Western Movies

[Hatchet_Jack]

Those Kibler's are impressive, I just took a look at his site.

Looking forward to finishing the pistol, he takes things seriously and I get reminded if we don't clean his lever gun after a few shots out back. He'll love the extra maintenance on a muzzleloader. He calls me out if I start to put anything away without at least running a boresnake down the barrel..."Dad you said we should clean them every time"!

Both my kids are old souls in a lot of ways and like anything frontier or old west. Flintlocks and tomahawks are my son's thing. My daughter wants to build a town where everyone has to ride a horse to go anywhere, no cars. Sounds good to me!

I Like your daughter’s town!

Please post up photos when your son’s gun is done. Sounds like he will fit right in to the ML community.

I sometimes watch videos on YouTube by a flintlock group call Folk firearms collective. They’re a flintlock group in MT. Might be around your way?

 

[cbach8tw]

Question, I assume the flint lock is a smooth bore, correct? I know some were rifled.

 

[Pàdruig]

Question, I assume the flint lock is a smooth bore, correct? I know some were rifled.

A simple question with a complicated answer. Yes and no, I suppose? Rifling existed in the 18th century and even earlier but it wasn't commonly found in issued military pieces until the 19th century. Many of the long rifles used in the F&I War, as well as the American War for Independence had rifled barrels. The length of those barrels, combined with the rifling, gave them uncanny accuracy compared to the standard English or French musket of the day. But again, long rifles were typically private purchases and not issued to soldiers - they were handy for hunting game and just so happened to be good for killing men as well.

Flintlock doesn't necessarily mean it's a smoothbore, nor does caplock necessarily mean it's rifled.


(I realized after typing all that out that you might be asking about Hatchet Jack's piece - I'll let him speak to that but I would assume that it has a rifled barrel.)

 

[Hatchet_Jack]

Question, I assume the flint lock is a smooth bore, correct? I know some were rifled.

Pàdruig covered it well, particularly from the military perspective. The only thing I’d add is that civilian wise smoothbores were far and away the most common flintlock up into the 1760’s. After that rifled barrels became increasingly more popular, but when you get to the fur trade era there are still plenty of smoothbores around. It was more about preference and some of that was simply cultural e.g. French.

Smoothbores were considered far more versatile, you can use shot or ball or both through them and there are examples of people putting iron sights on them.

There does seem to be a misunderstanding that smoothbores are inaccurate. When you get your load right, you should hit a man sized target at 100 yards most of the time. I can hit a red deer in the chest at 60 yards consistently, but I limit to 50yards with my fusil. I am digressing here sorry.

In the muzzleloading world this is a famous photo, the now deceased gun maker Tip Curtis with a 5 shot group from a smoothbore at 50 yards. There’s one of his guns I know of in Aus and I tried to buy it for $2500 but was knocked back.


The style of the gun and a set of iron sights also doesn’t tell you that it’s smooth or rifled. Smooth rifles are one of my favourite styles.

Anyway that’s a long winded way of saying flintlock is not mutually exclusive with being rifled. Ive owned 6 flintlocks, 3 were rifled and 3 were smooth. The one I posted is a Green River Rifle Works leman trade rifle and is rifled in 54.

 

[Pàdruig]

I would also argue that the efficacy of a smoothbore is largely contingent on not only the skill of the shooter but also the quality of the musket and the size of its bore. A lot of the arms that gave rise to popular folklore in the early days of American history were not military pieces and would have been of much higher quality. They had smaller bores in some cases, longer barrels, and were crafted far more finely.

On the other hand, military pieces had larger bores, were heavy and ungainly, and depending on the conflict (historically speaking) could very well be in somewhat shabby condition. Much of Europe was involved in one war after another in the 18th century and soldiers on campaign were not guaranteed the latest innovations. Citing just one example, during the final Jacobite rebellion (1740s), the Scots relied heavily upon arms that France tried to provide and when some supplies actually reached the Scots, they were found to be older models and poorly maintained. Traditionally speaking though, what military small arms lacked in accuracy and reliability, troop formations made up for the rest.

The military machine is usually slow to adopt new technologies and that is present throughout all of history. Private arms have generally been of higher quality than what gets issued to soldiers but they also are considerably more expensive.


As an aside, John ( Redmeadow Knives ), you might look and see if there is a local Rendezvous organization out where you are at. I bet Roy would love that. We have a pretty sizable group out west here but it's been some years since I have done any events.

 

[Redmeadow Knives]

I Like your daughter’s town!

Please post up photos when your son’s gun is done. Sounds like he will fit right in to the ML community.

I sometimes watch videos on YouTube by a flintlock group call Folk firearms collective. They’re a flintlock group in MT. Might be around your way?

Will do, gonna try to forge in a bit and work on it after that.

Checked out that channel, got sidetracked by a link on their FB page to the Internet Archive for a book called 'American Indian Tomahawks' by Harold L. Peterson-1922. Need to pick up a copy of that.

I would also argue that the efficacy of a smoothbore is largely contingent on not only the skill of the shooter but also the quality of the musket and the size of its bore. A lot of the arms that gave rise to popular folklore in the early days of American history were not military pieces and would have been of much higher quality. They had smaller bores in some cases, longer barrels, and were crafted far more finely.

On the other hand, military pieces had larger bores, were heavy and ungainly, and depending on the conflict (historically speaking) could very well be in somewhat shabby condition. Much of Europe was involved in one war after another in the 18th century and soldiers on campaign were not guaranteed the latest innovations. Citing just one example, during the final Jacobite rebellion (1740s), the Scots relied heavily upon arms that France tried to provide and when some supplies actually reached the Scots, they were found to be older models and poorly maintained. Traditionally speaking though, what military small arms lacked in accuracy and reliability, troop formations made up for the rest.

The military machine is usually slow to adopt new technologies and that is present throughout all of history. Private arms have generally been of higher quality than what gets issued to soldiers but they also are considerably more expensive.


As an aside, John ( Redmeadow Knives ), you might look and see if there is a local Rendezvous organization out where you are at. I bet Roy would love that. We have a pretty sizable group out west here but it's been some years since I have done any events.

He would love that for sure, I'll look around.


You two discussing Blackpowders reminds me of the saying "Always surround yourself with people that are smarter than you"

 

[Hatchet_Jack]

I would also argue that the efficacy of a smoothbore is largely contingent on not only the skill of the shooter but also the quality of the musket and the size of its bore. A lot of the arms that gave rise to popular folklore in the early days of American history were not military pieces and would have been of much higher quality. They had smaller bores in some cases, longer barrels, and were crafted far more finely.

On the other hand, military pieces had larger bores, were heavy and ungainly, and depending on the conflict (historically speaking) could very well be in somewhat shabby condition. Much of Europe was involved in one war after another in the 18th century and soldiers on campaign were not guaranteed the latest innovations. Citing just one example, during the final Jacobite rebellion (1740s), the Scots relied heavily upon arms that France tried to provide and when some supplies actually reached the Scots, they were found to be older models and poorly maintained. Traditionally speaking though, what military small arms lacked in accuracy and reliability, troop formations made up for the rest.

The military machine is usually slow to adopt new technologies and that is present throughout all of history. Private arms have generally been of higher quality than what gets issued to soldiers but they also are considerably more expensive.


As an aside, John ( Redmeadow Knives ), you might look and see if there is a local Rendezvous organization out where you are at. I bet Roy would love that. We have a pretty sizable group out west here but it's been some years since I have done any events.

I can’t speak a lot on quality, but on the French side for example the fusil de trait was a bit rougher than a fusil de chasse and far less beautiful than a fusil fin but they all shot well. 20g/62 cal seems to often be the sweet spot for ball and shot.

There’s also this military strategy of throwing enough mud at a wall. This brown bess was recovered I think somewhere near the states. X-ray shows powder - swan shot - ball - buck.

 

[Pàdruig]

You two discussing Blackpowders reminds me of the saying "Always surround yourself with people that are smarter than you"

When you find those folks, let me know, they're probably worth getting to know.

 

[Pàdruig]

I can’t speak a lot on quality, but on the French side for example the fusil de trait was a bit rougher than a fusil de chasse and far less beautiful than a fusil fin but they all shot well. 20g/62 cal seems to often be the sweet spot for ball and shot.

There’s also this military strategy of throwing enough mud at a wall. This brown bess was recovered I think somewhere near the states. X-ray shows powder - swan shot - ball - buck.
View attachment 2754409

That's quite something, isn't it?

That recalls to mind some of the findings after the Battle of Gettysburg. I had to double check my memory so I looked in one of my books.

27,574 muskets were recovered from the Gettysburg battlefield. Of those, it's been said that 24,000 of those were still loaded. Roughly half of those muskets had two charges loaded and about 6,000 muskets were loaded with anywhere from three to ten charges each. One musket was found with a whopping 23 loads, each charge properly loaded! In some cases the paper of the cartridges was unbroken and in others the powder was loaded in before the ball. In the excitement and anxiety of battle, these fellows never realized their musket never went off so they proceeded to load one after another.

When I did Civil War living history, we did a ridiculous amount of drilling. Even in reenactments, where no live shot is being used, it still get exciting and there had been instances in the past where a fellow would load several paper cartridges worth of powder before realizing his piece wasn't firing. Still dealing with black powder and guns can still blow up.

 

[Pàdruig]

All this discussion has me mighty keen on getting back into it. It's definitely been a spell.

 

[Hatchet_Jack]

That's quite something, isn't it?

That recalls to mind some of the findings after the Battle of Gettysburg. I had to double check my memory so I looked in one of my books.

27,574 muskets were recovered from the Gettysburg battlefield. Of those, it's been said that 24,000 of those were still loaded. Roughly half of those muskets had two charges loaded and about 6,000 muskets were loaded with anywhere from three to ten charges each. One musket was found with a whopping 23 loads, each charge properly loaded! In some cases the paper of the cartridges was unbroken and in others the powder was loaded in before the ball. In the excitement and anxiety of battle, these fellows never realized their musket never went off so they proceeded to load one after another.

When I did Civil War living history, we did a ridiculous amount of drilling. Even in reenactments, where no live shot is being used, it still get exciting and there had been instances in the past where a fellow would load several paper cartridges worth of powder before realizing his piece wasn't firing. Still dealing with black powder and guns can still blow up.

I had read that somewhere about the multiple loads, but I can't remember where. I can imagine it'd be easy in the heat of things a pan flash or a cap popping off would be all the assurance you'd need to load again.

 

[Redmeadow Knives]

The precursor to the 12ga "kitchen sink" load lol