What do seconds in a duel do? How common?

[Exgineer]

I’m aware of the fouling problem, but my experience is mostly with rifles. As far as accuracy goes, I once got an eight inch group with a repro brown Bess after a little tinkering with the charge weight, and I’m nobody’s idea of an expert.

The smoothbore pistols surprised me, because it’s sort of counterintuitive.

[Dogface]

@snorlax

Slight hijack but check out Barry Lyndon by Stanley Kubrick if you want to see the workings of a duel and the involvement of the “seconds”. Given Kubrick’s legendary attention to detail I would suspect the duels featured in the film are reasonably accurate (and very tense as well).

If you want accurate, get “The Duelist” (Ridley Scott).