Yes, they did have rifles during the revolutionary war, but they were not standard for military use, rather, they were usually privately owned hunting arms. The archetype is the Pennsylvania Rifle, or Kentucky Long Rifle. They were of significantly smaller caliber than the smoothbore muskets, and fired a spherical ball. The ball was wrapped in a lubricated cloth patch, which tightly filled the rifling grooves. The ball itself was slightly smaller than the bore, to allow room for the patch, and never actually touched the rifling. The tight fit of the patched ball made these rifles very difficult and time consuming to load on the battlefield. The rate of fire was much lower, but the accuracy much higher, than the smoothbore muskets. Muskets were not actually aimed, in fact they had no sights. The soldiers were trained to fire volleys on command in the general direction of the massed enemy. Effective range (as defined by the ability to hit a target) was about 60 yds. Rifles had sights and were fired at the discretion of the individual rifleman, at specific targets, at ranges as far as 200 yds. or more.
