Today, those SAR members in the Color Guard speak of the muskets and rifles they carry in terms of “caliber”.

History Facts Plaque outside of the walls of Fort Boonesborough

A British Brown Bess would be .75 caliber, a French Charlville would be .69 caliber.

However, in the Revolutionary War era, the term “Caliber” was not used.

Musket ball sizes were calculated based on the number of round musket balls which could be produced using one pound of lead.

Note that firearms of the day were built by hand.  Each barrel was somewhat unique and sizing was not a perfect science.  In fact, most firearms were sold with a “bullet mold” custom fit for the musket/rifle.

So, a Brown Bess (.75 caliber) was commonly referred to as a 13 bore as one pound of lead resulted in 13 musket balls to fit.

A French Charlville (.69 caliber) was a 15 bore.

The common “today” .50 Caliber would have been a 38 bore.

Next time you meet with your Color Guard team, bring along a couple of musket balls from each of these sizes and you will quickly see the difference.

You can see that during a time of powder and lead shortages, the smaller bore stretched one’s ammunition stores substantially.  Actually, over time, the bore sizes of muskets and rifles decreased as a result of the economies of lesser musket ball size and smaller powder charges needed.

During my trip to Fort Boonesborough Kentucky, I picked up a book / pamphlet written by George R. Chalfant titled “Firearms and Ammunition Used by Fort Defenders and Native Americans at Fort Boonesborough 1777 & 1778”.  Very interesting read and helped me to understand the history of Rev War era firearms.  This book is also available on Amazon and in the Berea Kentucky area book stores.

Book by George R. Chalfant

One of the interesting notes of the book was that during the siege of Fort Boonesborough, the folks in the fort would venture out under cover of darkness to collect lead balls which could be found at the foot of the stockade walls.  This lead would be recast into more bullets for the besieged folks inside the fort.  I suspect the Native Americans did the same.

Fort Boonesborough south of Lexington Kentucky

Interesting read for a Color Guard member or anyone wanting to learn more about the tactics and practices of the day.

Enjoy!