Driving to work today, I thought about one other thing that should be mentioned. I have read (God knows where, however) that rifling doesn't really come into its own until the ball has traveled about 50 yards. Under that range you can be equally accurate with a smoothbore as with a rifled gun. This statement assumes, of course, that the round ball is TIGHTLY PATCHED in the smoothbore to take up any "windage" between the ball and the bore walls. This would not apply if you are using a musket with military-style unpatched ball loads or a cartridge shotgun with old-fashioned "pumpkin ball" loads. Both have space between the ball and the bore, allowing the ball to hit side-to-side before exiting the barrel, thereby degrading accuracy.

Tom

P.S. The log of my being wrong is 2" thick and I am on Volume #4.