Flintlocks, Black powder questions Options

[gknoy]

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Fahr]

http://www.cva.com/articles/fn.htm

modern replicas have muzzle velocities of about 2000 fps bullet weights from 300-400 grain.

I know my 30.06 shoots 180 grain ~2700 fps muzzle velocity.

looks like from a quick look that the flintlock carries slightly more inertia than my rifle, and is much more likely to impart all of it to the target as it will deform considerably more than modern bullets.

however slower velocity means it won't go as far and the spin is not suffeicient to keep wobble out past 100 yards.
-Mike R.

edit (looked at wrong bullet weight when looking up MV for my rifle)

This post has been edited by Fahr: Feb 18 2004, 04:09 PM

[Austere Emancipa...]

I checked the stats of modern muzzleloaders for the very first posts on this thread, and I compared them with .30-06s already back then. I'm specifically interested in what the early flintlocks could manage as far as ballistics are concerned.

[Fahr]

I was only able to find a quote from a 1742 book on rifles and range that said:
1/2 ounce of lead with 60 grains of powder at 12 degreee angle went 550 yards.
i think we should be able to back fiure muzzle velocity from that, but i am at work and need to get back to it.

book was titled new principles of gunnery, I have lost the page i found that info on....

-Mike R.

[Austere Emancipa...]

Couldn't find an online tool for calculating trajectory. I know Raygun has done that kind of stuff on the forums before. Unless someone else has the neccessary formulas/tools/knowledge, we'll have to wait for word from him. As always. ;)

[mcb]

A 17th century Flintlock would have most likely been a smooth bore gun. If we look at a common 18th century Flintlock the Brown Bess the standard issue gun of the British army at the time of the American Revolution. The bore measured about 75 calibers. From a quick bit of research it seems most were loaded with 0.730 inch lead round balls with either patches or in some cases wading between the ball and powder charge. A lead ball this size would weigh roughly 600 grains and would probably only have been fired at velocities of about 1300 fps.

If you had sighted that in to hit dead on (as dead on as you can be with a smooth bore firing a round ball) at 50 yards you would be nearly 7 inches low at 100 yds, at 200 yards you would be 48 inches below the point of aim. Energy would be respectable at 2200 ft-lbs at the muzzle and 1600 ft-lbs at 50 yards. That pretty good, I wouldn't want to get hit by it :) This is comprable muzzle energy to a 7mm Mauser cartridge.

mcb

[Fahr]

doh. stupid 17th century cover 1600-1699....

my bad..

-mike R.

[Crusher Bob]

You'll get 'modest' deformation on most hunting rounds. No more that twice the diameter of the original. (You want to avoid something that deforms much more, as it will tend to come to pieces, and picking little bits of metal out of things is no fun.)

[Siege]

[Austere Emancipa...]

[boodah]

[mcb]

Lead balls and lead conical bullets expand well at black powder velocities. A round ball with flatten out like a pancake to about 150-175% of it original diameter on hitting a soft target. The problem is at high velocities of modern firearms they come appart on impact thus greatly reducing penetration. In modern all lead bullets they usually alloy the lead with small amounts of antimony (~5%) to make it harder and tuffer. Hard-cast all lead bullet are very popular in 45-70's for big game hunting.

mcb

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Fahr]

Bullet expansion in the barrel was one of the ways that older guns made rifleing work, now I am talking 19th century here not 17th century. but the point is that impure lead with no jacketing travleing at lower velocities do expand and fragment in surprising ways, and most of the energy of the bullet will be transfered to the person being hit.

regardless if it deforms to double size or 1.2 times the size, as long as the bullet stops in the person, than all the energy was imparted to them. since the starting size of these bullets were .50 calibre as a minimum, we're already starting at large surface areas anyway.

I think, getting this back to the topic at hand, that giving muskets similar damage codes to modern hunting rifles would be realistic, though the ranges would be much shorter maybe HP ranges. as far as accuracy that would be appropriate for 17th century something like a 8S or 9S with a reload time of 40 rounds (effectively a one shot weapon in SR terms) used as a club (common backup use after it was shot) it would be similar to a hammer (Str+1 S stun maybe?).

-Mike R.

[nezumi]

I'd agree with you on old rifles, that 40 rounds is a fair guess (about two minutes). However with muskets, it's much shorter (especially if you're trained). I think I said before, on a visit to Williamsburg they told me that the skilled marksmen could fire off something like 3 or 4 shots in 12 seconds, while a semi-trained militia man could be expected to fire off a shot once every ten seconds or so (about 3 rounds). I'm quoting these from memory, so the margin of error is probably +- 5 seconds. However, these are muskets, horrible, horrible range.

[Crusher Bob]

This was with the paper cartridge iirc, the time period did not have such things. Also, if they were talking about ROF during the Civil War, that was using percussion caps rather than a priming pan, which cuts around 10 seconds off the loading time right there.

[otomik]

[Raygun]

[Austere Emancipa...]

[mcb]

The Brown Bess is proble better compared to a light load 12ga 2-3/4 1oz slug or a 16ga 2-3/4" 4/5oz slug if comparing energy at the muzzle. A 12ga 3" 1-3/8oz slug is usually pushing a bit over 3200 ft-lbs at the muzzle.

[Austere Emancipa...]

You're probably right. I was looking at shot instead of slug, and I haven't got a whole lot of data on shotguns to begin with. 7S with Shotgun ranges?

[mcb]

Sure that seems pretty good.

As for other flintlock guns I have not seen much data surfing the net. Most dueling pistols of the era were 45-54 cal. smoothbore. I know even with my 54 cal rifled percussion pistol I only get velocities a little over 800 fps. I would think a smooth bore pistol would not get any better.

So to make a crude approximation a 50 cal round ball is about 180gr and if we guestimate muzzle velocity of 700fps we get just shy of 200ft-lbs. Not much, about the same as a 22WMR from a revolver.

Not sure how accurate that is as I made a lot of estimations but should be a decent approximation. Flintlock pistols were practically consider melee weapons due to their very limited accuracy and low muzzle energy.

[Austere Emancipa...]