musket ball

A musket is a muzzle-loaded long gun that appeared as a smoothbore weapon in the early 16th century, at first as a heavier variant of the arquebus, capable of penetrating plate armour. By the mid-16th century, this type of musket gradually disappeared as the use of heavy armour declined, but ''musket'' continued as the generic term for smoothbore long guns until the mid-19th century. In turn, this style of musket was retired in the 19th century when rifled muskets (simply called rifles in modern terminology) using the Minié ball (invented by Claude-Étienne Minié in 1849) became common. The development of breech-loading firearms using self-contained cartridges (introduced by Casimir Lefaucheux in 1835) and the first reliable repeating rifles produced by Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1860 also led to their demise. By the time that repeating rifles became common, they were known as simply "rifles", ending the era of the musket.

Etymology

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, firearms were often named after animals, and the word musket derived from the French word , which is a male sparrowhawk. An alternative theory is that derives from the 16th-century French , from the Italian , meaning the bolt of a crossbow. The Italian is a diminutive of , a fly.

Terminology

The first recorded usage of the term "musket" or appeared in Europe in the year 1499. Evidence of the musket as a type of firearm does not appear until 1521 when it was used to describe a heavy arquebus capable of penetrating heavy armour. This version of the musket fell out of use after the mid-16th century with the decline of heavy armour; however, the term itself stuck around as a general descriptor for "shoulder arms" fire weapons into the 19th century. The differences between the arquebus and musket post-16th century are therefore not entirely clear, and the two have been used interchangeably on several occasions.

History

Heavy arquebus

The Heavy arquebus was developed by the Spanish in response to heavily armored knights. After matchlock arquebuses became more widely utilized, thicker armor was produced, from in the 15^th century to in the late 16^th century. Armor that was thick required nearly three times as much energy to penetrate as did armor that was only thick. An arquebus wasn't powerful enough to take down an armored knight but a wall gun could. Spanish field commanders wanted to bring the firepower of a small wall gun onto the battlefield yet have it be as maneuverable as an arquebus. The solution was a bigger arquebus but the additional weight made it extremely difficult to support the barrel during aiming & firing; hence, the musket rest. During the siege of Parma in 1521, many Spanish soldiers reportedly used an "arquebus with rest", a weapon much larger and more powerful than the regular arquebus. It wasn't until the 1540's when this type of arquebus was given its own name. The lever style trigger commonly seen on arquebuses tended to “hook” things such as clothing, straps, cords, etc. The musket's trigger was redesigned to be a short rod which could be operated with a single finger. A guard was also added to not only protect the trigger, but, to prevent it from catching on clothing, etc. The musketeers were the first infantry to give up armor entirely. Musketeers began to take cover behind walls or in sunken lanes and sometimes acted as skirmishers to take advantage of their ranged weapons.

According to Marek y Villarino de Brugge:

In England, the musket barrel was cut down from to around 1630.

Muskets of the 16^th–19^th centuries were accurate enough to hit a target of in diameter at a distance of . At the same distance, musket bullets could penetrate a steel bib about thick, or a wooden shield about thick. The maximum range of the bullet was . The speed of the bullets was between , and the kinetic energy was 3000–4000 J.

Flintlock musket

The heavy musket went out of favour around the same time the snaphance flintlock was invented in Europe, in 1550. The snaphance was followed by the "true" flintlock in the late 17th century. While the heavy variant of the arquebus died out due to the decline of heavy armour, the term "musket" itself stuck around as a general term for 'shoulder arms' fireweapons, replacing "arquebus," and remained until the 1800s. The differences between the arquebus and musket post-16th century are therefore not entirely clear, and the two have been used interchangeably on several occasions. Flintlocks are not usually associated with arquebuses.

The number of musketeers relative to pikemen increased partly because they were now more mobile than pikemen.

An intermediate between the arquebus and the musket was the caliver, a standardized "calibre" (spelled "caliber" in the US), which appeared in Europe around 1567–9.

Asia

Matchlock firearms were used in India by 1500, in Đại Việt by 1516, and in Southeast Asia by 1540. According to a Burmese source from the late 15th century, King Meng Khoum II would not dare attack the besieged town of Prome due to the defenders' use of cannon and small arms that were described as muskets, although these were probably early matchlock arquebuses or wall guns.

The Portuguese may have introduced muskets to Sri Lanka during their conquest of the coastline and lowlands in 1505, as they regularly used short barrelled matchlocks during combat. However, P.E.P. Deraniyagala points out that the Sinhalese term for gun, 'bondikula', matches the Arabic term for gun, 'bunduk'. Also, certain technical aspects of the early Sri Lankan matchlock were similar to the matchlocks used in the Middle East, thus forming the generally accepted theory that the musket was not entirely new to the island by the time the Portuguese came. In any case, soon native Sri Lankan kingdoms, most notably the Kingdom of Sitawaka and the Kandyan Kingdom, manufactured hundreds of Lankan muskets, with a unique bifurcated stock, longer barrel and smaller calibre, which made it more efficient in directing and using the energy of the gunpowder. These were mastered by native soldiers to the point where, according to the Portuguese chronicler, Queirós, they could "fire at night to put out a match" and "by day at 60 paces would sever a knife with four or five bullets" and "send as many on the same spot in the target."

Arquebuses were imported by the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) at an uncertain point, but the Ming only began fielding matchlocks in 1548. The Chinese used the term "bird-gun" to refer to arquebuses and Turkish arquebuses may have reached China before Portuguese ones. In Zhao Shizhen's book of 1598 AD, the ''Shenqipu'', there were illustrations of Ottoman Turkish musketmen with detailed illustrations of their muskets, alongside European musketeers with detailed illustrations of their muskets. There was also illustration and description of how the Chinese had adopted the Ottoman kneeling position in firing while using European-made muskets, though Zhao Shizhen described the Turkish muskets as being superior to the European muskets. The ''Wu Pei Chih'' (1621) later described Turkish muskets that used a rack-and-pinion mechanism, which was not known to have been used in any European or Chinese firearms at the time.

Despite initial reluctance, the Safavid Empire of Persia rapidly acquired the art of making and using handguns. A Venetian envoy, Vincenzo di Alessandri, in a report presented to the Council of Ten on 24 September 1572, observed:

In Japan, arquebuses were introduced by Portuguese merchantmen from the region of Alentejo in 1543 and by the 1560s were being mass-produced locally. By the end of the 16th century, the production of firearms in Japan reached enormous proportions, which allowed for a successful military operation in Korea during the Japanese invasions of Korea. Korean chief state councillor Yu Song-nyong noted the clear superiority of the Japanese musketeers over the Korean archers:

In Korea, the Joseon dynasty underwent a devastating war with newly unified Japan that lasted from 1592 to 1598. The shock of this encounter spurred the court to undergo a process of military strengthening. One of the core elements of military strengthening was to adopt the musket. According to reformers, "In recent times in China they did not have muskets; they first learned about them from the Wokou pirates in Zhejiang Province. Qi Jiguang trained troops in their use for several years until they usketsbecame one of the skills of the Chinese, who subsequently used them to defeat the Japanese." By 1607 Korean musketeers had been trained in the fashion which Qi Jiguang prescribed, and a drill manual had been produced based on the Chinese leader's ''Jixiao Xinshu''. Of the volley fire, the manual says that "every musketeer squad should either divide into two musketeers per layer or one and deliver fire in five volleys or in ten." Another Korean manual produced in 1649 describes a similar process: "When the enemy approaches to within a hundred paces, a signal gun is fired and a conch is blown, at which the soldiers stand. Then a gong is sounded, the conch stops blowing, and the heavenly swan double-reed hornis sounded, at which the musketeers fire in concert, either all at once or in five volleys (齊放一次盡擧或分五擧)." This training method proved to be quite formidable in the 1619 Battle of Sarhu, in which 10,000 Korean musketeers managed to kill many Manchus before their allies surrendered. While Korea went on to lose both wars against the Manchu invasions of 1627 and 1636, their musketeers were well respected by Manchu leaders. It was the first Qing emperor Hong Taiji who wrote: "The Koreans are incapable on horseback but do not transgress the principles of the military arts. They excel at infantry fighting, especially in musketeer tactics."

Afterwards, the Qing dynasty requested Joseon to aid in their border conflict with Russia. In 1654, 370 Russians engaged a 1,000-man Qing-Joseon force at the mouth of the Songhua River and were defeated by Joseon musketeers. In 1658, 500 Russians engaged a 1,400-strong Qing-Joseon force and were defeated again by Joseon musketeers. Under the Three Branch System, similar to the Spanish Tercio, Joseon organized their army under firearm troops (artillery and musketeers), archers, and pikemen or swordsmen. The percentage of firearms in the Joseon army rose dramatically as a result of the shorter training period for firearms. In addition, the sulphur mines discovered in Jinsan reduced the expense of producing gunpowder. Under the reign of Sukjong of Joseon (1700s), 76.4% of the local standing army in Chungcheong were musketeers. Under the reign of King Yeongjo, Yoon Pil-Un, Commander of the Sua-chung, improved on firearms with the Chunbochong (천보총), which had a greater range of fire than the existing ones. Its usage is thought to have been similar to the Afghanistani Jezail or American Kentucky Rifle.

Outside Eurasia

During the Musket Wars period in New Zealand, between 1805 and 1843, at least 500 conflicts took place between various Māori tribes – often using trade muskets in addition to traditional Māori weapons. The muskets were initially cheap Birmingham muskets designed for the use of coarse grain black powder. Maori favoured the shorter barrel versions. Some tribes took advantage of runaway sailors and escaped convicts to expand their understanding of muskets. Early missionaries – one of whom was a trained gunsmith – refused to help Māori repair muskets. Later, common practice was to enlarge the percussion hole and to hold progressively smaller lead balls between the fingers so that muskets could fire several shots without having to remove fouling. Likewise, Māori resorted to thumping the butt of the musket on the ground to settle the ball instead of using a ramrod. Māori favoured the use of the double barrel shot gun (''Tuparra'' – two barrel) during fighting often using women to reload the weapons when fighting from a ''Pā'' (fortified village or hillfort). They often resorted to using nails, stones or anything convenient as "shot". From the 1850s, Māori were able to obtain superior military style muskets with greater range. One of the authors was a ''Pakeha'' (European) who lived amongst Māori, spoke the language fluently, had a Māori wife and took part in many intertribal conflicts as a warrior.

Replacement by the rifle

The musket was a smoothbore firearm and lacked rifling grooves that would have spun the bullet in such a way as to increase its accuracy. The last contact with the musket barrel gives the ball a spin around an axis at right angles to the direction of flight. The aerodynamics result in the ball veering off in a random direction from the aiming point. The practice of rifling, putting grooves in the barrel of a weapon, causing the projectile to spin on the same axis as the line of flight, prevented this veering off from the aiming point. Rifles already existed in Europe by the late 15th century, but they were primarily used as sporting weapons and had little presence in warfare. The problem with rifles was the tendency for powder fouling to accumulate in the rifling, making the piece more difficult to load with each shot. Eventually, the weapon could not be loaded until the bore was wiped clean. For this reason, smoothbore muskets remained the primary firearm of most armies until the mid-19th century. It wasn't until 1611 that rifles started seeing some limited usage in warfare by Denmark. Around 1750, rifles began to be used by skirmishers of Frederick the Great, recruited in 1744 from a Jäger unit of game-keepers and foresters, but the rifle's slow rate of fire still restricted their usage.

The invention of the Minié ball in 1849 solved both major problems of muzzle-loading rifles. Rifled muskets of the mid-19th century, like the Springfield Model 1861 which dealt heavy casualties at the Battle of Four Lakes, were significantly more accurate, with the ability to hit a man sized target at a distance of or more. The smoothbore musket generally allowed no more than with any accuracy.

The Crimean War (1853–1856) saw the first widespread use of the rifled musket for the common infantryman and by the time of the American Civil War (1861-1865) most infantry were equipped with the rifled musket. These were far more accurate than smoothbore muskets and had a far longer range, while preserving the musket's comparatively faster reloading rate. Their use led to a decline in the use of massed attacking formations, as these formations were too vulnerable to the accurate, long-range fire a rifle could produce. In particular, attacking troops were within range of the defenders for a longer period of time, and the defenders could also fire at them more quickly than before. As a result, while 18th century attackers would only be within range of the defenders' weapons for the time it would take to fire a few shots, late 19th century attackers might suffer dozens of volleys before they drew close to the defenders, with correspondingly high casualty rates. However, the use of massed attacks on fortified positions did not vanish overnight, and as a result, major wars of the late 19th century and early 20th century tended to produce very high casualty figures.

Operation

Each nation developed its own loading and firing training Procedere. In the 16^th century, on the European continent, the process for a matchlock was done in the following way:
* With musket and rest in left hand, open the priming pan.
* Prime pan with priming powder.
* Close pan.
* Bring musket to sword side with muzzle up while rest trails behind.
* Take up a charge, open charge, pour powder from charge into barrel.
* Take up a ball, drop in barrel.
* Withdraw ramrod and place in barrel.
* Ram charge.
* Withdraw ramrod from barrel and return to place it's stored.
* Bring musket up, reconnect rest in left hand.
* With right hand, take up lit match from left hand, blow off excess ash then set in jaws of serpentine.
* Test match by pivoting serpentine with right hand and observing where the glowing end contacts pan cover; it should be aligned with the center of the pan.
* Guard pan with fingers on right hand.
* Blow excess ash from match, open pan, shoulder musket, swing out rest, aim, pull trigger to bring lit match into pan and ignite power thus discharging musket.
* Lower butt of musket from shoulder and take up rest in left hand.
* Withdraw match from serpentine with right hand and place between fingers of left hand.
* Blow out pan to make ready for next shot.
The process in England at that time was different in that the main charge was loaded prior to priming the pan. Priming the pan before loading the main charge makes good practice, for should an errant ember from the glowing end of the match cord ignite the priming powder before the cover is closed, the result would merely be a flash in the pan. Were one to load the main charge before priming the pan, then the damage provoked by the former scenario could be catastrophic.

In the 18^th century, as typified by the flintlock equiped English Brown Bess musket, loading and firing was done in the following way:
* Upon the command "''prime and load''", the soldier would make a quarter turn to the right at the same time bringing the musket to the priming position. The pan would be open following the discharge of the previous shot, meaning that the frizzen would be tilted forward. If the musket was not being reloaded after a previous shot, the soldiers would be ordered to "''Open Pan''".
* Upon the command "''handle cartridge''", the soldier would draw a cartridge from the cartridge box worn on the soldier's right hip or on a belt in front of the soldier's belly. Cartridges consisted of a spherical lead ball wrapped in a paper cartridge which also held the gunpowder propellant. The end of the cartridge opposite from the ball would be sealed by a mere twist of the paper. The soldier then tore off the twisted end of the cartridge with the teeth and spat it out and continued to hold the now open cartridge in his right hand.
* Upon the command "''prime''", the soldier then pulled the hammer back to half-cock and poured a small amount of powder from the cartridge into the priming pan. He then closed the frizzen so that the priming powder was trapped.
* Upon the command "''about''", the butt of the musket was then lowered and moved to a position against the soldier's left calf and held so that the soldier could then access the muzzle of the musket barrel. The soldier then poured the rest of the powder from the cartridge down the muzzle. The cartridge was then reversed, and the end of the cartridge holding the musket ball was inserted into the muzzle, with the remaining paper shoved into the muzzle above the musket ball. This paper acted as wadding to stop the ball and powder from falling out if the muzzle was lowered.
* Upon the command "''draw ramrods''", the soldier drew the ramrod from the musket. The ramrod was grasped and reversed when removed, and the large end was inserted about one inch into the muzzle.
* Upon the command "''ram down cartridge''", the soldier then used the ramrod to firmly ram the wadding, bullet, and powder down to the breech of the barrel. The ramrod was then removed, reversed, and returned to halfway in the musket by inserting it into the first and second ramrod pipes. The soldier's hand then grasped the top of the ramrod.
* Upon the command "''return rammers''", the soldier would quickly push the rammer the remaining amount to completely return it to its normal position. Once the ramrod was properly replaced, the soldier's right arm would be held parallel to the ground at shoulder level, with the right fingertips touching the bayonet lug, and lightly pressing the musket to the soldier's left shoulder. The soldier's left hand still supported the musket.
(At no time did the soldier place the musket on the ground to load)
* Upon the command "''Make Ready''", the musket was brought straight up, perpendicular to the ground, with the left hand on the swell of the musket stock, the lock turned toward the soldier's face, and the soldier's right hand pulled the lock to full cock and grasped the wrist of the musket.
* Upon the command "''present''", the butt of the musket was brought to the soldier's right shoulder, while at the same time the soldier lowered the muzzle to firing position, parallel to the ground, and sighting (if the soldier had been trained to fire at "marks") along the barrel at the enemy.
* Upon the command of "''fire''", the soldier pulled the trigger, and the musket (hopefully) fired. A full second was allowed to pass, and the musket was then quickly lowered to the loading position, butt against the soldier's right hip, muzzle held off-centre to the left at about a forty-five-degree angle, and the soldier would look down at his open pan to determine if the prime had been ignited.
This process was drilled into troops until they could complete the procedure upon hearing a single command of "''prime and load''". No additional verbal orders were given until the musket was loaded, and the option was either to give the soldiers the command "''Make Ready''", or to hold the musket for movement with the command of "''Shoulder your firelock''". The main advantage of the British Army was that the infantry soldier trained at this procedure almost every day. A properly trained group of regular infantry soldiers was able to load and fire four rounds per minute. A crack infantry company could load and fire five rounds in a minute.

Many soldiers preferred to reduce the standard musket reloading procedures in order to increase the speed of fire. This statement is from Thomas Anburey who served as a Lt in Burgoyne's army:
"Here I cannot help observing to you, whether it proceeded from an idea of self-preservation, or natural instinct, but the soldiers greatly improved the mode they were taught in, as to expedition. For as soon as they had primed their pieces and put the cartridge into the barrel, instead of ramming it down with their rods, they struck the butt end of the piece upon the ground, and bringing it to the present, fired it off".

Tactics

Countermarch

As muskets became the default weapon of armies, the slow reloading time became an increasing problem. The difficulty of reloading—and thus the time needed to do it—was diminished by making the musket ball much smaller than the internal diameter of the barrel, so as the interior of the barrel became dirty from soot from previously fired rounds, the musket ball from the next shot could still be easily rammed. In order to keep the ball in place once the weapon was loaded, it would be partially wrapped in a small piece of cloth. However, the smaller ball could move within the barrel as the musket was fired, decreasing the accuracy of musket fire (it was complained that it took a man's weight in lead musket balls to kill him).

The development of volley fire – by the Ottomans, the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Dutch – made muskets more feasible for widespread adoption by the military. The volley fire technique transformed soldiers carrying firearms into organized firing squads with each row of soldiers firing in turn and reloading in a systematic fashion. Volley fire was implemented with cannons as early as 1388 by Ming artillerists, but volley fire with matchlocks was not implemented until 1526 when the Ottoman Janissaries utilized it during the Battle of Mohács. The matchlock volley fire technique was next seen in mid 16th century China as pioneered by Qi Jiguang and in late 16th century Japan. Qi Jiguang elaborates on his volley fire technique in the ''Jixiao Xinshu'':

Frederick Lewis Taylor claims that a kneeling volley fire may have been employed by Prospero Colonna's arquebusiers as early as the Battle of Bicocca (1522). However this has been called into question by Tonio Andrade who believes this is an over interpretation as well as mis-citation of a passage by Charles Oman suggesting that the Spanish arquebusiers kneeled to reload, when in fact Oman never made such a claim. European gunners might have implemented the volley fire to some extent since at least 1579 when the Englishman Thomas Digges suggested that musketeers should, "after the old Romane manner make three or four several fronts, with convenient spaces for the first to retire and unite himselfe with the second, and both these if occasion so require, with the third; the shot usketeershaving their convenient lanes continually during the fight to discharge their peces." The Spanish too displayed some awareness of the volley technique. Martín de Eguiluz described it in the military manual, ''Milicia, Discurso y Regla Militar'', dating to 1586: "Start with three files of five soldiers each, separated one from the other by fifteen paces, and they should comport themselves not with fury but with calm skillfulness on reposo diestramentesuch that when the first file has finished shooting they make space for the next (which is coming up to shoot) without turning face, countermarching ontrapassandoto the left but showing the enemy only the side of their bodies, which is the narrowest of the body, and aking their place at the rearabout one to three steps behind, with five or six pellets in their mouths, and two lighted matchlock fuses … and they load heir piecespromptly … and return to shoot when it's their turn again." Most historians, including Geoffrey Parker, have ignored Eguiluz, and have erroneously attributed the invention of the countermarch to Maurice of Nassau, although the publication of the ''Milicia, Discurso y Regla Militar'' antedates Maurice's first letter on the subject by two years. Regardless, it is clear that the concept of volley fire had existed in Europe for quite some time during the 16th century, but it was in the Netherlands during the 1590s that the musketry volley really took off. The key to this development was William Louis, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg who in 1594 described the technique in a letter to his cousin:

In the 18th century, regular light infantry began to emerge. In contrast to the front-line infantry, they fought in the loose formation, used natural shelters and terrain folds. In addition, they were better prepared to target single targets. This type of troops was designed to fight against irregular enemy troops, such as militia, guerrillas and natives. But at the beginning of the 19th century, the number of light infantry is increasing dramatically. In the French army, light infantry accounted for 25% of the infantry. In the Russian Army, 50 light infantry regiments and one company in each battalion were formed, which accounted for about 40% of light infantry in the entire infantry.

Attack column

In the 19th century, a new tactic was devised by the French during the French Revolutionary Wars. This was the '''colonne d'attaque, or attack column, consisting of one regiment up to two brigades of infantry. Instead of advancing slowly all across the battlefield in line formations, the French infantry were brought forward in such columns, preceded by masses of skirmishers to cover and mask their advance. The column would then normally deploy into line right before engaging the enemy with either fire or bayonet. This allowed the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic infantry a much greater degree of mobility compared to their ''Ancien Régime'' opponents, and also allowed much closer cooperation of infantry with cavalry and artillery, which were free to move in between the infantry columns of the former rather than being trapped in between the linear formation of the latter. The ''colonne d'attaque'' was henceforth adopted by all European armies during and after the Napoleonic Wars. While some British historians, such as Sir Charles Oman, have postulated that it was the standard French tactic to charge enemy lines of infantry head on with their columns, relying on the morale effect of the huge column, and hence were often beaten off by the devastating firepower of the redcoats, more current research into the subject has revealed that such occasions were far from the norm, and that the French normally tried deploying into lines before combat as well.

Parts of a musket

The phrase "lock, stock, and barrel" refers to the three main parts of a musket.

Trigger guards began appearing in 1575.

Bayonets were attached to muskets in several parts of the world from the late 16^th to 17^th centuries.

Locks came in many different varieties as different innovations evolved over the years. The first truly viable and reliable ignition system was the matchlock, originally known as a "serpentine". It wasn't until the wheel lock was developed early in the 16^th century that the term "lock" was applied to the ignition mechanism. That's because the wheel lock required the skills of a locksmith to manufacture it but it didn't replace the matchlock as it was very expensive to make. The first mechanism to utilize a piece of flint striking a steel frizzen to create sparks that ignited powder was the snaplock. Some ten-years later, the snaphaunce and the miquelet were developed about the same time but independently. Somewhere during this time the doglock appeared. These transitory mechanisms featured various technical innovations which were eventually combined into the familiar flintlock mechanism we see throughout the 17^th and 18^th centuries. In the latter half of the 18^th century, several improvements were added to the flintlock mechanism. In 1750, a detent was added to prevent the sear from catching in the half-cock notch. A roller bearing was introduced in 1770 to reduce friction and increase sparks. In 1780, waterproof pans were added.

The early 19^th century saw the development of the percussion lock. In some parts of the world, such as China and Japan, the flintlock mechanism never caught on and they continued using matchlocks until the 19^th century when percussion locks were introduced.

Ammunition

16^th and 17^th century musketeers used bandoliers which held their pre-measured charges and lead balls.

The Minié ball, which despite its name was actually bullet-shaped and not ball-shaped, was developed in the 1840s. The Minié ball had an expanding skirt which was intended to be used with rifled barrels, leading to what was called the rifled musket, which came into widespread use in the mid-19th century. The Minié ball was small enough in diameter that it could be loaded as quickly as a round ball, even with a barrel that had been fouled with black powder residue after firing many shots, and the expanding skirt of the Minié ball meant that it would still form a tight fit with the barrel and impart a good spin into the round when fired. This gave the rifled musket an effective range of several hundred yards, which was a significant improvement over the smooth bore musket. For example, combat ranges of 300 yards were achievable using the rifled muskets of the American Civil War.

Musketeers often used paper cartridges, which served a purpose similar to that of modern metallic cartridges in combining bullet and powder charge. A musket cartridge consisted of a pre-measured amount of black powder and ammunition such as a round ball, Nessler ball or Minié ball all wrapped up in paper. Cartridges would then be placed in a cartridge box, which would typically be worn on the musketeer's belt during a battle. Unlike a modern cartridge, this paper cartridge was not simply loaded into the weapon and fired. Instead, the musketeer would tear open the paper (usually with his teeth), pour some of the powder into the pan and the rest into the barrel, follow it with the ammunition (and the paper as wadding if not using a Minié ball), then use the ramrod as normal to push it all into the barrel. While not as fast as loading a modern cartridge, this method did significantly speed up the loading process since the pre-measured charges meant that the musketeer did not have to carefully measure out the black powder with every shot."Civil War Weapons and Equipment" By Russ A. Pritchard, Jr., Russ A. Pritchard Jr., William Davis, Published by Globe Pequot, 2003

Accessories

Some ramrods were equipped with threaded ends, allowing different attachments to be used. One of the more common attachments was a ball screw or ball puller, which was a screw that could be screwed into the lead ball to remove it if it had become jammed in the barrel, similar to the way that a corkscrew is used to remove a wine cork. Another attachment was called a worm, which was used to clear debris from the barrel, such as paper wadding that had not been expelled. Some worm designs were sturdy enough that they could be used to remove stuck ammunition. The worm could also be used with a small piece of cloth for cleaning. A variation on the worm called the "screw and wiper" combined the typical design of a worm with a ball puller's screw."Images of the recent past: readings in historical archaeology" By Charles E. Orser, Published by Rowman Altamira, 1996

See also

* Grenadier
* Line infantry
* Musketoon
* Pike and shot

References

Bibliography

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* Hadden, R. Lee. 2005
"Confederate Boys and Peter Monkeys."
Armchair General. January 2005. Adapted from a talk given to the Geological Society of America on 25 March 2004.
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* Schmidtchen, Volker (1977a), "Riesengeschütze des 15. Jahrhunderts. Technische Höchstleistungen ihrer Zeit", ''Technikgeschichte'' 44 (2): 153–173 (153–157)
* Schmidtchen, Volker (1977b), "Riesengeschütze des 15. Jahrhunderts. Technische Höchstleistungen ihrer Zeit", ''Technikgeschichte'' 44 (3): 213–237 (226–228)
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External links

History of numerous Muskets



The Arquebus and Matchlock Musket Page

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