We each took one shot.

[Tronhard]

I was visiting Fort George at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario when I discovered there was a demonstration of handling the famous Brown Bess musket, standard weapon used for much of the early part of the 19th century. The operator was showing us how to drill with the weapon and took one shot with the weapon. I was not expecting an actual firing, and my camera was on single shot, but one shot was enough for both of us.

f 7.1, 1/250, ISO 200

[dje]

Both good shots Trev

Your timing was perfect !

Dave

[Tronhard]

Thanks Dave. Tried for, but very lucky I must admit!!

[Stagecoach]

That is either skill or luck Trev, very good.

I was fortunate to be in a good position for a 21 gun salute with 7 canon, and even with the ability to try some at continuous only achieved 1 with the good flame.

[IzzieK]

I would have been excited in that one-shot wonder...as I ought to do at times...Anyway, back to your original post, I love it! How nice is that...timing is important here. I couldn't have done it easily but you did. Congratulations.

[Shadowman]

Very nice.

[Tronhard]

I would like to have positioned the soldier a little more to the right, and I could have cropped it, but I set myself the task of making it fit into 1920x1080 frame to fill my computer screen. As you can imagine there wasn't a lot of time for framing!!

[Donald]

For a single shot, that is amazing. Timing was perfect.

[deetheturk]

Great shot and timing Trev, next time get on the correct side of him[facing you]

[Tronhard]

Sadly it is unlikely I shall be there again... It is several thousand km from home. Apparently they always face that way relative to the crowd as a health and safety thing - to avoid any side explosions from the ignition chamber. The side I would really want to avoid would be right in front! Mind you, if you survived it would make a great photo...

[rpcrowe]

You might notice that there is no command "Take Aim" in this manual of arms. Taking aim was pretty well a useless stratagem when firing the Brown Bess musket. The .69 caliber ball simply rattled down the .75 caliber bore of the musket. The musket which was the basic British infantry arm from about the 1740's to the 1830's was pitifully inaccurate.

However, the musket was far quicker to reload than was many of the rifles of the day (the breech loading Furguson rifle not withstanding) and was effective in a massed fire from a close range followed up by effective use of the bayonet.

Our slightly flawed generally accepted history of the American Revolution has the Patriot troops behind barriers and trees firing at long distances to pick off Redcoat officers. While this did occur, notably during the Battle of Saratoga when Timothy Murphy of Daniel Morgan's Riflemen (BTW: a Crow ancestor of mine was also a member of Morgan's Riflemen at Saratoga) "is reputed to have shot and killed Sir Francis Clerke (sic) and General Simon Fraser"; effectively skewing the result of the battle, Continental regiments fought in the same manner as their Redcoat opponents. Some Continentals were armed with the Brown Bess of British manufacture although the Continentals were predominately armed with one of the versions of the Charleville .69 caliber French Infantry Musket subsequent to Saratoga when French supplies began to arrive in bulk. Accuracy with the Charleville (although it was lighter in weight and the recoil was a bit less) was not any better than the accuracy with the Brown Bess.

I have never fired a Charleville reproduction but have handled one and found it to be better balanced and easier to handle than the Brown Bess.

When I have fired reproduction flintlock long arms, the flash of the primer power in the pan seemed like it occurred long before the charge in the chamber was set off. I had problems obtaining any kind of accuracy with a military musket and only slightly more accuracy using the proverbial "Pennsylvania or Kentucky Long Rifle".

I have read in several places, including a book that I am reading now on Braddock's Defeat at the Monongahela River, in Pennsylvania during the French and Indian war (Seven Years War) that the Brown Bess was often fired without the musket against the shoulder. It was fired before the musket reached the shoulder thus degrading the accuracy even further. I cannot verify this but, it seems like it might be conceivable in the melee of battle by troops who had very little, if any practice in actually firing their weapons (power was considered "too expensive to waste in practice).

[Rita]

It is amazing that you caught this in one shot. Well done.

[bnnrcn]

Great timing, very nice image

[Tronhard]

Hi Richard:

I think your point about the inaccuracies of the musket is very valid. That created tactics of amassing soldiers in solid ranks to get a shotgun effect - someone had to hit something! This all came back to haunt those in the field when the accuracy and rate of fire increased in the latter half of the 19th Century, and even more so in the Great War, when the tactics so woefully lagged behind the weaponry and caused massacres on a massive scale.

Our demonstrator commented that the balls would cause shattering of bones and bleeding to the point that a very high proportion of those hit had to have amputations in the field. As demonstrated by some of the photographs by civil war photographers.

cheers: Trev

[Donald]

The side I would really want to avoid would be right in front! Mind you, if you survived it would make a great photo...

As long as he missed the camera, one of us could do the post processing on the photograph!!

[FootLoose]

Skill and luck - the best combination. Great shot, Trev.

[Rider in the Sky]

Both good shots Trev

Your timing was perfect !

Dave

Absolutely !

[Rider in the Sky]

Both good shots Trev

Your timing was perfect !

Dave

Absolutely ! agree with Dave.

[Rebel]

Brilliant Trev, impecable timing!

[rpcrowe]

Hi Richard:

I think your point about the inaccuracies of the musket is very valid. That created tactics of amassing soldiers in solid ranks to get a shotgun effect - someone had to hit something! This all came back to haunt those in the field when the accuracy and rate of fire increased in the latter half of the 19th Century, and even more so in the Great War, when the tactics so woefully lagged behind the weaponry and caused massacres on a massive scale.
Trev

Unfortunately, the generals who planned the tactics did not have to grab a rifle or musket and charge the enemy. If they did, very likely the frontal charge would have been abandoned long-long before the Somme and 57,400 Commonwealth casualties on the first day of that offensive might probably have been minimized...