A "Fowler" or " Fowling piece" is a single barreled, Smooth bore shotgun designed and built for Wing shooting. It tends to have a flat Butt plate, rounded at the top, to make it easier to quickly mount to the POCKET formed on your chest/shoulder when you raise your elbow up level with the shoulder. The style of butt plate helps you avoid hooking the stock on clothing, and the flatter style( some curve, but nothing like the half-moon curved butt plates found on rifles designed to be shot off your upper arm) allows you to rest the butt on your upper chest, without bruising either your collar bone, or your pectoral muscles.
The other design feather common to shotguns is the lighter muzzle weight, so that the gun can be swung on flying game easily. "Fowlers" tend to be half octagon, to half Round in shape of their barrels, running from the Breech to the muzzle. The barrels also tend to be tapered, so that the muzzle diameter is much smaller than either the breech, or back where the round barrel meets the " Wedding band" that separates the octagon portion from the round portion of the barrel. By removing metal from the front, "round " portion of the barrel, the balance point is shifted further back towards the trigger, making the gun feel lighter, and easier to move quickly with little effort.
The presence of a "wedding band" is also one of the more common distinguishing design features of "Fowlers", altho not all historic fowlers have this feather. In fact, the earlier Fowling pieces had very long barrels, making the guns "muzzle heavy", and difficult to swing on fast flying birds. Instead, the guns were used to shoot game sitting on the water, where shooting into a flock of geese, or ducks, guaranteed that several birds were hit with each shot fired.
The half round, half octagon shape of the barrel distinguishes fowlers from most " Smooth Rifles". Smooth rifles are rifled shaped guns with a smooth bore, rather than rifled barrel. Its common to find smooth rifles having a full octagon barrel, and rifle sights on them.
"Fowlers" tended to have only front sights on the barrels as the design shifted to making them easier to swing on flying game. However, you do find rear sights on a lot of original fowlers, as they were used to shoot deer, and turkeys on the ground as often as they were used to shoot upland game and waterfowl. The sights you do see on these old guns are comparatively small to what we put on these replica guns today. The rear sight on originals may be nothing more than a notch in the top of the tang where it meets the breech of the barrel. Some front sights are small thin blades, and some will be round "beads", also small.
The sights are merely alignment reference points to put in your peripheral vision as you focus on the flying bird, rather than on your front sight, a characteristic of shooting open sights on a rifle or handgun.
The different point of focus for the eyes( from the front sight to the target) and the different stance( Rifle shooters tend to set their feet wider than their shoulders, which locks their hips up. They mount their guns so that their shoulders are close to 80-85 degrees to the target and the rifle is aligned across their shoulders and chest. Shotgun( fowler) shooters keep their feet at shoulder width(or less) and point the gun at about a 45 degree angle to their shoulders, mounting the butt to their pocket so that they get the same "cheek" contact to the comb of their stock everytime.) are the main reasons that rifle shooters have trouble shooting moving targets with shotguns.
Rifle Shooters balance their weight, and the weight of their rifle between their feet and shoulders to create the most stable platform for aimed fire. Shotgun shooter move their weight n to the forward hip, to give the maximum ability to move in either left or right direction to hit a flushing or passing bird.
You can shoot a shotgun using the same Aimed techniques for shooting rifles, without much problem. Shooting a rifle using the same techniques used with shotguns is more difficult, but is being done by our military in Close Quarters Combat situations. Our military has not used single shot, muzzleloading firearms since the Civil War, however.
These are the advantages and differences of "fowling pieces" over muskets and smooth rifles. Its still a matter of preference as to what kind of gun you wish to shoot as a "sporting arm". :hmm: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :hatsoff: