In the West it's common knowledge that old firearms(from early matchlocks to 19th century muskets) were inaccurate and also in other aspects inferior to bows.
But when I read about early firearms I often see the opposite claim, especially in Asia. For example in Samurai 1550-1600 by Anthony Bryant and Angus McBride matchlocks are presented as superior to the bow, with an effective killing range of 200 m. (I realize that an Osprey book is not exactly academic literature, but I've also seen similar claims in academic sources and Bryant seems to know his field)
Today I looked at the wikipedia article of the first percussion cap rifle of the US Army, from 1842, and it says that the unrifled version did not have sights because it was only effective to either 46 m or 69 m. Bryant claims 50 m as the optimal range for the arquebus.
These statements seem to contradict each other. Were Japanese guns or gunners so superior? Is either claim a lie or hyperbolic?
I hope you can understand my question, I'm not exactly sure how to phrase this.
Part of this is a confusion of terms:"effective range" and "accurate range" are two separate things. "Effective range" generally tends to mean the range at which the projectile is still moving fast enough to cause non-negligible damage to a human target. "Accurate range" is usually the range at which a trained* infantryman can reliably hit a stationary target. This range will vary on the size of the target, but if we assume man-sized, 46-69m is fairly spot on, according to most historical estimates.
"Optimal range" is an odd value-driven term, but I would guess that it means that a marksman would have ample chance to strike their target and that the target would not be close enough to make the musket a hindrance. But I'm not sure, that's just a guess.
The reason the 1842 musket didn't have sights is because most muskets didn't have sights. Some of them had front sights or top-mounted bayonet lugs that could assist in aiming, but it was a common element of a lot of state army-issued muskets of the latter half of the 18th century up until the widespread adoption of rifles that muskets lacked sights.
That didn't mean that marksmanship wasn't trained, or that it was impossible, or that muskets were only ever effective in mass volleys against massed formations. Massing fire was more effective in a few ways, but it also had drawbacks, and you can see a number of tactical responses to this problem. In fact it's one of the largest contributors to the complexity of infantry warfare of the time - how to concentrate your own fire and minimize the damage of the enemy's? But that's a question for another time.
*training, too, is sometimes kind of an odd hitch in discussions like this. Most infantry training in the long 18th century was done "in the field" or at a garrison post, and there were all sorts of limitations of that training, and by and large training was, excuse the poor excuse for a pun, scattershot
When you see these kind of ranges quoted don't they generally mean en masse? Also a musket would have further killing power not due to accuracy but the calibre & velocity of the projectile itself. The English longbow for example was far less capable of piercing non-mail armour than is commonly believed.