The terminal effects thread I launched gave me a far better notion of what a hit from a lead sphere can do. This brings me to the second bit of roundball tech that's been rattling around in my brain - what goes into making the 300 yard Tim Murphy shots of the Revolutionary period?
The typical smoothbore musket of the time had some form of basic barleycorn front sight and no rear sight, but a pretty long barrel to serve as a sight plane. From what I understand, fairly effective at aimed fire for 100-150 yards, and you wouldn't want to stand still to give the other guy a "freebie" at 200, but would probably be fairly safe even so.
I also understand that the typical rifle would have had fixed elevation filed for a given load to a given range and would have been driftable for windage. Perfectly sensible for meat hunting to 100 yards, and workable for a stud marksman for a bit farther.
But for the rare guy of 1778 confident in taking regular pokes at the enemy with roundball beyond 200 yards, what would the technology have looked like? Not just the specifics of caliber, sights, and rifle construction, but of loading process. Safe to say that the "pour about that much powder" method for snuffing deer at 50 yards would hardly be valid from three football fields.
Anyone here dabbling in such things?