Daniel Boone carried a Kentucky Rifle throughout his forays into the dangerous woods of Kentucky and through the Cumberland Gap. Eventually, his use of the rifle spread among the people and the Kentucky was considered a necessity by frontiersmen; every frontier family owned at least one. Rifle shooting was a way of life along the American frontier. Most men carried a Kentucky Rifle wherever they went and most settlements would have shooting contests on holidays. The rifle became recreation for the backwoodsman and settler alike, as well as being used for hunting and protection. The Kentucky Long Rifle was more accurate than all muskets made up to that time and soon became legendary as being lethal over 200 yards.
The most popular musket of the day was the aforementioned Brown Bess that fired large spherical balls of lead and was essentially a smoothbore caliber shotgun. The "Bess" was loaded down the muzzle so the musket ball had a loose fit on the powder in the barrel. When the musket was fired, the ball bounced up and around the sides of the barrel and as it left the muzzle with the final direction being essentially unpredictable by the operator, leading to mixed accuracy results at increased ranges. The inaccurate large ammunition held no spin though the low velocity was deadly on impact nonetheless. The erratic, unpredictable motion rendered these muskets ineffective beyond a range of about 60 yards. The abilities and limitations of the musket determined the British Army battle tactics in the 18th Century. The British soldier marched in lines abreast towards the enemy formations. On command, the infantry pointed their muskets and fired in orderly volleys at the enemy from 50 to 60 yards away. Many battles were decided by a few volleys followed by a bayonet charge and ending in barbaric hand-to-hand fighting engagements usually solved with the heavy butt end of the Brown Bess against the head or torso of an unfortunate soul.
Knowing the limitations and effectiveness of the Brown Bess during the 1776 Revolutionary War, George Washington wanted to recruit frontiersmen who owned Kentucky Rifles. General Washington called for and assembled some 1,400 riflemen who carried a Kentucky. The British soon gave the buckskin clad riflemen as much distance as possible. The backwoodsman would act as snipers and brought fire down on the British ranks (especially the clearly marked British officers) before the enemy could fire on the colonists, ultimately helping to win the war for burgeoning American. The War of 1812 brought the British soldier again under the sights of the Kentucky Rifle. In 1815, General Andrew Jackson collected some town folks and an army of Kentuckians to stop the British at the Battle of New Orleans.
As men pushed west, the frontiersman on foot gave way to the mountain man who traveled with a horse and a pack animal. Game for mountain men became larger elk, buffalo, mule deer and both brown and grizzly bears and the Kentucky Rifle was soon found lacking in the required stopping power for such targets. Additionally, as these souls traveled on horseback, the long barreled rifle hung up in the brush and trees.
The Hawken brothers were gunsmiths in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and saw the need for a shorter muzzle loading rifle with a heavier slug averaging .50 to .54 in caliber. The Hawken Rifle became the new rifle standard in America. The muzzle-loading rifle did not disappear entirely when cartridge arms appeared during and shortly after the American Civil War. Few farmers and ranchers could afford the new Winchester or Sharps cartridge repeating rifles. These new rifles fired faster but, when hunting, the one shot muzzleloader could do the job. Many gunsmiths continued to make muzzleloaders into the 1880s and America's first weapon - the Kentucky Long Rifle - was still prized for this reason.
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