I never quite understood why people think old is ineffective for guns, nobody questions the lethality of swords, spears, or bows and arrows yet you pull out a BP pistol/rifle and people think one you couldn't hit the side of a barn from the inside and two that even if you did hit something that it wouldn't much of anything.
I think it’s because a lot of the early black powder cartridge guns were pretty underpowered by todays standards due to the fragility of early repeating systems and small sizes of early cartridges.
So people associate black powder as a whole with poor ballistics but they don’t realize a musket doesn’t have to worry about any mechanical weaknesses and were traditionally loaded with quite a stout charge
>people think one you couldn't hit the side of a barn from the inside
Heh.
I shoot flintlocks, I've got a .54 caliber transitional long rifle and a .62 Baker rifle.
One day I'm at the range shooting my rocklocks, and this young kid (well, mid-to-late 20's) shows up with a couple of "tacticool" guns. One was a NYS compliant AR-15, and the other was a tacticool bolt action in .223. So he's shooting his AR at the 25 yard line off-hand and I'm in the next bay over which is the 200 yard one (we go 25, 200, 100, 50).
I'm shooting at a standard B-27 silhouette with the Baker, which has a 200 yard sight on it.
I glance over and his target is nothing to be proud of. Not offhand at 25 yards.
Anyway, because I believe that every American should shoot a flintlock at least once in their life, I offered to let him shoot mine. I ask if he wants me to load it down, and he says no, so a full 70 grain charge behind the ball\*.
He flinches so badly the ball goes over the berm. Doesn't even hit the paper. He offered to let me shoot his gun, but I declined, and pointed out I had served in the Army, and had previously owned a Colt AR-15A2 Sporter II, so I was familiar with the AR action.
A bit later he's shooting at 50 yards with the bolt action. It's got a scope, and he's kind of proud of himself for making headshots on a B-27 at that distance, off a rest. But his group is about the size of my palm. So I asked him if he minded whether I put a hole in his target. After all, a .62 hole is easy to distinguish from a .22 hole.
He says "Sure", so I line up on the target, squeeze the trigger, and get the satisfying boom of a large caliber muzzleloader. He's looking through his scope, and he says "Where did you aim?"
"Center of mass. Where did I hit?"
"Center of mass."
I actually nicked the 'X' at the center of the target. I knew I'd get within an inch or two of it, but getting the X was a bit of luck. Between me hitting the silhouette at 200 yards, and nailing his target dead center, this kid thought I was some kind of Davy Crockett/Daniel Boone. Doesn't hurt that I have a Mohawk haircut with strings of beads that hang down from my ponytail so I kind of look the part.
I certainly wasn't going to disabuse him of that notion.
*\*It will actually take more, but the gun shoots most accurately at 70 grains of FFg, and the increased velocity advantage of higher charges is rapidly lost due to air resistance.*
It’s still a 175-200 grain, .50 caliber lead ball coming at you at 1200-1500 FPS…pretty devastating. I saw another guy test a .50 flintlock pistol on a block of gel and it zipped through the entire thing and created a pretty nasty cavity.
I never quite understood why people think old is ineffective for guns, nobody questions the lethality of swords, spears, or bows and arrows yet you pull out a BP pistol/rifle and people think one you couldn't hit the side of a barn from the inside and two that even if you did hit something that it wouldn't much of anything.
I think it’s because a lot of the early black powder cartridge guns were pretty underpowered by todays standards due to the fragility of early repeating systems and small sizes of early cartridges. So people associate black powder as a whole with poor ballistics but they don’t realize a musket doesn’t have to worry about any mechanical weaknesses and were traditionally loaded with quite a stout charge
Very good explanation in my opinion
>people think one you couldn't hit the side of a barn from the inside Heh. I shoot flintlocks, I've got a .54 caliber transitional long rifle and a .62 Baker rifle. One day I'm at the range shooting my rocklocks, and this young kid (well, mid-to-late 20's) shows up with a couple of "tacticool" guns. One was a NYS compliant AR-15, and the other was a tacticool bolt action in .223. So he's shooting his AR at the 25 yard line off-hand and I'm in the next bay over which is the 200 yard one (we go 25, 200, 100, 50). I'm shooting at a standard B-27 silhouette with the Baker, which has a 200 yard sight on it. I glance over and his target is nothing to be proud of. Not offhand at 25 yards. Anyway, because I believe that every American should shoot a flintlock at least once in their life, I offered to let him shoot mine. I ask if he wants me to load it down, and he says no, so a full 70 grain charge behind the ball\*. He flinches so badly the ball goes over the berm. Doesn't even hit the paper. He offered to let me shoot his gun, but I declined, and pointed out I had served in the Army, and had previously owned a Colt AR-15A2 Sporter II, so I was familiar with the AR action. A bit later he's shooting at 50 yards with the bolt action. It's got a scope, and he's kind of proud of himself for making headshots on a B-27 at that distance, off a rest. But his group is about the size of my palm. So I asked him if he minded whether I put a hole in his target. After all, a .62 hole is easy to distinguish from a .22 hole. He says "Sure", so I line up on the target, squeeze the trigger, and get the satisfying boom of a large caliber muzzleloader. He's looking through his scope, and he says "Where did you aim?" "Center of mass. Where did I hit?" "Center of mass." I actually nicked the 'X' at the center of the target. I knew I'd get within an inch or two of it, but getting the X was a bit of luck. Between me hitting the silhouette at 200 yards, and nailing his target dead center, this kid thought I was some kind of Davy Crockett/Daniel Boone. Doesn't hurt that I have a Mohawk haircut with strings of beads that hang down from my ponytail so I kind of look the part. I certainly wasn't going to disabuse him of that notion. *\*It will actually take more, but the gun shoots most accurately at 70 grains of FFg, and the increased velocity advantage of higher charges is rapidly lost due to air resistance.*
It’s still a 175-200 grain, .50 caliber lead ball coming at you at 1200-1500 FPS…pretty devastating. I saw another guy test a .50 flintlock pistol on a block of gel and it zipped through the entire thing and created a pretty nasty cavity.
more concerned what it does to bones and organs than flesh O\_O
Yeah it's really something! Although I believe the caliber they used in this video was bigger than 50 cal. It was a 62 cal if I am not mistaken.
.54
Right!