Kaimiloa,

You are right- many of the British guns of that period have very rapid twists, not only in 14 but larger bores as well. This is quite well documented in Forsyth's book.

The trend at that time was to ever faster rifling twists and less powder. He had one such 13 bore that stripped if more than 1 1/2 drams was used, but with 1 1/2 drams, was very accurate - however the ball lacked anything that could be considered power and was useless for killing game - it was a wonder and had a trajectory of 13" for 100yards. If you knew the range exactly, you could hit, but not kill. Guns of that type were often overloaded, and 'hang the stripping', they were used close in as a smoothbore was - killing by the sure force of the ball, but shoot as in imperfect smoothbore might.

Anything of 16 or 14, that shoots 3 drams of 3F powder well, will kill most game in N.A. - BUT - the trajectory will be quite high - if more powder CAN be used, it is of advantage to lower the trajectory and increase the blow of the ball.