The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

Line infantry fought in three ranks so a barrel length long enough to allow the rear rank to fire with out blowing the head off the man in the front rank.
This was the age of musketry not marksmanship, your target was a mass of the enemy less than 200 yards away. And after a couple of volleys the amount of smoke reduced visibility so you just kept firing in the enemy's direction.
As said the secret with smooth bores is the drive the ball hard eg I used 50g 2f with a .45 Kentucky and got good 25 yard accuracy.
When I had my Pedersoli 'bess my POI varied a lot vertically but not horizontally.

Adam, quick question. What sort of velocity is attained from a properly loaded Brown Bess, say. When I say properly loaded I’m not talking extremes one way or another, just the way it was intended...

I didn't chronograph that particular batch of cartridges, but previously with the same cartridge pattern and load in a different Pedersoli reproduction Brown Bess my notes show an average velocity of 1150fps.

Muskets were long because fighting had, in the past, taken place with pole arms such as pikes. If close quarter fighting was to take place after the first shot, then the bayonet was the weapon of choice.
Fred

It was always the issue of "reach" with British Bayonet design. British line infantry of the 19th and early 20th century in defence were always geared to defeating the mass cavalry charge. This was a holdover from experience's in the Napoleonic wars.
From the 1790's to the 1870's The British infantryman's firearm had a 39 inch barrel with a 17 inch socket bayonet. Even with the introduction of the Martini Henry it's bushed 17 inch bayonet was replaced by the 21 inch type in 1876 quickly due to perceived lack of reach when dealing with cavalry. The same happened in the early 20th century with the introduction of the SMLE. the 1903 type bayonet was very practical and economical being a conversion of surplus long lee bayonets. It was 12 inches long and double edged and quite practical when used in close combat, yet it was replaced by the slightly ungainly 17 inch 07 bayonet due to perceived loss of reach. This was well into the age of the machinegun and high explosive shell, the real killers of the 20th century battlefield.

There was an experiment performed by one of the Prussian kings, a strip of cloth 6 foot tall was stretched out over 150 yards.
A unit (either a company or battalion, can't remember which) fired on it and had well over 50% hits, may have been as high as 70%.

It changed drastically when it was repeated with a few cannons firing next to them. well below 50% then.
Most misses in combat are down to stress, simple as that

Dromnia

Good report and an interesting read.

Many thanks

LL

And this sort of experiment, oomans, is just one more reason for us all to have proper 'paws on' access to firearms and not merely see then safely secured by thick glass in museums. Once no-one is allowed to use them, then myth and plagiarism will go unchallenged and people will believe you can't hit a barn door from the inside with an arquebus....

I used to pour the powder down the barrel, sit a well greased round cotton patch over the muzzle, pop a .69 ball in the middle and ram it down until it stopped. The patches were quite large, but helped clean the barrel. I greased them with ordinary Castrol LM motor grease.

For a rear sight, I fixed a simple piece of bent steel strip using the screw that goes down behind the barrel, the front sight was the bayonet lug, although it was very wide it worked OK.

I can't remember how much powder I used in it, but do remember being cautious because the outside of the barrel was very irregular and the metal thickness at the muzzle was stupidly thin. I don't think mine was a "quality" replica - it didn't have a makers name on it anywhere.