Muzzleldrs Does rifling work with round ball?

Generally speaking patched round balls are more accurate in a barrel with a slower twist such as 1 in 44. I don't know what the twist was in a typical Civil War rifled musket , but a patched round ball certainly could have been used . The rate of fire and accuracy would have been compromised .
Surely you mean 1 turn in 72 or 1 turn in 66 inches? The Baker had a rate of twist of 1 turn in 120 inches, which is practically straight! Seems fouling was more important than any other consideration.

On the other hand, the very first rifled flintlock ever used officially by a military force was the Dano-Norwegian jäger troops, which had a patched round ball with a rate of twist of 1 turn in 24 inches, which one might otherwise think was not adequate...

The first percussion long arm used by the U.S. was the Model 1841 percussion Mississippi rifle. Like the earlier common rifles, it used a .530 round ball with a patch and had a bore with seven deep rifling grooves.
 
Short answer. Yes round balls can use rifling.

For a long answer covering issues of charge weight and twist I would refer you to 'The Sporting Rifle and it's Projectiles' by James Forsyth that you can download or read free at
In summary a target rifle desires a fast twist but a large charge will cause the round ball to strip (tear over the rifling) whereas a slow twist will allow a larger charge without this happening but has somewhat less accuracy. This becomes more significant with an increasing size of bore as a larger ball has more rotational inertia from the distance of it's mass from the centre, combined with a great mass generally.

With conical bullets with a cylindrical significant part of their shape, the bullet has a greater bearing surface on the rifling and is made to be expanded into the rifling by it's own inertia of mass so the fit is better. Round balls have only a small bearing surface by comparison and much less mass.

An ACW typical 0,580" bore would have an ideal Forsyth round ball twist of about 1 in 75 which is coincidentally about what was actually used with the (commonly called Minie) Burton or Pritchett conicals. These bullets could cope with a faster twist, hence the use of the shorter '2-band' types with a 1 in 48 twist as marksman rifles. Barring the wide lands, the common ACW rifle muskets are a good match for a round ball under Forsyth's system, within the shorter ranges in which he is interested for hunting large game. The 'Minies' allowed a far greater effective range and Brett Gibbon's excellent and reasonably priced book 'The Destroying Angel' explains in detail how trained troops used it at long ranges to alter the battlefield for ever. For the common ACW infantry I suspect that a round ball load would have been as useful at the ranges they tended to actually use being barely trained in musketry with their rifles.

However, I dare say this is all far more information than you wanted..........
 
Quick question, does rifling only work with conical bullets? Can a round ball gain the benefit of rifling aswell?

Short answer, yes.

That said, the Patched Round Ball predates the minie ball by many years. While it was in use by militaries prior to the invention of the minie, it's use was in specialized units as the rate of fire was slower than that of a smoothbore, the guns were more expensive and complex, and the soldier carrying it had special training. Ballistically speaking the round ball is a horrible projectile. It sheds velocity fast compared to the the more "aerodynamic" bullets. Other factors for round balls, rifling twist and profile are generally very different from a minie gun. Patches are almost always used and that introduces another group of variables into the accuracy equation.
 
When ordering a barrel, the barrel maker will ask what your intended purpose is, hunting or target shooting. Hunting barrels with a larger powder charge usually like a slow twist like 1 in 72 or 1 in 96. A target barrel twist may be 1 in 60 and never shoot very accuractly with heavier hunting loads. It also depends on caliber and type of rifling, flat bottom or round bottom grooves.
Thanks for that explanation. I noticed that my .36 Caliber Pennsylvania Rifle had a 1:66 twist. When I selected this barrel from a group that were in a literal barrel, I knew why I picked it. Now I thought that sure is a slow twist— the ball doesnt complete 1 turn while traveling thru the 44-inch long barrel.
 
First, a round ball is not aerodynamic in shape. Whether you spin it or not, this cannot be completely overcome.
Then there is a theory of “chewed balls”. I never heard of this before. The guy in this video tests it on a smooth bore.
This video is too long. He also has a theory about not using wads under the ball.

 
My first black powder rifle was a Thompson Center Hawken cap & ball that I built from a kit. I intended to use it to hunt deer. The nature of the country round about the farm where I lived meant that a shot of more than fifty yards was unlikely. To shoot in the barrel & adjust the sights, I used a round bale as a rest. Across a pasture, up against a bank lay a very large tree trunk that stepped off at the range I needed. I used both Hornady Buffalo Bullets & round ball with lubricated patch. I also loaded with both black powder & modern propellent.

Once I had the hang of the Hawken & had adjusted the sights, I could consistently hit my knothole bulls eye with the conical bullets. All around the knot was a ring of roundball hits about the size of a plate. In that test, the conical bullet pattern was about four inches in diameter. The ball pattern was about eight inches. This result was from about 50 rounds or more each fired from a rest over time by me & a friend at about 50 yards.

The evidence of that test supports the conclusion that the diameter of the circular error of a round ball fired from a rifle is about twice that of a conical bullet fired from the same barrel.

We fired my friend's reproduction Brown Bess, as well. We scattered shots all over the place. It was hard not to flinch when the flint lit the priming powder, for one thing. I didn't fire it enough to establish any kind of consistent pattern. I would characterize my results as of the vaguely in the right direction variety.
 
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The fun thing about the Baker rifle is not so much that it was a rifle, but that it was a dual purpose weapon. It could load the ball unpatched at nearly the same speed as a normal musket, or patched and fire as a rifle (albeit slowly in keeping with period rifles).

This permitted the formation of Baker rifle battalions - other armies' rifle troops had to be small detachments because they could not form squares and effectively protect themselves from cavalry.
 
In that test, the conical bullet pattern was about four inches in diameter. The ball pattern was about eight inches. This result was from about 50 rounds or more each fired from a rest over time by me & a friend at about 50 yards.

I know that good smoothbore muskets aimed perfectly will hit a man sized target 100% of the time at 100-odd yards, and those patterns seem to support it.

We fired my friend's reproduction Brown Bess, as well. We scattered shots all over the place. It was hard not to flinch when the flint lit the priming powder, for one thing. I didn't fire it enough to establish any kind of consistent pattern. I would characterize my results as of the vaguely in the right direction variety.

This (flinching at the flash) is one of the many things which the Hythe school of musketry targeted in training and sought to iron out. They would have recruits fire dozens of rounds of blank, for example.
 
The physical phenomenon you need to be aware of is the Magnus Effect.

With a smoothbore musket ball, the ball is spinning (slightly), but in a random direction based on the last bounce out of the barrel. This spin generates lift in a random direction leading to the ball curving in a random direction. In cricket and baseball, bowlers/ pitchers exploit this by spinning the ball in a controlled direction. Tighter balls (such as patched balls) spin less, and with a smoothbore the windage seriously affects the grouping.

With a rifled round-ball weapon, the initial axis about which the ball is spinning is defined, and so the curve caused by the Magnus effect is predictable. However, as the forces act on the ball it destabilises and it slowly veers off into a random curve. With a round-ball rifle the practical effect is an increase in effective range from 200 to 300 yards, as the ball destabilises by about 100 yds.

Further improvements are to lengthen the ball into a conoid etc., which increases the stabilisation resulting in the ball not curving randomly. There is some science into not overstabilising or destabilising the ball.
 
I know that good smoothbore muskets aimed perfectly will hit a man sized target 100% of the time at 100-odd yards, and those patterns seem to support it.



This (flinching at the flash) is one of the many things which the Hythe school of musketry targeted in training and sought to iron out. They would have recruits fire dozens of rounds of blank, for example.
How many hundred rounds of Brown Bess musket & rifle have you shot? Not many, I suspect. Anyone who has spent any time on the range with Revolutionary War era smoothbore muskets knows that there is no such thing as a perfectly aimed shot with one of those things. That is for the simple reason that they have no sights. (I am not going into the weeds about grooves in the breach or the like that experts on this subject discuss in infinite detail.) You don't have to take my word for it, trained soldiers left a graphic record of how accurate muskets & rifles of the C.W. period were.

During tests carried out by the U.S. Ordinance Bureau in 1860, ten men fired 5 shots each at a 6'X6' target with .69 cal. muskets. At 100 yds only 37 of the shots scored hits that were scattered to every corner of the target; at 200 yards between 18 & 24 shots hit the 6'X6' target. These were trained soldiers that did the shooting. These & the results of 20 smoothbore & rifled musket tests are reproduced in The Rifled Musket by Claude Fuller.

Brown Bess, Charleville & other muskets of that era have no sights for the simple reason that in the tactics of the day, no sights were deemed necessary. (On the Brown Bess, the bayonet lug is on top of the barrel, which provides a sort of crude front sight, but without a rear sight that really isn't much of a help.) A major factor in the lack of accuracy even if there were sights is that when the ball leaves the muzzle at about 1,000 f.p.s. it begins to drop at 9.8 meters per second per second due to gravity. At 75 yards it will drop 10"; at 100 yards it will drop 18"; at 125 yds, it will drop 30". With no rear sight to adjust the angle of the barrel, there was no way anybody could accurately aim a musket of that era beyond roughly 50 yards where the bullet only dropped 4"'.

The drill for Brown Bess & Charleville infantry was to level their piece & fire. The sergeants carried pikes not as weapons, but to allow them to reach out & tap the muskets of their men level before firing. The ball would carry in a reasonably straight line for the short distances that these tactics dictated. A blast of .69 caliber lead balls from a line several ranks deep would have been murderous at 30 yards. That was when the real work of the infantryman began.

In the tactical doctrine of that era, the musket was a pike that made a lot of smoke & noise. The practice was to march up to the opposing line, fire a volley & charge bayonets out of the smoke. No doubt a perfectly terrifying sight to see. Not only was the musket itself impossible to aim accurately, the close packed ranks meant that the shooter was jostled by men on either side. Results of men in line from the 1860 tests bear that out.

As to flinching from the flash of the pan, my friend the French & Indian War living historian told me to squinch my eyes closed before I pulled the trigger. When I had the honor of sharing the field with the Old Guard a few summers ago, I noticed that they do the same. Works for them & works for me. In any case, I prefer firing a cannon any day.
 
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I also loaded with both black powder & modern propellent.
Yikes!!! I hope you are referring to modern synthetic black powder, like Pyrodex.
NEVER EVER USE SMOKELESS POWDER IN A MUZZLELOADER.
It likely will not ignite with a percussion cap but modern powder produces higher pressures.
 
Yikes!!! I hope you are referring to modern synthetic black powder, like Pyrodex.
NEVER EVER USE SMOKELESS POWDER IN A MUZZLELOADER.
It likely will not ignite with a percussion cap but modern powder produces higher pressures.
I was using the correct powder, I didn't say Pyrodex because only experienced muzzle loaders know what that is. The reason for not using powder with a quicker expansion is that it would over speed the lead round, causing it to melt & leave ugly deposits in the bore. I did not make the test, but I do know an idiot who did & it was a mess to clean out. I will take his word on that one.

Years ago, the living history program at Stones River was given a large quantity of U.S. Navy surplus torpedo warhead powder. The grains were the size of marbles, in my memory at least. Instead of the sharp blast of the 12 pound Napoleon we were accustomed to when we live fired during those happy days, the torpedo powder produced a drawn out BAAA-WAAA-WHOOOOM! with a great long flash out of the muzzle. It was quite an alarming experience the first time.
 
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How many hundred rounds of Brown Bess musket & rifle have you shot? Not many, I suspect. Anyone who has spent any time on the range with Revolutionary War era smoothbore muskets knows that there is no such thing as a perfectly aimed shot with one of those things. That is for the simple reason that they have no sights. You don't have to take my word for it, trained soldiers left a graphic record of how accurate muskets & rifles of the C.W. period were.

During tests carried out by the U.S. Ordinance Bureau in 1860, ten men fired 5 shots each at a 6'X6' target with .69 cal. muskets. At 100 yds only 37 of the shots scored hits that were scattered to every corner of the target; at 200 yards between 18 & 24 shots hit the 6'X6' target. These were trained soldiers that did the shooting. These & the results of 20 smoothbore & rifled musket tests are reproduced in The Rifled Musket by Claude Fuller.

Brown Bess, Charleville & other muskets of that era have no sights for the simple reason that in the tactics of the day, no sights were deemed necessary. (On the Brown Bess, the bayonet lug is on top of the barrel, which provides a sort of crude front sight, but without a rear sight that really isn't much of a help.) A major factor in the lack of accuracy even if there were sights is that when the ball leaves the muzzle at about 1,000 f.p.s. it begins to drop at 9.8 meters per second per second due to gravity. At 75 yards it will drop 10"; at 100 yards it will drop 18"; at 125 yds, it will drop 30". With no rear sight to adjust the angle of the barrel, there was no way anybody could accurately aim a musket of that era beyond roughly 50 yards where the bullet only dropped 4"'.

The drill for Brown Bess & Charleville infantry was to level their piece & fire. The sergeants carried pikes not as weapons, but to allow them to reach out & tap the muskets of their men level before firing. The ball would carry in a reasonably straight line for the short distances that these tactics dictated. A blast of .69 caliber lead balls from a line several ranks deep would have been murderous at 30 yards. That was when the real work of the infantryman began.
I am of course aware that the Brown Bess could not in general be used accurately at long range (though I'm about to demonstrate that firing at area targets could actually be done) but the point is that out to 100 yards or so the difference in effectiveness between a smoothbore musket and a rifle is as much the provision of fixed sights for the rifle as anything - it's the aiming of the long arm at the target, not the tendency of the ball to go wild.

1) Your test numbers actually prove that the smoothbore musket had a reasonable utility against targets at 200 yards if aimed well. You yourself say that 18-24 shots out of fifty strike a 6 foot wide by 6 foot high target; a line of infantry is not the full 6 foot high, but it's more than 6 foot wide, so about 1/3 of shots could be said to hit at 200 yards.

I would say that a regiment of 1,000 infantrymen scoring 300+ hits on an enemy regiment of the same size at 200 yards would be extremely effective! Of course the problem is that men were never able to achieve theoretical performance in combat, not that the theoretical performance of the weapon at 200 yards was no good... but the point is that it doesn't really matter if you hit the man to the left of where you were aiming, a hit is still a hit and that's why firing at area targets (dense lines of infantry, for example) was still done at longer range.


2) Firing on area targets could be done:

An unusual duel developed between their artillery and the muskets of the 1/43rd at a distance of 400 yards, far beyond the normal range of the Brown Bess. The 1/43rd had taken up a position in and around the church, a strong building constructed in the Basque fashion with two balconies above the nave. Windows lit all three levels. The wall surrounding the churchyard was lower than the nave, giving the 43rd four protected firing levels. Due to the conformation of the land in front, the French artillery, if it wished to fire on the church at all, had to expose itself on a crest 400 yards to the north. No infantryman could hope to hit a single opponent at such a range, but a target as large as a battery of artillery was a different matter. The 43rd, firing four-tiered volleys, caused the French gunners to fire inaccurately, and later abandon their pieces.

Weller, Jac. Wellington in the Peninsula (Napoleonic Library) . Pen and Sword. Kindle Edition.


3) Light infantrymen in the Napoleonic era tended to fire their weapons as individual aimed fire.

The ones who were trained at it and who had practice with their weapons would tend to have a sense of roughly where to aim, and the bullet drop isn't as much of an issue at 100 or 125 yards (aim at a man's head and the bullet drops 30 inches to strike him in the abdomen? No problem, it's still hit him). Weller in Wellington at Waterloo states that the Brown Bess and other such smoothbore muskets would hit a man more often than they missed - in skilled hands - at 75 yards, which probably factors in some human error because at that range the ball's dispersal isn't enough to miss a torso and because he gives the same figure for the rifle (jager and Baker) as 150 yards (while in expert hands the Baker could hit reliably at ~500 yards).


4) For a weapon in soldiers' hands to be effective it is not necessary for it to be 100% reliable shots-fired-to-target-hit, or even 10% - 1% is quite manageable, though of course if you're facing an enemy with a higher hit rate you have a significant disadvantage. The point is that there is a maximum performance (the theoretical capabilities of the firearm) and if a man is superbly trained he will approach that limit; a poorly trained man won't get even close.


As for the Brown Bess specifically, the British reserved their fire to unusually short range. This was because they wanted their best volley (the most psychologically damaging and effective one) to be as effective as possible at short range, and because British tactics of the time often involved a short bayonet charge on the heels of a damaging burst of fire - so the shorter the charge range the better. I suspect their usual method was to wait until an enemy column was just starting to deploy into line for combat, and then blast them at the moment of hesitation, as this would maximize the impact.
 
As to flinching from the flash of the pan, my friend the French & Indian War living historian told me to squinch my eyes closed before I pulled the trigger. When I had the honor of sharing the field with the Old Guard a few summers ago, I noticed that they do the same. Works for them & works for me. In any case, I prefer firing a cannon any day.

The Pattern 1842 smoothbore was not a flintlock, it was a percussion weapon. The drill was to train men not to close their eyes because there was no flash. The P1842 had a v-notch rear-sight and block-post foresight (which was also the bayonet lug). This was introduced because of experience with the P1839 (the original percussion musket, which lacked a rearsight).

The reason for not installing rearsights on flintlocks was pragmatic - you couldn't keep your eyes open and looking down the sights without a chance of being blinded. Hence the weapon was aimed like a modern shotgun, using the front sight (bayonet lug) only. The cap removed this danger (but see the Dreyse and early unobturated breechloaders), and troops had to be drilled with the idea that there was now no danger looking down the sights and maintaining aim. The Dreyse was so leaky that instructions for the infantry were not to aim it due to the possibility of being blinded.
 
I am of course aware that the Brown Bess could not in general be used accurately at long range (though I'm about to demonstrate that firing at area targets could actually be done) but the point is that out to 100 yards or so the difference in effectiveness between a smoothbore musket and a rifle is as much the provision of fixed sights for the rifle as anything - it's the aiming of the long arm at the target, not the tendency of the ball to go wild.

1) Your test numbers actually prove that the smoothbore musket had a reasonable utility against targets at 200 yards if aimed well. You yourself say that 18-24 shots out of fifty strike a 6 foot wide by 6 foot high target; a line of infantry is not the full 6 foot high, but it's more than 6 foot wide, so about 1/3 of shots could be said to hit at 200 yards.

I would say that a regiment of 1,000 infantrymen scoring 300+ hits on an enemy regiment of the same size at 200 yards would be extremely effective! Of course the problem is that men were never able to achieve theoretical performance in combat, not that the theoretical performance of the weapon at 200 yards was no good... but the point is that it doesn't really matter if you hit the man to the left of where you were aiming, a hit is still a hit and that's why firing at area targets (dense lines of infantry, for example) was still done at longer range.


2) Firing on area targets could be done:

An unusual duel developed between their artillery and the muskets of the 1/43rd at a distance of 400 yards, far beyond the normal range of the Brown Bess. The 1/43rd had taken up a position in and around the church, a strong building constructed in the Basque fashion with two balconies above the nave. Windows lit all three levels. The wall surrounding the churchyard was lower than the nave, giving the 43rd four protected firing levels. Due to the conformation of the land in front, the French artillery, if it wished to fire on the church at all, had to expose itself on a crest 400 yards to the north. No infantryman could hope to hit a single opponent at such a range, but a target as large as a battery of artillery was a different matter. The 43rd, firing four-tiered volleys, caused the French gunners to fire inaccurately, and later abandon their pieces.

Weller, Jac. Wellington in the Peninsula (Napoleonic Library) . Pen and Sword. Kindle Edition.


3) Light infantrymen in the Napoleonic era tended to fire their weapons as individual aimed fire.

The ones who were trained at it and who had practice with their weapons would tend to have a sense of roughly where to aim, and the bullet drop isn't as much of an issue at 100 or 125 yards (aim at a man's head and the bullet drops 30 inches to strike him in the abdomen? No problem, it's still hit him). Weller in Wellington at Waterloo states that the Brown Bess and other such smoothbore muskets would hit a man more often than they missed - in skilled hands - at 75 yards, which probably factors in some human error because at that range the ball's dispersal isn't enough to miss a torso and because he gives the same figure for the rifle (jager and Baker) as 150 yards (while in expert hands the Baker could hit reliably at ~500 yards).


4) For a weapon in soldiers' hands to be effective it is not necessary for it to be 100% reliable shots-fired-to-target-hit, or even 10% - 1% is quite manageable, though of course if you're facing an enemy with a higher hit rate you have a significant disadvantage. The point is that there is a maximum performance (the theoretical capabilities of the firearm) and if a man is superbly trained he will approach that limit; a poorly trained man won't get even close.


As for the Brown Bess specifically, the British reserved their fire to unusually short range. This was because they wanted their best volley (the most psychologically damaging and effective one) to be as effective as possible at short range, and because British tactics of the time often involved a short bayonet charge on the heels of a damaging burst of fire - so the shorter the charge range the better. I suspect their usual method was to wait until an enemy column was just starting to deploy into line for combat, and then blast them at the moment of hesitation, as this would maximize the impact.
I looked into my folder on this subject. I have squirreled away eight papers, each more exhaustive than the last. The bottom line in all of them is that beyond 50 yds firing smoothbore muskets was a waste of ammunition. I figure they know what they are talking about & that is good enough for me.
 
The Pattern 1842 smoothbore was not a flintlock, it was a percussion weapon. The drill was to train men not to close their eyes because there was no flash. The P1842 had a v-notch rear-sight and block-post foresight (which was also the bayonet lug). This was introduced because of experience with the P1839 (the original percussion musket, which lacked a rearsight).

The reason for not installing rearsights on flintlocks was pragmatic - you couldn't keep your eyes open and looking down the sights without a chance of being blinded. Hence the weapon was aimed like a modern shotgun, using the front sight (bayonet lug) only. The cap removed this danger (but see the Dreyse and early unobturated breechloaders), and troops had to be drilled with the idea that there was now no danger looking down the sights and maintaining aim. The Dreyse was so leaky that instructions for the infantry were not to aim it due to the possibility of being blinded.
My limited experience with flintlocks is that the priming charge spews sizzlers like crazy. In one notable instance, a spark from the man next to me sent a sizzler into my left ear with alarming effect. We were not in ranks, just standing at a bench.
 
British infantry were not to close their eyes on firing their muskets and were practiced in firing at a mark. Not as much in barracks but certainly on campaigns. ARW accounts are replete with references to companies firing at marks in practice and references to 'aiming' insofar as using the bayonet lug permits. However we digress from the rifled weapon OP.
 
I looked into my folder on this subject. I have squirreled away eight papers, each more exhaustive than the last. The bottom line in all of them is that beyond 50 yds firing smoothbore muskets was a waste of ammunition. I figure they know what they are talking about & that is good enough for me.
It depends what you consider "a waste of ammunition". A low hit rate results, certainly, but that's common for the period.

Throughout all the works I've read on the Napoleonic Wars ranges of 50 yards and under are by no means the rule. Contemporary tests showed:

In range tests, frequently 20% of shots hit a large target (6 foot high and wide like a line of infantry) at 300 metres, 40% at 150 metres; in regimental shoots the average (of French units in the July monarchy) was 14.3% of shots fired for ranges between 100 and 300 metres. (Both of these are reported in Forward into Battle by Griffith.)


If by "a waste of ammunition" you mean a hit rate against a realistic target (a man sized one) at seventy yards of one in twenty, or one in thirty, or one in fifty, or even one in a hundred... well, welcome to 19th century warfare for men without rifle training. The hit rate is low, and everybody knows it, but a lot of that is because men are not aiming their weapons right rather than because the weapons are impossible to aim right at that range.
 
I own an 1884 Springfield trapdoor rifle in 45-70 which I load my own rounds. One time I loaded up some roundballs in the cartridge instead of the conical ones. They worked OK but weren't quite as accurate.
 
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