The guns of our founding fathers were flint-locks. Muzzle loaded, no rifling, flint initiated (thats why there is a delay when firing, the spark from the flint has to travel a small "tube" to ignite the powder) before the cap was founded. Typically .62 to .75 inch bore, thats large caliber. Rounds were true balls, didn't even have Minie Balls yet.

No revolvers, pepper box gun wasn't even made yet. Revolvers were just before US Civil War, if I remember correctly. No gatling guns - those were at the end of the Civil War.

Paper cartridges were used - they contained the powder and ball. You bit the end off, preferably at the ball, poured the powder down, ball next, ram-rod to pack. You then primed the flint tray, and if you didn't spill the powder in the tray, good to fire. I believe you could get 3 -4 shots in a minute, but you could only fire at that rate for 4 minutes until you experienced fouling problems.

These were very deadly weapons, not only because of the weapon, but also the lack of modern medicine. Remember, people around this time were still blood-letting to fix colds and illness.

So would our founding fathers shit their pants today? IMO, probably not. Today's weaponry is amazing, but to people who have never been outside their own county in 1776, flintlocks would have been pretty amazing too. You also have to consider the tactics - lines of men two to four deep who were ordered not to fire until "you could see the whites of the enemy's eyes."

Get hit with a round from those old muskets and you lost the limb, say good-bye if it hit you in the torso; today you can be saved from multiple gunshot wounds, some have even survived with rounds to the head. Hell, my great, great, great uncle took 13 rounds at Vicksburg (Civil War), laid on the field for two days before getting to a doc (they thought he was dead), lost an arm but survived. I think the founding fathers would have shit their pants if they had seen that.