Infantrymen did not aim their muskets but more or less pointed them in the direction of the enemy. The Brown Bess did not have sights, and the effect of the bullet caroming down the barrel would pretty have much rendered them useless anyway. Green troops had a tendency to point their guns high and would often shoot over their adversaries' heads at long ranges, so they were constantly being admonished by their sergeants to fire low. Even if they hit the ground in front of the enemy, there was a possibility of skipping a ball into the ranks, causing some damage.

The Brown Bess bayonet had a 17-inch triangular blade and slipped over the gun's muzzle, secured only by a single, top-mounted lug. The East India Company introduced a spring clip on its bayonets to help secure them better, but this was never used by Crown troops.

Accuracy of the smoothbore musket was acknowledged, even at the period, to be somewhat lacking. In the 1814 To All Sportsmen, Colonel George Hanger wrote, "A soldier's musket, if not exceedingly ill-bored (as many are), will strike a figure of a man at 80 yards; it may even at a hundred; but a soldier must be very unfortunate indeed who shall be wounded by a common musket at 150 yards, providing his antagonist aims at him; and as to firing at a man at 200 yards with a common musket, you may as well fire at the moon and have the same hope of hitting him. I do maintain and will prove…that no man was ever killed at 200 yards, by a common musket, by the person who aimed at him."

ACCURACY TEST, 150 YEARS LATER
I've shot Brown Besses informally over the years, but this time I thought I'd try a little accuracy testing. Taking Colonel Hanger's comments into account, I set up 2x4-foot target boards with central bullseyes at distances of 100, 50 and 25 yards. Firing was done offhand using a period-style British military-issue cartridge box and properly constructed paper cartridges, each containing 100 grains of FFg black powder and a .715 ball. A new flint, secured by a piece of leather (sheet lead was the more common material used in the early 1800s) was clamped into the jaws of the cock.

Our evaluation Brown Bess was an original India pattern from my own collection, which was in virtually unfired shape, having spent the better part of the last 150 years or so as a decoration in a Scottish manor house. It is unlikely the piece saw much, if any, use, and whatever limited service it might have had was probably in the hands of some Gaelic militia unit. It featured a reinforced cock, placing the date of manufacture at post-1809, its condition indicating that there is a good chance that it was produced so late that it never made it to the Continent. The gun was professionally checked out for serviceability--a practice that is imperative if one is going to shoot old, original firearms.

After repeated firing, the black-powder fouling builds up on the exterior of the lock and inside the barrel, affecting loading and ignition if care is not taken.

Following original loading techniques, five shots each were fired at the targets, beginning with the furthermost first. One can use the bayonet lug as a sort of crude front sight, and I tried to line it up with the top of the breech in order to get something of a center hold on the boards. The gun functioned flawlessly, and once you get used to the flash and smoke of the powder in the pan going off just in front of your face and the slight lag between the whoosh of the priming and the boom of the main charge, it's really easy to manage.

As the gun weighs in at some 93?4 pounds and is well designed with a high comb stock and wide buttplate, it's actually quite pleasant to shoot. During the day's adventure, including the range testing and later potting at various targets of opportunity at distances up to 200 yards (hopeless, as noted by Colonel Hanger), I probably put around 40 rounds through the musket without cleaning it, and while ramming a paper-wrapped ball became a bit more difficult toward the end, it was still manageable.