Sighted Smoothbores should be in their own class.

[Eggman]

The qualitative difference in hardware was enormous, the difference in people even more so.

Yeah Mike - I encourage you to schedule yourself into the next Fifth Special Forces Group reunion at Fort Campbell next year. Here you will be able to explain to the old guys their "enormous" inferiority to folks now being deployed to combat zones.

[jonk]

Here's what one should do to have a fighting chance. And this goes for any firearm.
1. The firearm must be clean. Strip it down excluding the lock. There is no substitute. Don't overlook the flash hole, and nipple hole. Don't over grease the lock. Have the lock worked for correct trigger pull and lock timing. You will only be as good as your equipment.
2. All long guns must be benched with sandbags for all testing.
3. This is where the WORK begins. If you don't want to put in the work, then read no further.
4. With a RB 12-15 thousandths under bore size, file off the sprue, then run the ball under a wood rasp or furiers file, dipped 1x in Alox.
Fire ten shots from the bench 50yds. Not 25yds. You want to win, you have to do it at 50yds. If it groups at 50 it will group at 25. With 1 1/2 F Swiss starting low on the amount of grains, say 40-46. Increase in two grain increments each ten succeeding string of ten shots up to about 70 grains. Keep the targets for comparison.
Then use 2F Swiss and repeat.
Then use 3F Swiss and repeat.
Then use 2F GOEX and repeat.
Then use 3F GOEX and repeat.
5. In between each ten shot string clean the bore with a few patches with simple green and dry patches. Do this because you will have to fire ten shots on a Nat'ls. target.
6. With each target and with a compass if you want, draw a circle around the group so as the line intersects the two most distant holes. The diameter will equal your group size. You will notice with your targets going from large to small to large.
Pick the load with the smallest group. Don't worry during this process where the group is. You have to make those adjustments when you shoot it offhand.

When you are done, you will have fired approx. 750 rounds. You will have done what it takes to have a fighting chance. The rest is up to you. I'll admit that it also takes some shooting talent to be good along with eyesight, holding and squeezing. Youth helps too and that's something we loose everyday.

I do this testing regimen for every firearm I have used. If I use different bullets, it's back to the bench. Now I will boast a little because you want to know what the good shooters do. I have won every aggregate there is. I am a D-SSA shooter with every firearm, 3 gun, and 5 gun. I have been shooting competitive since I was 9 years old. A lot of .22 position shooting. I began shooting BP when I was 18 and except for a stint in the SE Asian war games where we finished 2nd, I have continued to shoot BP and other firearms during the Winter months for some trigger time. All in all approx. 45 years. I started with a "42" and won some SB agg. points and went to an H&P. Here's something that'll make you go hmmm. I was short of 25 points with the 42. Bought the H&P, WORKED on it, and then won the SB agg. Haven't placed in the agg. since. A few years now.

In summation. You have to WORK at it. You can't just use what someone else is using or doing. If it were easy, everybody would be doing it. Oh, and three more things. Practice, practice, practice.

Hope this helps all.

Even that isn't adequate. You also have to try hard lead vs. soft lead, musket lube vs. alox, 12-15/1000ths vs. 10/1000ths, etc.

What I do when I get a new gun is take it out with a likely bullet and likely powder charge, say 40 gr. Up by 2 gr, try again, repeat, etc. Run the full spectrum out to a max of whatever. If the gun tightens up, note what the best load for that bullet/powder was.

Repeat at the next outing with a different bullet. Make notes again if it performs with a certain charge.

When all is done, take out each bullet with the best powder charge and repeat.

Now start over with hard lead.

Eventually you get down to 3-4 top contenders, all of which should in principle be capable of shooting a perfect 50 from the bench. Now start playing with actual measurements and calipers and compases and such.

That said... it's a rare thing that you can't cheat things a bit and assume that a smoothie won't do well with something in the 45-50 gr range and that's a good place to start; and if you get lucky and find a group that from a bench has all shots touching, well, no need to go further.