Guns & Shooting today, vs Guns and Shooting of the past....

[Uncle Russ]

This is from another thread, but I felt it deserved a bit more discussion, on it's own.

I think in today's world we have a tendency to think the old timers of yesteryear didn't experience the dreaded "flinch" when going from cap to flint

Well Joe, back 150 years ago I expect most folks had one gun, period.  We live in an incredibly affluent society where we can afford to have more than firearm and get these problems of switching from one to another.  Back in the day you made do with what you had and, while a small minority might have been wealthy enough to have several guns, the vast majority didn't have to decide whether to use the flintlock or the caplock today! 

~Kees~

Kees....You brought something to light that has been in my mind for decades....
The vast majority of this young country would have had one gun, at least, and sometimes at best
Chances are it was a hand-me-down, and old to begin with, which would mean it was a flintlock and very likely a smoothbore.
And, I do believe, very strongly, that the "flinch" was there until overcome through the use of that gun.

By the time the Percussion Cap had been invented, got out into circulation, and become popular, those older flintlocks were just getting older, and very likely in need of repair or replacement.
However, re-boring and converting over to Caplock would have been expensive, likely causing the owner to think about replacing, vs redoing his old gun as the cost of replacement was certainly cause for concern....money was in short supply, period.

And all that, in turn, begs the question of marksmanship.
Is it even possible, for the average Muzzleloader.... from back in the day, to become as efficient with their riflegun as the average Muzzleloader of today.......not in regards to how many Muzzleloaders we may have, but how much we get to shoot them, considering the time we devote, and the cost of shooting, along with comparative cost of guns and components.

Back in the day, the harvesting of food was done with the gun.
Since they had to eat, they also had to shoot, and shoot well, in order to survive.
Of course, we've all read of the many local matches that were a common almost every day occurrence,  but how about practice?
Did they only practice at the matches? Or, did they manage to practice occasionally on their own?
Did they practice "as much as we do", throughout the year, or did they just grab up their riflegun and go shoot supper, or just go on to the next match?

This question has bugged me for many years, mostly because I strongly believe that practice, as we know practice, was just not there.

What's your thoughts?

Uncle Russ...

[Ohio Joe]

Lots to think about in this post above.  I think there are so many variables that just about anything could have taken place. Right now I'm short on time so I'll jot down some quick thoughts and get back here tonight.

a. A second gun left at home with the family living on the frontier when the husband was off on a long hunt might be one case where flint and cap came into play in one household?

b. How many long guns were converted to cap, then back to flint because of the price of caps? Many a folks was poor and caps cost money, flint is free.

c. How much did our forefathers shoot? Well, there's quite a bit out there on shooting being our country's main sport before the day of the sports we know now. There are references to the Sunday after church shoots, and the local (fairly well to do farmer) putting on a beef shoot.

d. So how much shooting was done by the common person? This is a good question (asked above) and something that's gonna take some thinking...

Have to get back to work, but I got a'lot to think about!   

[Maven]

Much to consider here, but I think we assume shooters in the 18tth and 19th centuries were better marksmen than we are.  Powder and lead weren't free either, which would have limited the amount of practice that occurred. Also, how many shots at game were missed?  Do we know, or can we estimate this?  And while flint was abundant and "free" in many areas, not everyone had the skills and patience to turn spalls into gun flints or do so repeatedly.  (The Bevel Bro's.you may recall tried it with little success.)  Lastly, and this has always intrigued me, the sights on old cap- and flintlocks were much smaller and closer to the bbl. than ours.  Does this suggest their vision was hugely better than ours?  that they practiced constantly? or perhaps, they didn't fire their long guns that often and when they did, more for hunting than anything else?  (I think Eric Bye suggested this in his book on flintlocks or maybe I read it in Muzzle Blasts.) 

What say ye?

[Ohio Joe]

You touch on some good points Maven. I once made a working "flint" out of a piece of chert I found in the ally out back. It wasn't dependable, but it did work, and I thought to myself that there must be something to the old saying. "you could pick it up off the ground and make a working flint." Now I'm nowhere near being a flint-napper by any means,,, so I'll call that one a "wonderment" lol!!!

You're on the money about the sights. When Hank in WV was out this past summer for a visit, him and I took in the Fur Trade Museum over in Chadron, Nebraska. Those low thin front sights caught both our eye's as well as the, low wide open rear sight notch on many of the rifles (if not all) that were on display. One of my guesses for these sights (and it's only a guess) perhaps many a man, woman, and child, were reared on no rear sight smoothbore's and they carried this type of aiming over onto/into their rifle use. They probably (for the most part) never shot to the point as often to heat up the barrel and create a heat mirage, therefore low thin sights were perfect for them. Plus there was no worries of snagging the sights if pulling the rifle out of a buckskin or blanket rifle sleeve.

Now, was their vision better then ours? I don't know? Maybe, maybe not? Eye strain would have to be prevalent IMHO if they relied on the candle, fireplace, and campfire to see to get their firearm clean, or to sew/repair the moccasins or do some other chore in camp or at the cabin table in the Evening, so this would be a tough call to make. Not to mention that (as I understand it) one's food diet can effect a person's eyesight...

This is a good topic. Let's hear from more of you all out there, and your thoughts.   

[rollingb]

Is it even possible, for the average Muzzleloader.... from back in the day, to become as efficient with their riflegun as the average Muzzleloader of today.......

I think they were as proficient with their guns as most most target-shooters are today,.... they may not have went through as much powder as a modern fella does in a "day's shooting" but when they did shoot it tended to be serious business like "eating or going hungry".
Being "on the hunt" to feed a family, or even one's self (on practically a daily occurance), offers plenty of trigger-time to hone one's skill at hitting-the-mark. IMO 

..... and the cost of shooting, along with comparative cost of guns and components.

While it's a fact that money was more scarce "back in the day",.... what money they did have, bought MANY more times what the same amount of cash will buy today, so they may not have been as poor as we think they were. We also have to remember they didn't have the "expenses of every day living" as we have today.

As for picking up a rock from the ground and making a rifle flint out of it,.... while such a thing may have been done during an emergency, I've always doubted it resembled anything approaching a common practice, or there would not have been "gun flints" mentioned on the lists of trade-goods hauled west during the fur-trade.

Just some of my thoughts FWTW.

[RobD]

there's a huge amount of things we'll never really know about the 18th and 19th centuries.  lotta stuff that never got scribed nor properly passed down to descendants.  a goodly portion of those eras are made-up theoretical thinking done with 20th and 21st logic.  oh yes, there's a buncha objectivity we have that's survived those times, but do we really know what went down with those folks?  you read through historical documents and you might think that they describe how everyone lived and acted, but those singular personal thoughts might not be encompassing for everyone of those days.  we have clues, but mostly we attempt to logically construct scenarios of how life was, what people did, how they acted, and the results of their actions. 

my thinking about 18th century guns, gun ownership, and gun use, is that while pretty much anything went, guns were both expensive and necessary.  a requirement for sustenance and survival.  for sure, most were smoothbores.  it would make very little sense for the average farmer to have a rifle, and if you lived in that era, you most likely farmed and had livestock.  i don't think many, if any, of those guns could compare to a decent modern reproduction flintlock.  i'd bet the average accuracy of both the gun and its user would be at best not at all that great.  again, considering its usage during those times, the gun was probably loaded with shot far more often than a patched ball.  i know that'd be what i'd do.  just makes logical sense.  then again, we'll never really know.  we're just theorizing.

   

[Ohio Joe]

I have always thought the following link was a good indication of ones shooting skills from the 1830's. The first paragraph pretty much speaks volumes as it refers to 40 yards offhand (no support) and 60 yards with a rest.

http://www.muzzleblasts.com/archives/vol3no2/articles/mbo32-1.shtml

Throughout our history we've always had exceptional Riflemen. This is factual because of the accounts from the American Revolutionary War, and Morgan's Riflemen. Not to mention what the London Times wrote back then as wanting the Kings Officers to settle their accounts before leaving for America during the ARW. And then there's the British Officer's themselves giving accounts of the Marksmanship of the American Rifleman.

I believe Marksmanship skills have been handed down through the generations,,, but I also believe many hunting skills in today's world have vanished with the advent of new modern firearm technology.

At least in today's world we can get an idea of the shooting skills our forefathers had if we duplicate what we know of their shooting distances and targets they shot at, (which I believe was 99% of the time, a simple "X" mark).