Early rifleman generally came with their own civilian hunting rifle so I'm sure there were many different calibers in use. In America civilian calibers were from .40 .to .60.
Some calibers used in military rifles:
.62 and .65 for German mercs (Hesse-Kassel and Ansbach Jäger)
.64 for Danish M1769 and M1803
.58 for Prussian 1810 model
.59 for the Austrian "Deutsches Feld-Jäger Corps" in the Seven Years War
.59 and .61 for Norwegian M1755 and M1807 (no data on the M1711 but looks like ordinary short rifle)
.54 for Harper's Ferry Model 1803
I think one can see the general tendency in calibers used by 18th century armies. Some have short barrels and others are of medium length. The shorter it is, the easier to load but less velocity.
Smoothbore muskets used anywhere between .69 to .75 and even some .80+ in the early 18th century.
A spinning ball is more accurate but it does not help with its ballistic coefficient so it does not matter whether it is a rifle or smoothbore: a round ball lose velocity faster than modern spitzer type bullets. And rifles of this era used round balls.
According to the website a Baker rifle was supposed to use a 2 1/2 drams powder charge(one dram is about 27.5 grains) A Brown Bess apparently had 6-8 drams in its paper cartridge. Of course with more windage more energy would be lost with the Brown Bess. OTOH I found another website saying the Baker had a 4 dram charge and that might make more sense with the lighter bullet and shorter barrel.
CBR
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