel appropriately tapered and fitted to a lightweight stock. Make it a longfowler or intentionaly built smooth rifle, instead of a reamed out full oct. rifle. :thumbsup:

 

[cynthialee]

Naw Sevan just has it as a home defense/deterant thing. I am the one who actually does the shooting, it might as weel be my gun and I don't do wing shooting. Not enough meat on a duck for my tastes. If I go bird hunting it is gonna be turkies.

 

[asbrown]

:hatsoff: I couldn't agree with you more. I too have both rifles and smoothbores, and contrary to my avatar name I regularly find myself hunting big game in places where my smoothbore 20 just isn't a viable option. This is where common sense takes over. It seems there are those who believe the rifle to be the end all be all and can't be convinced of the versatility of the smoothbore. I may be just playing the devils advocate here, but even I can see the obvious truth of it. But as I always say when I wade in on these discussions, ALL OF THIS IS PERSONAL OPINION AND PREFERENCE, TO EACH HIS OWN, AND AS LONG AS YOU ARE A RESPONSIBLE WARD OF THE GAME YOU PURSUE YOUR WEAPON OF CHOICE IS JUST THAT, YOUR CHOICE!

As to rifles vs. smoothbores, I actually agree with Dan Pharis to some degree. The rifle has its purpose and the shotgun has its purpose. The "smoothrifle" seems to be an attempt to bring the two together in a single arm that could be wielded in either situation. It may not be as good as either of its parents at their respective specialities, but it can do things that each of its parents can't. Long live the smoothrifle, and beware the man who owns just one gun, he probably knows how to use it.

 

[Lonegun1894]

If home defense is a purpose for his modern shotgun, then I would keep it and just add a ML when possible for hunting, but keep the modern for defensive use.

Now as for the hunting, I have my smoothrifle for two reasons. One is the legal requirement in some areas I hunt to use a smoothbore rather than a rifle, and the other is for the added challenge of using a smoothbore over a rifle for some of my target work and hunting. Limiting range forces me to be a better hunter, and most of my hunting is at game I could just as well take with a rifle, so the smoothrifle is a better option than a true fowler since I usually take deliberate aim even with the SB as opposed to swinging like I would if dove hunting.

 

[cynthialee]

Yeah, she* knows how to load and fire a modern firearm, but I can't get her to take the time to learn how to shoot BP firearms. So keeping the modern is a good idea.

*I know the name Sevan is throwing you off.

 

[asbrown]

interesting name. Is Sevan Irish? like Siobahn?

 

[cynthialee]

Armenian.

No Sevan isn't. She is French/Italian.

Pronounced like Evan with an S in front.

 

[Zonie]

Initially, it was my mistake.

Tell Sevan I owe her one.

Getting back to the slightly off topic subject of home defense, modern cartridge guns can't be beat by any black powder muzzleloader. Let her keep the smoothbore.

Getting back on track (sort of) I guess I think of the smooth rifle like I think of my old German shorthair, a combination dog that is can point but has webbed feet for retrieving.
The idea of a combination gun or dog is sound but it often ends up with something that doesn't work as well at either of the originals purposes.

 

[rich pierce]

Not by any means intending to limiting discussion to smooth rifles and rifles. Might be fun to discuss why folks make their choices for particular rifles or smoothbores across the whole range of rifles and smoothbores. My personal guns:

First rifle, 1977: a halfstock .50 caliber. Great whitetail deer hunting gun. Why did I keep it? Practical + personal preference. The historical period (1850's) doesn't appeal so much to me.

Second rifle, 1978, a .45 caliber Bucks County style fullstock flintlock. Good 80 yard deer rifle and decent 30 yard small game gun loaded own. Why keep it? Practical + personal preference + historical (works for 1790's and later).

First smoothbore, 1980, a .62 smooth barrel for my .50 cal halfstock. Don't use it much but it's legal for turkey and deer in counties that require "shotgun" hunting for deer. Practical only.

Second smoothbore, an original 20 ga percussion double bought in 1982. Fun small game gun. This one is practical + personal preference as the historical period doesn't appeal to me that much.


Third rifle built in 2006, a .58 caliber very early longrifle, built to fit that timeframe. Practical, personal preference and historical reasons made it a keeper.

Fourth rifle, finished in 2011, is another very early American flintlock longrifle, in .54. Don't really need it since I have a .58, so I guess personal preferences, though historical considerations drove the build. Interestingly the original was a smoothbore but I had this barrel rifled because I want it to be my all around deer rifle.

 

[George T.]

From a historical stand I had always thought that once rifled barrels became common the smooth bores were only used for shot gun applications. Of course these were programed by books and movies. I have a Scott & Son's double 13 and I ocassionally hunt with it. Hanging on to a modern shotgun is not stupid! Geo. T.

 

[asbrown]

My first was an 1860 colt army. I bought it because i was deep into handguns and thought it looked like fun. (it was)

second: a black zipgun to hunt during missouri's special season.

third: I bought an underhammer action and built a .36 target gun. At the time I was target shooting with a savage .22 so it seemed natural.

fourth: I bought a kit from PRL and built a Va. style poorboy in .54 to hunt deer with(sold the zipgun to buy parts)

fifth: I refinished an old "Hawken" from the 70's and the friend gave me an unfinished derringer kit in .40 smoothbore as payment.

sixth: bought a brass mowery rifle in .45 because it was a great deal and just looked cool.(it's for sale by the way)

seventh: I built a somewhat Georgian stlye .54 flintlock smoothbore pistol. I used it as a chance to try customizing premade brass parts, aging brass, and making some of my own parts. I did it in violin red and as soon as it was finished my wife claimed it.

eighth: Built a 20g short fowler (my "wagon gun") to use on close range deer from a blind, or runnin bunnies, and for occasional wing shooting. It's also my first that was built in a true "style" as its a New England parts gun made mostly of english style fowler parts.

ninth: I bought an old "tower" pistol from a buddy for 50 bucks because the parts were very close to an old trade pistol. It's a .69 smoothbore and its the first try for barrel inletting and scratch stockbuilding (wow, do I ever appreciate you guys who do that professionally, its hard) and reshaping a lock.

tenth: I've collected all the parts for a late (1850's 1860's) target style halfstock. It'll be my 12 year olds deer rifle, or maybe mine and he'll get the Va.

eleventh: I'm collecting the parts for a Bedford County fowler. I dont know how period correct it will be but I saw a Daniel Border "rifle" for sale that was a little plain, no patchbox, single trigger, .56 oct/rd 45" barrel. This one will be my first attempt at decorative inletting and a little carving.

I guess my main reason for choosing each of my guns has been personal choice, although HC/PC is starting to creep in. I've always preferred to be different than the crowd, so even my HC/PC guns are on the fringe of what was possible, not a copy of anything, and more of a compilation of things that I like.

In the end it all boils down to personal choice. As long as your making smoke, it's all good.

 

[Dphar]

Yes it IS personal choice. I could not agree more.
But I get a little jaded of someone telling a neophyte to buy a SB because of its mythical versatility.
People need to make informed choices.
The hardcore re-enactors love smoothbores, they shoot blanks really well and are cheap for the most part. Estate inventories show "everybody had one" not taking into account the MILITIA LAWS. Or that grandpa gave his rifle to his grandson before he died.
This does not make them the favored weapon (people being laughed at for getting of a flatboat in the 1790s with a smoothbore) it was what the LAW required of people with NO OTHER NEED OF A FIREARM.
Then the fool reenactor shoots a buffalo in the guts because he shoots it WALKING and does not "add a step" or the SB wadded with PRAIRIE GRASS was shooting an 18" group at the distance. Show they chase this poor suffering animal miles shoot it several more times. I guess riding in the pickup is offset by using prairie grass for wadding and dressing period.
SBs, for the most part, are window dressing in the west and a great many other places. They can be made to work in specific circumstances. This is not versatility and its sure as heck is not efficiency.
Dan

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I had always thought once rifled barrels became common the smooth bores were only used for shot gun applications.

Yes I'd venture it's due to movies, and poor historians. I thought the same for many years too, so you're not alone. :redface:

One factor that influenced the use of the fusil over the rifle was economics. George Morgan's store/trading post in Kaskaskia has surviving records, and the smooth bores there in the 1760's were considerably cheaper than rifles. Now his contract hunters overwhelmingly preferred rifles, but he does note selling at least one fusil to one of his hunters. The rest of the fusils must've been for the French inhabitants and/or the Indians.

Another factor may be the type of game that is available, and also possibly the type of use. Deer were not as plentiful along the Eastern coast of the colonies, where high human poplulations had reduced their numbers or pushed the deer toward the Appalachians. So the "game" available was more of the rabbit, squirrel, bird variety, and shot suffices for all of those, and a smoothbore can launch a round ball if one gets lucky enough to find a deer.

Add to that as the Native populations were pushed West, the perceptions on self-defence changed in the heart of rifle country. The F&I saw local ranger units in Maryland and Pennsylvania patrolling the Conococheague creek watershed, roughly from Chambersburg, PA to Hagerstown, MD. By Pontiac's Rebellion, the Indians didn't come close to that area, and by the AWI riflemen were mustered from the "frontier" areas of VA, PA, and Maryland, and went East to Washington's army. Riflemen were only sent back to the frontier, after Indian raids from the West threatened the war effort.

Lastly, in some areas (perhaps in most areas) it simply may have been the availability of the item. North of PA rifles were simply scarce. The records of sales, advertisements, and military unit formations all show the vast majority of colonial riflemen were from south of New York. We assume the choice is easy, a rifle is better..., but as a colonial you have to have seen a rifle in use to prove to yourself the added expense is justified before you will buy one, and if you were never exposed to them, why make such a choice? (The gun users in France and Great Brittain were mostly smooth bore users. French coeur de bois were known to heavily favor the fusil) So you get sort of a catch-22..., the locals might have needed to see the superiority before buying a rifle, but nobody local would buy the rifle without first knowing the superiority... ???

With mass production of modern firearms, even before restrictions on rifle use..., you find on the East Coast a penchant for shotguns. The Remington 870, the Mossberg 500, and the Maverick, not to mention the plethora of single shot shotguns, show that economics and versatility plays a huge part today. You even find "smooth rifles" per se, in the bolt action shotguns still made today. Whether or not versatility played a part 250 years ago may be debated...

But if one is using a black powder firearm for harvesting game today, would not the versatility of a modern type firearm translate in the mind of the buyer/user to its black powder ancestor, and thus influence choice?

:hmm:

LD

 

[Robby]

Dan, I'm sure you are depicting something that really happened, what with the prairie grass, pick-up, and everything, but that does not take away from the versatility of the smoothbore in its many forms. It only illustrates there are slob hunters, probably in the same proportion as there are slobs in the general population of any endeavor. Lets not paint the whole town with the same brush.
I started out my hunting with what is now called 'primitive' archery equipment. It taught me to be a good and disciplined hunter. With very few interludes, that is how I hunted for more than forty years.When I moved up to flintlocks, I wanted something that a man coming into this valley in the 1790's would have carried. I chose A 20ga. smooth bore. I worked with that gun till I was confident in it with both shot and ball. One morning I found myself sitting behind a small bush on the side of a brushy glen when a nine point buck came down the other side entered some goldenrod at the bottom and went to ground before I could get a good sight picture. That was nine thirty in the morning. I took him at one thirty in the afternoon. During the interim, He stood, stretched, peed, and looked around about four times. A man thinks about a lot of things in that kind of situation for over four hours. Still, I could not get a good sight picture, even ten years ago, my peepers were going south. When he stood for the final time, the light was good, I had a good hold and past ready. I estimated he was between seventy and eighty yards. Everything in me said I could make that shot as I had so many times on the range. So, I took it. When the smoke cleared enough for me to see him, he was standing, looking down the glen as though nothing had happened. I was crushed! As he turned and walked in the opposite direction, after about twelve steps, yes, I tried to count them, he dropped. I was elated! The holes indicated that the ball exited the same diameter as it had entered, upon field dressing, I discovered the heart with all the plumbing removed from its top front, exactly where I had aimed.
I tell you this only as a counter point to your buffalo hunter. Anecdotal as it might be, I still believe that the vast majority of hunters are like me and are disciplined and stay within the limitations of the equipment they choose and know how to use.
I am not taking issue with you as I have great respect for your knowledge and experience, I just think you were a little wide of the margin on this one. :hatsoff:
Robby

 

[rich pierce]

Long live the smoothrifle, and beware the man who owns just one gun, he probably knows how to use it.

Also beware the man who keep singing the same tune, over and over again, he probably doesn't know another one. :rotf:

 

[CoyoteJoe]

Beware the man who owns just one gun because he may not know enough to safely handle it. :haha:
But of course there are proper applications for both rifles and shotguns, just what the application for a "smoothrifle" may be I am unsure. I keep hearing people speak of getting rifle like accuracy to 75 yards but that has not been my own experience. I have a .54 smoothrifle, and fowlers of 20 & 28 gauge and I have yet to see one "shoot like a rifle" at any distance. My 50 yard groups with the smoothbores would be inferior to my 100 yard groups with the rifle. I love shotguns but when I first joined this site I was very surprised to see that most people are shooting single balls from their smoothbores. To my own way of thinking smoothbores are for shot, birdshot or buckshot, if I want to shoot a ball that is why I own rifles. Of course I have always know that smoothbores can fire a single ball but I've always considered it to be a make shift expedient and not something one would do by choice. Lest anyone think I'm prejudiced against smoothbores let me say that I actually own more smoothbores than rifles, I just don't shoot balls from them. As to the smoothrifle I find it effective with birdshot on stationary small game out to about 25 yards, or about the same distance I could be effective in offhand shooting with a small caliber rifle but I could double that effective range if I can take a rested position with the rifle.

 

[cynthialee]

two types of folks who only own one gun
1) the guy/gal who inherited grandpas gun (my father in law)
2) the guy who only needs one gun (my cousin Ron)

both are dangerous with a gun in their hands, but for diferant reasons
:haha: