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Thread: Sniping Applications of Roundball

  1. #1
    Boolit Master

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    Sniping Applications of Roundball

    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?
    WWJMBD?

    In the Land of Oz, we cast with wheel weight and 2% Tin, Man.

  2. #2
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    I've dabbled a touch. I have tried an etched/engraved "T" of sorts on the barrel to account for elevation and windage. Having read on Murphy, he used a spotter and several shots to make the one that changed history. He was an interesting fellow. He settled, for a time, in my area with Moses VanCampen.
    Domari Nolo

  3. #3
    Boolit Grand Master GhostHawk's Avatar
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    I suspect at that time there was not a whole lot of tech. Just a lifetime of experience and a bit of trial and error. If I add X this much extra powder and hold X this much high at This range where will the ball hit?

    By Civil war there was more tech being developed, science had progressed.

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    We played with the smoothbores at 300 yards some years ago. After a few sighting shots, it was pretty clear you wouldn't want us shooting at you at 300 yards. The more you shoot them, the more accurate you get.
    The solid soft lead bullet is undoubtably the best and most satisfactory expanding bullet that has ever been designed. It invariably mushrooms perfectly, and never breaks up. With the metal base that is essential for velocities of 2000 f.s. and upwards to protect the naked base, these metal-based soft lead bullets are splendid.
    John Taylor - "African Rifles and Cartridges"

    Forget everything you know about loading jacketed bullets. This is a whole new ball game!


  5. #5
    Boolit Master
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    Practice,practice,practice,& luck with a bit of skill. When Billy Dixon made his shot at over 1500 yards he considered it luck. If you know your rifle it's amazing what you can do with it.

  6. #6
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    From what I have learned about the Murphy shot,he used a Kentucky long rifle,not a smooth bore.The rifle in question was his personal rifle.
    Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
    Leo
    People never lie so much as after a hunt,during a war,or before an election.
    Otto von Bismarck

  7. #7
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    There is no doubt that a round ball (small if fast, big or bigger if slow) can have great killing power. But they lose velocity very quickly. There certainly were kills at 300 or 400 yards in the American War of Independence, but I think they took either great skill plus luck, or moderate skill and a tremendous lot of luck. A Colonel Hanger in 1814 describes a conversation in which told the notorious Colonel Tarleton "We had better move, or we will have two or three of those gentlemen amusing themselves at our expense." A moment later a bullet passed between them and killed his bugler's horse. But Hanger was a knowledgeable authority who admired the American rifle very greatly, and yet didn't just should "Duck!" I think the horse was badly out of luck and a even man might well have been lightly wounded.

    There was no such thing as a really good military muzzle-loading rifle until the introduction of the Minié bullet. It isn't easy to achieve really good accuracy with a patched round ball, or with a ribbon-forged barrel, or with the slight delay of a flintlock. In the Napoleonic Wars, after the British had a couple of decades to say like Kipling "We have had no end of a lesson, and it has done it no end of good", Marshal Soult commissioned a report which discovered that the Rifle Brigade had killed some 500 French officers and 8 generals. That was with the Baker rifle, which at 20ga was of much larger bore than the Kentucky rifle, and engraving the bullet in the rifling was a noisy and laborious business. Riflemen had a little mallet for the purpose, and a few smaller balls to make it behave like a smoothbore in a tight corner. When you considered the time it took massed smoothbore armed soldiers to load, or march a couple of hundred yards under robotic drill, General Washington and others seem right to consider the rifle a weapon for special forces and guerrillas.

    Here is a target published by Baker in his self-promoting book, and therefore likely if anything to exaggerate its accuracy. Beyond 200 yards the performance was much worse. These targets were known as the eunuchs. I can't imagine why, can you?

    Click image for larger version. 

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    Charles Winthrop Sawyer includes in his "Our Rifles", a very different fictional story, concerning the use of this rifle from his collection (which he illustrates) to eliminate a Civil War general:

    No. 3y Heavy target rifle. A scientist’s instru-
    ment rather than a mere rifle. It was not held in the
    hands when fired, but lay on a bench or stout table,
    supported, at the forward end, by the steel bracket,
    or foot, shown; and at the rear by the set-screw
    beneath the breech resting on an inclined plane of
    metal; or by an apparatus which was capable of
    vertical and horizontal adjustment secured beneath
    the breech by means of the set-screw and the adja-
    cent steel dowel. The shooter sat behind the rifle
    and a little to one side; and could put either shoulder
    to the butt, because the stock has a cheek piece on
    each side. The recoil, however, was not severe.
    Its -weight is thirty-seven pounds; its calibre about
    .68; its rifling has six ratchet grooves; the pitch is
    of the gain-twist variety, beginning at the breech with
    one turn in 5 feet and ending with one turn in 3 feet.
    The owner had at least a dozen different bullet
    molds casting a great variety of elongated bullets,
    cannelured and smooth, long and short for, and not
    for, use with patch; and also the hollow base variety
    such as the army used in the rifle musket. As to
    which kind Captain John Metcalf used, the reader
    may make a guess. The telescope, of about 25
    power, is so light and has so large a field that it
    rivals a best modern one. The scale on its mount-
    ings, which are adjustable both vertically and hor-
    izontally, reads in minutes of angle. The barrel is
    marked “ Abe Williams, Maker.” On an orna-
    mental insert in the top of the butt is engraved
    “ Little George Lainhart.” On the left side of the
    stock are two gold hearts, close together. The
    stock is of rosewood, the use of which for gun stocks
    has always been unusual. The fittings and finish
    of this rifle are of an expensive character.


    https://archive.org/stream/Our_Rifle...awyer_djvu.txt

    In the story it is used to eliminate an enemy general, with a single shot, at a range of a mile, one hundred and eighty-seven feet. A shooting bench in a special dugout was used, the range measured with a theodolite and base-line, and trials were made on a secluded beach to ascertain the effect of wind and drift. I don't know if any such event happened in the Civil War, but it certainly could have. Our own age isn't the only one when great changes could happen in a few decades.

  8. #8
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    There is a saying from the revolutionary war period: muskets 200 yards, rifles over 200 yards.

  9. #9
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    “John Metcalf” in Sawyer’s book was a sort of Every(rifle)man who appeared over and over in little vignettes at different times in American history where marksmanship made a difference in battle.

    However, I did read somewhere where Federal brigadier James Mulligan in the War Between the States was spotted by a group of Confederate sharpshooters. The leader of the group estimated the range at around 700 yards and calculated a hit probability of no more than 30%. So he had his group of seven get into position together and had them aim and fire a volley on his command.

    They got him.

    These were Whitworth or Enfield rifles with cylindroconoidal bullets rather than round balls. In either case, a blasé attitude about exposure plus bad luck on the target officer’s part (and the adage that “he who shoots not hits nothing”) would factor in. Even a round ball has to go somewhere.

  10. #10
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by Texantothecore View Post
    There is a saying from the revolutionary war period: muskets 200 yards, rifles over 200 yards.
    For over 200 yards, the advantage of the rifle is undeniable, especially if your target is a battalion in close order. But you overestimate the smoothbore musket, as loaded with a loose-fitting bore to permit easy loading when fouled. Appearing out of the smoke of battle at twenty yards (and never forget the smoke), it could be as deadly as any firearm ever made. At seventy you were unlikely to hit the man you aimed at. At 200 I think it was the same Colonel Hanger who said you might as well fire at the man in the moon.

    Frontiersmen and Indians, who fired fewer shots, might get about as good results from a tightly patched and well cast ball as the modern user of less than fancy shotgun slugs, if the musket was well bored. But lots weren't, as indeed were even quality shotguns in the days when the owner never got to look through the bores and expect a mirror surface.

    One of the most remarkable shots of the period was fired by Queen Victoria at the inaugural meeting at Wimbledon in 1860, although she merely pulled a string to fire a match Whitworth rifle, much lighter than Sawyer's, which had been set up on a heavy machine rest the previous day. The bullet struck an inch and a quarter from the centre of the bull's-eye at 400 yards. The Whitworth had a hexagonal bore and bullet, and was found to suffer severe fouling problems unless match rules permitted wiping out between shots. People like Mr. Metford soon discovered that the hexagonal bore gave enough grip to stabilise a field-gun shell, and the shallowest of rifling would serve just as well.

    But not all great inventions are the thing we end up using. It was Mr. Whitworth, an eminent mechanical engineer who started with little knowledge of firearms, was asked by the government to improve on the performance of the muzzle-loading Enfield. They probably just meant him to employ his new methods of extremely precise machining. Well so he did, but he also discovered the benefits of small calibre, fast twist and elongated bullets which were adopted for more practical long-range rifles. It was a more practical means of achieving the high sectional density of Sawyer's .68 calibre rifle with a 36in. final twist.
    Last edited by Ballistics in Scotland; 03-01-2018 at 05:52 AM.

  11. #11
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    in my experience, which is varied, the person shooting to 300yds, would likely pic out a target over the head of a person he was shooting at, and after a few shots with a heavy load, say 90-100grs of powder with a .50 PRB, be able to walk the shot in on the intended victim. I have tried this myself, and been successful, sitting a large target at the base of a dead tree, and by walking my sight picture up the tree, was able to make consecutive hits, at 325 yds, the target being roughly the size of a mans torso. Given that these men lived with their rifles in hand on a daily basis, and were intimately aware of their rifles capability, as well as their own, it seems likely that they played havoc with the British troops. especially the officers who were known to show themselves to rally their troops. In a British periodical of the time, it was advised that all officers heading to the colonies, have their affairs in order and their wills made out, due to "These shirt tail men, with their cursed twisted rifles, the least which can hit a mans head at 200 paces", and their affinity to targeting officers which left the enlisted men without a semblance of order. This quote was from the book The Frontier Rifleman.

  12. #12
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    Timothy's rifle was a double/swivel breech. http://www.americanrevolution.org/murphy.php
    Some of the ole' timers were good shots. You should see the requirements to be part of Morgan's Riflemen or the 1st PIR.
    Domari Nolo

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    Quote Originally Posted by woodbutcher View Post
    From what I have learned about the Murphy shot,he used a Kentucky long rifle,not a smooth bore.The rifle in question was his personal rifle.
    Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
    Leo
    I believe he was using an Isaac Haines rifle.
    The solid soft lead bullet is undoubtably the best and most satisfactory expanding bullet that has ever been designed. It invariably mushrooms perfectly, and never breaks up. With the metal base that is essential for velocities of 2000 f.s. and upwards to protect the naked base, these metal-based soft lead bullets are splendid.
    John Taylor - "African Rifles and Cartridges"

    Forget everything you know about loading jacketed bullets. This is a whole new ball game!


  14. #14
    Boolit Master
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    Hi Waksupi.The info that I posted is from the Discovery Channel series about the Revolutionary War.It is currently being aired on the AHC channel.Maybe they need to do more research.The series is pretty old,as the narator IIRC is Charles Karault.Thanks for the heads up.
    Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
    Leo
    People never lie so much as after a hunt,during a war,or before an election.
    Otto von Bismarck

  15. #15
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    Back in Murphy's day (I have a fictional book based on his biography titled "The Rifleman", excellent book BTW) they used, for elevation for various ranges a fine bead, full bead, high bead and sometimes course bead. All had to do with the amount of front sight held up in the V or buckhorn rear sights of the day. Murphy was a very accomplished shot.
    Larry Gibson

    “Deficient observation is merely a form of ignorance and responsible for the many morbid notions and foolish ideas prevailing.”
    ― Nikola Tesla

  16. #16
    Boolit Master

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    I guess I'm mainly concerned with what the field kit of a serious shooter of the day would have consisted of. An appropriate powder measure could be any tube cut to desired length once the rifle's "happy charge" was figured out. Would the pre-measured paper cartridge have any place among such men?

    Patches would likely be pre-cut out of whatever material was found to be the right thickness.

    Tallow for patch lube? Presumably a pewter tin full of goo?

    Ramrods are a question. . .one hears about needing to pound a ball down atop the charge with a mallet, yet iron ramrods seemed to be a predominantly military musket item, while these supposedly hard to load Pennsylvanias used wooden dowels which should be highly subject to self-destruction.

    Ball-starters: Something you'd actually carry in the field, or a target-shooter's range tool?

    And cleaning the things. . .one figures that the average grunt treated his musket as average grunts often will - like the "rented" equipment it was. A rifleman bringing his own tool, purchased at significant expense, to the party, would not be letting sulfides eat away at it. And, oh yeah, he's probably casting his own balls to fit his non-standardized bore.

    We know that soldiers have carried a load of about 65 pounds since the dawn of time. It seems unlikely that the image of Natty Bummpo running around upstate New York in only his shirttails and possibles bag is an accurate one. Most of a practitioner's kit would seem to be things one wouldn't want to trust to be left on the support wagons.

    In short, how did they streamline the functions of gear that for us today seems to sprawl out over two shooting benches?
    WWJMBD?

    In the Land of Oz, we cast with wheel weight and 2% Tin, Man.

  17. #17
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    I never heard of a mallet being used with Kentucky rifles, and I am sure they responded badly to as much sustained fire as might sometimes be required of a soldier in a tight corner. The only one I ever owned, a replica, certainly did. I think the patch used was likely to be thicker and more resilient than target shooters of later (but muzzle-loading) days would have liked, and while only a guess, I wouldn't be surprised if they carried a few thinner patches in case faster loading was required, as the British Rifle Brigade did smaller balls.

    A patched ball, especially with thick fabric, surely couldn't place the ball as centrally in the rifling as the wrap-around and cross-patch systems of the later muzzle-loaders. But the slower the twist, the less the inaccuracy that would result. It was eventually discovered that nothing close to Kentucky rifle barrel length was really needed, but although some black powders were at least the equal of anything made today, a lot wasn't. Maybe that barrel length was a response to unusually slow-burning powder, and also, by slower acceleration of the ball, permitted it to be spun with a less tight fit.

    I swear I knew a very sold soldier who had seen a man charged with attempted murder and keeping a dirty rifle. I don't know if he was convicted, but the practice has continued to the present day, in British civil law, of upping a lesser charge to attempted murder to get a man acquitted after a wholesome fright. I used to be amazed to see film of soldiers in the jungle of Vietnam, carrying loads which surely increased the tendency to make noise. But no doubt people who knew the business decided that the payload did them more good.

  18. #18
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    July 2013 American Rifleman - Chris Kyle's AmRev sniper article, 68meg pdf file ...

    http://www.blackpowdergang.com/media...ev_snipers.pdf

  19. #19
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    General Simon Fraser came of a branch of the Lord Lovat Fraser family, who usually are also named Simon, and are no strangers to sniping. One Lord Lovat, aged 80, was the last man publicly beheaded on Tower Hill for rebellion in 1747, and his heir, during a temporary suspension of the title, was rather confusingly another General Simon Fraser in the American war. A later Lord Lovat founded the Lovat Scouts, originally from deerstalkers etc. from his own estates, who became the principle sniping specialists in the British army in the Boer and World Wars. They were commanded in the Boer War by Frederick Russell Burnham, an American adventurer had assisted Cecil Rhodes in purloining Rhodesia, and became Lord Roberts's Chief of Scouts in South Africa.

    The fifteenth Lord Lovat violated orders by having his personal piper pipe his Commando brigade ashore in Normandy, after various lesser excursions to the Continent. They are portrayed in "The Longest Day" leading his men to Pegasus Bridge with his personal stalking rifle, probably a .30-06 Winchester 70, although he is also reported to have carried a .45-70 Winchester and perhaps an M1 Carbine. He was probably the last British general to deliberately set out to kill an enemy, when his men were held up by two snipers, and he couldn't delegate that to people who knew the business less than he did. He killed one sniper and the other escaped.

  20. #20
    Boolit Master taco650's Avatar
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    I believe a 300 yd round ball shot could be deadly although the shooter would have to be very experienced.

    Also, a follow up to Ballistics in Scotland's comment on the Baker Rifle. The guy who does the "British Muzzleloaders" channel on YouTube has several videos on the history of as well as shooting a reproduction Baker Rifle at ranges of 100, 200 & 300 yards and after seeing his results, I wouldn't want to be standing in the open when he's shooting his Baker at 300! His load is a .61 cal PBR over 95gr of 2f. Worth watching IMO.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check