i was wanting to know what you would rate the damage and power for:

.58 and .69 muzzle load rifle and pistol.

the 1836 colt revolver.

Spencer carbine, with its .52 caliber cartridges

Henry repeating rifle, with its .44 caliber cartridges

cannons:
5 to 90 pound balls
rifled vs smoothbore
would canister / grape shot be standard shot gun rules? (canister act as a full chock?)
how about chain shot.
1840's era exploding shells.

I don't know about any of the other weapons but muzzle loaders have an extremely low velocity. Id say 4S for the pistol and musket. It will hurt without armor but even a 70's flack jacket would offer protetion gainst such a slow moving projectile.

but if you DONT have armor, it would surely mess you up good. those things fragmented like mad when they hit tissue.

Here's the previous thread on almost the same subject:

Black-powder era weapons?

Just curious, do you want to equip yourself or your PC's with these weapons or do you intend to throw civil war soldiers at your pc's...or is this just a theoretical excersise?

Please oh please be the third reason.

smooth bore, flint lock musket bals so not break up on impact. They flatten up and make big holes. their penetrating power in limited but their kenetic energy is massive. I'd treat them similar to fletchettes for armor- impact harmor is halved but hardened armor is normal.

.58" Springfield rifled musket:
500 grain bullet at 900-950fps for 900-1002ft-lbs. If the Spencer carbine is 8S, then this should probably be a 7S.

.69" Harpers Ferry rifled M1842 musket:
I could find but a single reference to the weight of the standard bullets for this one (730 grains) and but a hint as to the possible muzzle velocity (750-800fps). That'd give you 912-1038ft-lbs at the muzzle. 8S, maybe, because of the larger caliber?

their KE is on the low side, but their ability to cause massive wounds is comparatively high, simply because of the volume and mass involved. it's the difference between getting stabbed by a pencil and stabbed by a chunk of rebar. bigger hole = more owwie. at least, that's how i understand it.

Low velocity shotgun slugs are a pretty decent modern equivalent. Still, many (most?) 12G slug loads can create wounds even bigger and deeper.

It's more than big holes with smooth bore weapons. The large number of amputated limbs in war had nothing to do with an inability to set broken bones. where as modern bullets clip bones cleanly and keep going, soft, flat .69 caliber musket balls would tranfer their KE to the bones and shatter them. Doctors could set broken bones in 1776. but a limb hit by a ball did not have bones to set, they went from limb to flesh maraca in a momment.

Not only that, but in such a case, the bullet would also tend to fragment partially, presenting a substantial threat of a slow death by lead poisoning as there was no easy way to find the fragments, such as X-ray. The most expedient repair was to lop the whole thing off. Being shot back in the day was especially no bueno.

OK Missed that but I still stand by the rest of my statment. I will confess my expertese with smooth bore does not reach into the 19th century. and that is where the article is going.

I'm more into the period 1715(dog lock muskets) through 1815, (Waterloo).
in 1802 you see the development of the Baker Rifle, the first military rifle (rifles used on the battlefield prior to that were personal hunting weapons and among other htings they were not of a uniform quality or caliber) and the 3 generation of the Brown Bess- the India or Sea pattern, replacing the short land pattern of the American Revolution and the long land pattern of the 7 Years war. The muskets wre shorter in the barrell without significant loss of accuracy, because there wasn't much to lose, with a signicant loss of weight.