Musket

A musket is a muzzle-loaded, smoothbore long gun. Its user fires from the shoulder, except in the case of the rare wall guns. The date of the origin of muskets remains unknown, but they are mentioned as early as the late 14th century. Muskets became obsolete by the middle of the 19th century, as rifles superseded them. Typical musket calibers ranged from .50 to .75 inches. A soldier primarily armed with a musket had the designation of a musketman or of a musketeer.

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As bullets, muskets used spherical lead balls packed in a paper cartridge which also held the black powder (gunpowder) propellant. The balls, slightly smaller than the bore, came wrapped in a loosely-fitting paper patch which formed the upper part of the cartridge.

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The lower part of the cartridge contained the gunpowder: musketmen separated the two sections with their teeth. They loaded the gunpowder first, followed by the paper from the lower section of cartridge used as wadding. Then they loaded the ball and the upper piece of cartridge. Finally, a ramrod served to compact the ball and wadding down onto the gunpowder.

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When musketeers loaded flintlocks, they either filled the pan from a powder flask after loading the ball, or from the paper cartridge before pouring the bulk of the gunpowder down the barrel. Following the invention of a fulminating powder in 1807, muskets started to use percussion caps which offered much more reliability than flintlocks and worked in the rain without special design or care.

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A very experienced user could load and fire at a maximum rate of around 4 shots per minute, but the average soldier fired 3 rounds per minute.

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Muskets took time to reload, so army tacticians typically deployed musket-men in formations two or three lines deep. One line would fire in unison, then drop to their knees to reload, while the next line behind them fired.

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By today's standards, muskets are very inaccurate due to the windage (gap) between the projectile and the barrel, with the result that the bullet will not spin towards the target, whereas a rifle bullet will spin towards the target, thus ensuring greater accuracy. Owing to this inaccuracy, officers did not expect musketmen to aim at particular targets. Rather, they had the objective of delivering a mass of musket balls into the enemy line.

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Soldiers expecting to face musket fire learned disciplined drills to move in precise formations and to obey orders unquestioningly. British soldiers in particular acquired a reputation for drilling until they could perform coolly and automatically in the heat of combat. Use of musket infantry tactics was manipulated to the fullest by King Frederick William I of Prussia in the early 18th century. Prussian troops under his leadership could fire in some cases 5 rounds per minute with unrivaled discipline.

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Smoothbore: Smoothbore refers to a firearm which does not have a rifled barrel. Rifling imparts a spin to the projectile, which stabilizes it and prevents it from tumbling. Early firearms did not have rifling, and had to fire spherical projectiles, so the random tumbling impacted the accuracy as little as pos...

Long gun: A long gun is a firearm with an extended barrel, usually designed to be fired braced against the shoulder. Barrels of such weapons commonly extend to around 50 cm or longer, giving considerable accuracy and range....

Wall gun: Wall guns were large caliber smooth-bore muskets that were used in the 16th through 18th centuries by defending forces to break the advance of enemy troops. They were too heavy to be fired from the shoulder and so were usually rested on window ledges or low walls, hence the name. Many were fitted wi...

Musket related Images and Photos (experimental)

Musket and Arquebus Holland