Hi:
Viewing the TV Series "Turn" it seems that the Smooth Bore Muskets have a longer range than I thought ?
I was under the impression that these Muskets accurate range were 50 yards maybe 75 yards ?

Never heard of it.

As far as I'm aware the practical range of most smoothbore muskets is indeed 50-75 yards.

Of course I would no more expect to derive factual knowledge of firearms from a TV show than I'd expected to derive factual knowledge of space flight from watching "Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars".

A buddy claims minute of deer accuracy at 60 yards with his replica of a
French trade gun.

There was a reason for "volley fire".

50 yards was about it for this one with me behind it. Doesn't have a rear sight but I don't think it would matter much.

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Eccentric old coot

Actually with a trade gun you have a rear sight. Use the barrel flat just in front of the breach plug. Works great for windage and you might be surprised what kind of accuracy you can get. Try it you'll like it.

Taught to me by an old trade gun man about 35 years ago.

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Quando omni flunkus moritati.

I'm not an expert on military tactics of yesteryear, but I believe Iggy is right on. Individual marksmanship was not paramount. The idea was to send a wall of lead in the general direction of the enemy.

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You're shy a few manners.

Muskets were also made that were rifled.

Rack grade examples of the Brown Bess were made by various contractors as was the cartridges- rolled by orphans! The indifferent maintenance, sloppiness, and lack of training led to a reputation for inaccuracy. However, tightly fitted guns, in good trained hands and with good powder could hit the target at 125 yards or so.

Tightly patched, a properly fitted musket ball from my replica Pedersoli Brown Bess would usually find a silhouette target out to a 100 yards. But firstly, that replica was probably considerably better quality than the 18th century originals, and secondly, speed and volume of fire was paramount back then, so balls were not tightly patched, but on the contrary sized to easily slide down the barrel to facilitate fast loading, the result being a somewhat loose and unstable trip back out the barrel toward the target with attendant loss of accuracy.

That, of course, was the beauty of the later minie balls used in the rifled muskets of the Civil War era. They slid easily down the barrel for loading, but then the powder gases expanded the skirt and pressed it into the barrel's rifling, imparting a gas seal and a spin upon the bullet and greatly enhancing energy and lethality of the projectile, and a range up to 300 yards or more.

Often lead "bars" of about 1 pound were issued to soldiers. A hatchet was used to cut to length, 12 to the pound for English, or 16 to the pound for French. The same hatchet was then used to beat the chunks into a ball, sort of. The inconsistent shape of the balls helped the unit volley fir hit a greater area.

Ivan

Sorry to disagree, but I define the term musket as does the dictionary "an infantryman's light gun with a long barrel, smooth-bored, muzzleloading, and fired from the shoulder." The term rifle should be used for any "rifled" barrel long gun. Defined as "a gun, especially one fired from shoulder level, having a long spirally grooved barrel intended to make a bullet spin and thereby have greater accuracy over a long distance."

I have owned and shot many smoothbores and the accuracy suffers greatly after 50 yards. Bench rest shot groupings at 50 yards are typically 6" or larger, so double that and you would miss most standard paper targets entirely. A rifled muzzleloader will easily group under 3" at 50 yards. Swaged bullets instead of sprue bullets and treated cloth patch reloading in smoothbores will help with accuracy, but without rifling, the ball is never stable in flight. Military of the era often used paper "cartridges" where you nip off the end of the paper and dump powder and jam the rest of the paper and ball down the bore and fire. The accuracy suffers further by the use of wadded paper as a patch. Accuracy back in the day was only measured by the effectiveness of mass volley fire.

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Gary
SWCA 2515

Some early rifles were called "Rifled Muskets" as it actually described what they were. A firearm which looked like a Musket but with a rifled barrel. After the Civil War and during the westward expansion, many of the CW caplock rifled muskets were bored out for use as cheap shotguns to be sold to the pioneers headed west. In most cases, a shotgun would be more useful to them than a rifle. I once had one of those, which was Austrian (I think, at least not a Springfield or Enfield). No sights on it, probably were removed. Glass marbles fit the bore OK, and that's what I shot in it. It wasn't too difficult to hit a man-sized target at about 100 yards with it, even without sights.

Not just to the pioneers. Companies like Francis Bannerman's in New York bought up arms from rifled muskets to Navy cannons at scrap iron prices. He had hundreds of thousands of Springfield rifled muskets he bought from the government for basically nothing in the 1860s, and sold wholesale and I think also retail for $5 or less apiece right up until the company ran out in the 1920s or 30s. If you look through old catalogs from mail order sporting goods businesses of the late 19th century, a lot offered "sporterized" versions of these muskets for ridiculously low prices compared to their brand-name products. As a Civil War collector, which I once was, the thought made you weep.

I think there is some commingling of technology, application and terminology occurring in the thread.

In the late 1700s and early 1800s "rifles" were regarded as bing highly accurate, but were not considered suitable for the tactics of the era due to their slower rate of reloading, particularly after they have been fired more than 10 or so shots.


Getting a tightly patched ball down a badly fouled rifled bore can be a real challenge, and doing it quickly is unlikely. In contrast, you can continue to load un-patched round balls down a smooth bore, due to the reduced fouling and the greater clearances involved.

In essence, it's a choice between accurate, aimed fire and a large volume of fire. Given that the tactics of the day were predicated on ranks of soldiers facing each other at ranges of 80-100 yards, volume of fire prevailed. Consequently, the smooth bore musket remained the premier infantry weapon long after the rifle came into common use for hunting, sniping, etc.

What changed the equation was the minie ball, a conical projectile with substantially more weight than a round ball with a hollow base expanding skirt that allowed the projectile to be undersized so that it could be easily and quickly load in a fouled rifled bore. On firing, the skirt expanded to grip the rifling, and the rings in the base helped clean the bore minimizing to some extent the accumulation of fouling in the rifling.

The end result was that a longer, heavier projectile could be fired in a smaller caliber barrel with loading nearly as fast as with a smoothbore musket, but with the accuracy expected from a rifle. Thus in the US, you saw a shift from .69 caliber "smooth bore muskets" to .58 caliber "rifled muskets". Both types retained the same general features of the "musket" design, with the major difference being the presence of the rifled barrel.

In US service the smooth bore 1840 and 1842 muskets, while they pre-dated the minie ball, were designed with a barrel thick enough to accommodate rifling at some point, as even at that point there were experiments with various projectiles that would expand in a rifled bore during ramming, or firing. Eventually, many 1842 rifled muskets were rifled to accommodate a .69 caliber minie ball.

Ordinance tests however determined the .58 caliber minie ball was much more accurate than a .69 caliber minie ball, and that the .69 caliber minie was so heavy that it made the recoil problematic for many soldiers, further degrading accuracy.

In any event, by the time the American Civil War / War of Northern Aggression rolled around, you had troops in the field with substantial numbers of .58 caliber and .69 caliber rifled muskets that were capable of delivering effective aimed fire at ranges far greater than the 80-100 yard ranges that were common at the time.

The end results were devastating with the minie ball inflicting about 90% of the total casualties in the civil war, and doing incredible damage shattering limbs, and doing far more damage than the rounds balls used in the past.

The saving graces at the time, were the tendencies for troops to still either final to use the sights or to aim high, and the smoke created by masses of troop using black powder weapons. Realistically speaking, when you put a few hundred people on one side facing a few hundred people on the other side, and have them all fire black powder weapons, much of the visibility disappears after the first couple of volleys, unless you have a fair amount of wind that will continually clear it away. The limited visibility tended to negate the potential advantages of the rifled musket, at least when the wind wasn't blowing.

By the end of the Civil War, we had a preview of what WWI would look like in terms of extended sieges and trench warfare brought on by the far greater range and accuracy of the rifled musket, as well as with early models of the Gatling gun - two items that made survival above ground level difficult with large standing armies facing each other over contested ground.

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While we're on the subject, if you have a well made 1860 Army replica you may have noticed that the sights (notch in the hammer with a fixed front sight) are regulated impossibly high at a normal shooting distance of 15-25 yards, but they are however well regulated for shooting at people standing 80-100 yards away, reflecting the tactics of the day.

American Rifleman | Winchester Model 1895 Russian Musket the term musket, or foreign variations of the word, has also been applied to even centerfire repeating rifles. Winchester, Remington et al made "musket" versions of many firearms, such as the rolling block.

By the late 19th century and early 20th, a musket reference meant a shoulder arm in military configuration. Some like the 1895s used centerfire smokeless ammo.

To muddy the waters even further in the 1700s and early 1800s there are referances to gunmakers making "smooth bored rifles". These externally look exactly like a rifle of the era including rear sight, except that they are smooth bored and usually a little larger caliber than most rifles. I believe that there is one in the NRA museum in Alexandria which is attributed to JP Beck.

Don't know if it's still in print, but Edwards' "Civil War Guns" contains a treasure trove of information about civil war-era rifles and muskets, also carbines and revolvers. It's amazing how many different types were used, especially by the South. There were even a few flintlock muskets still in use, and quite a few flintlocks converted to percussion. Arms and ammunition logistics problems must have been a nightmare on both sides.

The only remaining authentic CW guns I still have are a Model 1849 .31 Colt C&B revolver (with the unusual 6-shot cylinder) and a 3-band .577 Enfield, both of which were used by one of my wife's ancestors (great-great-grandfather, I think) who fought in the CW. Being from Alabama, he was on the losing side. The Colt is on the low end of average, the Enfield is on the high end of average, with original bayonet. It was loaded when we came into possession of it - with a Minie ball. Both still fire OK, but I haven't shot them much.

While the Springfield and Enfield rifled muskets (approximately equivalent in performance) were capable of good long-range accuracy, in fact most of their users were not.

Muddy ....................up.......

The British had Rifle Regiments in the Napoleonic Wars (1800-15)...... based on what they had learned(tactics and gear) in the American Revolution..... they were armed with the flintlock Baker rifle and wore Green Jackets.....fought as light infantry and skirmishers.

IIRC the Baker rifle was good out to 150-200 yds..... when "properly loaded".

For some good light reading try the "Sharpe" books by Bernard Cornwell (sp)

Wasn't it common to refer to a "rifle" with a full length stock as a "Musket"?

C.S. Forester wrote a novel, Rifleman Dodd, about a soldier in one of those rifle regiments who was trapped behind the French lines. I enjoyed it when I read it many years ago. May need to find it and read it again.

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Oh well, what the hell.

I love the Flintlock Musket, wish i still had my BrownBess (Italian copy)

A catalog from 1892 (Cornell Publ. reprint)

Since we're talking terminology, note that on the front cover, rifles aren't guns; at that time, the term "gun" was used only for shotguns.

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No.

Most 18th and early 19th century rifles, like in this random picture three out of four, had a full stock. It wasn't until the "great plains" style of the mid-19th century that half-stocks became more common.
The "musket" versions of some more modern cartridge rifles like Winchester and Remington were more odd marketing curiosities and not common terminology.

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^^^^^ These were the one's I was referring to.

To add more ambiguity, during WWI, the Germans referred to the Madsen light machineguns captured from the Russians which they issued to Stormtroops, as "Musketten".

And various long arms issued by Italy, France, and Argentina had official names containing Italian,French and Spanish variations of the word "musket".

"Mosquetto" Carcanos for example Carcano Identification: A Quick and Dirty Guide for Variations : : C&Rsenal.

You might want to check a little of the history of Winchester Repeating Arms Co. I think you'll find reference to a Model 1876 Musket that was used by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The musket versions of Winchester's rifles were made in an effort to get military contracts. They didn't except for a Russian order. The muskets were not odd marketing curiosities.

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Quando omni flunkus moritati.

Up until fairly recently, virtually all military long arms with a few exceptions such as the .30 Carbine, .30-40 Krag carbine, and Trapdoor Springfield .45-70 carbine (one model of which did have a full length stock) had full-length underbarrel stocks. The U. S. Army once looked at the Remington Model 8 semiauto rifle back around WWI, and wanted it to have a full-length underbarrel stock. And a few were in fact made up that way for trials. It never went anywhere.

The current issue of Man At Arms has a feature on the accuracy of the American Long Rifle and there are comments on smoothbore accuracy.

Well, it's a matter of viewpoint. As I said, they weren't muskets by any presently used definition, they were labeled as such for marketing purposes, and as you said, that turned out to be a dud, which is exactly what makes it an odd curiosity rather than any significant step in small arms development, but of course that's my opinion only.

The US Army last used the term "musket" in 1873 during the trials for a new breech-loading system. Once the Springfield had been adopted, usage of the term disappeared, and manuals referred to it and its successors, the Navy's Lee, the Krag and the next Springfield, as rifles, no matter the full stock and military configuration.

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A "rifle musket" is a long gun built with a rifled barrel, approximately 39"-40" long. Most had the barrel held to the stock with three metal barrel bands. Think 1861 & 1863 Springfield and 1853 Enfield.

A "rifled musket" was built as a smoothbore and then later had the barrel rifled. A number of 1842 muskets, built in Springfield, Mass and Harper's Ferry, Virginia, were later rifled and had rear sights added.

Military muzzleloading rifles of the era had two barrel bands and barrels around 33" long. Think 1841 Mississippi rifles and 1856 and 1858 Enfield rifles.

Musketoons had two barrel bands and barrels around 24" long. Think 1860 and 1861 Enfield musketoons. Some were also smothbores and based on cutdown .69 muskets.

By the way, the Enfields were .577", not .58" like the Springfields. The Confederacy had a large number of Enfields and captured Springfields and standardized on .577 ammo.

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John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

20 some years ago I bought several guns at an estate sale. In
the mix was a percussion musket. It was some kind of replica
marked with Stoger trademark. It appeared to be unfired. I looked through old Shooters Bibles and found 2 pages of these
guns in a 1958 issue. In calibre it was close to .54. Having no
interest in it, I sold it to a local who was looking for a cheap
muzzle loader to hunt deer. It had very crude sights. No adjustments. Anyway guy was killing his deer every year with it.
He was patching a 54 maxi with sheet foam. Just like a paper
patched target bullet. His shots were 0 to 50yds. He got big kick
out of his $40 muzzle loader against the other guys $200 T/C
Hawkin rifles. The T/Cs shot very well, it was just the point he
always got his deer with the cheap musket.

Musket vs Rifle vs Rifled Musket had various meanings in different eras, places and contexts, and I won't attempt to go there at present.

I will presume the OP was refering to a smoothbore. A recent issue of Muzzleloader ( but not lay my hands on at the moment) had an article of relevence, but I'll have to go by memory.

In typical military use , preloaded cartridges were used, which were obbbbtained from various contractors. All were intended to have generously undersized balls , for rapid loading even with fouled bores. The paper from the ctg was used as wadding to hold the ball in place. For use in .69 cal muskets , the balls would be .60-.62 . Thusly loaded( paraphrasing from memory ) good chance of hitting man sized target at 40-50yds.

Loaded similar to a rifle, with tight fitting ball, and carefully selected patch groups of 4-6in are possable. But takes as long to load as a rifle.

But , to further stir the subject, look at how they were intended to be used. Groups of soldiers firing at groups of opposing soldiers at what we today consider close range. I'd suspected, but a cpl years ago American Rifleman had an article about Buck & Ball loads These were loads for smoothbore mil guns , with a large-ish ball , and 2 or 3 smaller buckshot pellets. When evaluated on basis of getting hits upon a massed formation, if not a specific target, B&B gave more hits than Minie Balls out to 200yds.

An undersize ball in a smoothbore barrel will bounce around from wall to wall (a process called balloting), so there is no way to know at exactly what angle of departure the ball will follow as it leaves the muzzle. A close fit of the ball in the bore minimizes balloting and results in considerably tighter shot groups. But on the other hand, it makes loading more difficult as the bore fouls from powder residue.

IIRC the various models of Brown Bess had no rear sight, nor did the Charlevilles. The eye exam back then was to make sure you had two of them and they both worked. Eyeglasses were not an issued item. In the British Army the emphasis was on volume of fire, IIRC the standard was 3-4 rounds per minute. I have been told that in some of the French drills the troops were instructed to either closes their eyes of look away to avoid getting flint shards in their eyes.The Eastern United States at the time of the Revolution was probably more heavily wooded than it is today, a 100 yard shot was a LONG shot, plus a smoothbore doubled as a fowling piece.
And I wonder if the modern concepts of marksmanship-sight alignment, goof trigger control, good breath control, a proper grip and shooting position-were understood back then.