What is a Musket ?

[greydog165]

I have seen numerous definitions of a Musket and wondering if there is an accepted standard to define Musket.

 

[coloradoclyde]

A male sparrow hawk..... :wink:

 

[Rifleman1776]

It is a smoothbore military arm. Usually.
Definitions vary. The CW arm was a 'rifled musket'. Not a proper use of the word. But firearms nomenclature in America is a mish-mash of phrases that often do not make sense. But we like it that way. :grin:

 

[54ball]

A musket is a military arm generally made with a provision to use a bayonet. In a sense it's a pike or spear that shoots. In liner warfare the bayonet settles the affair....Generally.

Since military flintlock muskets were one of the first viable arms to use that ignition system, lighter arms based on military muskets were developed for civilian and native trade. Hence...trade muskets. Trade muskets had no provision for a bayonet. These can date to the 17th Century.

Fusils...

The very first flintlock muskets in military service were known as fusils. Since flintlock muskets were lighter and had a higher rate of fire than the standard match locks of the time they were issued to elite troops that acted as guards and security, usually for the artillery. These troops became known as Fusileers.
Since Fusil referred to a light arm eventually that name was applied to the lighter Trade Muskets and specially made small muskets carried by officers. Hence Trade Fusil or Officers Fusil. Fusee, Fuzzee and Fuke are all based on the word Fusil.

Rifled Musket....

Developed before the ACW. These are musket based arms with rifling. Some smoothbore muskets were actually converted to rifled barrels. This was due primarily because of the the Minnie Ball. This ammunition allowed the musket to still keep it's high rate of fire but also have the accuracy of a rifle.

 

[hawkeye2]

In the US and Confederate services the following have become the accepted terms for collectors and shooters.

Rifled Musket: A smoothbore musket that has been returned to the arsenal at a later date and had its barrel rifled. This was done to a lot of the prewar .69 caliber smoothbores and sights were added at the same time.

Rifle-Musket: A military firearm that had a rifled barrel and sights from the beginning. Usually they were nominally .58 caliber. The 1861 and 1863 Springfields were typical rifle-muskets as was the 1855 and the 1861 Special Model.

There was a 33" heavy barreled 1855 that was considered a rifle as was the 1841 Mississippi.

 

[Artificer]

As already mentioned, the term "Rifled Musket" was coined just prior to the WBTS to describe a full length "3 Band" military arm. They also used the term "Rifle" to denote the slightly shorter, "2 Band" military arm that shot the same ammunition.

Today, many people erroneously use the term "Musket" to describe not only any muzzle loading gun, either rifled or smooth bore, but even some of the early cartridge arms like the Trapdoor Springfield. I think this came about due to the very high percentage of Soldiers who could read and write in the WBTS, who referred to their Service Military Rifle Musket normally as "Muskets."

Gus

 

[greydog165]

It appears that there is no standard for the term. To add further The Muzzle Loading Association defines Muskets, two types- smooth and rifled, ( 7030 Firearms Definitions) based on barrel length.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Try to explain all that to a person who is not firearms familiar at all. :idunno:
When I was making my speeches and presentations in the Rev. Rifleman persona I always explained to the person doing the introduction that my rifle was a "rifle". Invariably I was introduced as having brought my "musket loader". Go figger.

 

[jlindstrom]

Not many people know that on this side of the pond😜

 

[Otter]

My dad always referred to any firearm loaded from the front as a musket. Despite my many attempts to educate him, I was unsuccessful :idunno:.

 

[tenngun]

Then to rattle a cage a little more, the fist muskets were match lock lg bore two man guns that were used in the way a modern army uses the saw, or an earlier army used slingers. Of cores it had a slow rate of fire but was used to cover flanks and harras the enemy. Lighter then light artillery and more mobal but could ' spoyles horse and man thirti score off (230 yards).' These first muskets weighed over twenty lbs and ran .85 cal or more.
Today we like to call flintlock military arms muskets but, that's just style. In the old days musket might be applied to guns we might not call muskets today.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Military terms and nomenclature often overlaps and blurs the situation.

For example, the matchlock muskets were called firelocks, because they held a burning match locked back from the touch hole until ready to shoot by the application of the fire on the end of the match, to the powder. (Well at least that's the version of the origin of the word that I like to use. :wink: )

This is in contrast to the wheel-lock which used a rotating, spring driven wheel against a piece of pyrite to cause sparks that would ignite a gun..., but the wheel-lock was applied to guns while the basic matchlock musket was still being used.

More than a century later, the command words used by the military in combat, plus written in inventories and letters, was firelock, while they meant some sort of firearm that used a flint in the lock instead of a lighted match. For example, Shoulder Your Firelock! was the command as late as 1764 and after.

:idunno:

It wasn't just limited to the 18th century and before...,

In the 19th century, post AWI, the .45-70 cartridge as well as the .44-40, and other such cartridges, the number following the dash was the amount of compressed black powder measured in grains, within the cartridge, BUT when the .30-30 rifle cartridge (aka the .30 WCF) was introduced, the number following the dash was the amount of modern, nitro cellulous based powder measured in grains that was within the cartridge.

So today, we have a very blurred definition.

In Maryland for example, according to the colony records that survived from the 18th century, there are "old muskets" and "new muskets" at the time of the F&I War. Prior to that they also use "fuse" and "carabines". The general idea one gets from those records from the 18th century just prior to the F&I, is that a "musket" to these folks mounted a bayonet, BUT what made some "old"? Was it age? Were the old muskets of Dutch pattern, while "new" were of English pattern? Was it condition, old muskets being rusty and non-working vs. new muskets being ready to go to war? Were the old muskets using dog-locks, while the new muskets had the more modern flintlocks though perhaps being decades old British Army surplus?

It's bloody frustrating, not to mention nobody mentions if any of these are French, Dutch, Spanish, or British in appearance.

GAD!

LD

 

[hanshi]

I don't like confusing terminology so I have a simple process. If it has spiral grooves in the bore; it's a RIFLE. If it is flint with a smooth bore and only one barrel, it's a musket. Some add the term "fowler" but that brings to mind a light, whippy barrel for wing shooting; those (to me) are not muskets nor are trade guns.

 

[Golfswithwolves]

Sometimes I call any long gun I am using a musket. Nobody has ever minded.

 

[tenngun]

We like to use terminology in a way to demonstrate we are in the right clique. Should one call a shooting bag a possibles sack, refer to a SMR as a Kentucky rifle or (gasp) a musket loader then right a way we know that person isn't in the clique. In the navy in boot camp the ceiling had overhead stenciled on it, one side was marked port, the other starboard, the rest rooms were marked heads and staircase marked ladder, ect ect. Only so we would get th learn the jargon that navy personal talked. For years I recall NWG being referred to as trade muskets, then I first heard fusils becoming THE word.
What musket meant in 1400 changed by 1600 and so on. From sparrow hawk to old style muzzleloader it just means what the speaker is thinking.

 

[Gene L]

Winchester made a "musket" in Model 1894, had forestock out nearly to the muzzle. It was rifled and in .30-30 caliber. Not a 94 rifle, not a carbine, but a musket. I don't think it had a bayonet lug on it.

I have no idea of the perfect identification of a musket based on that. There were rifle muskets in the Civil War, even when smooth bore muskets were out of fashion. So I'm confused. But I think it needs an adjective in front of it to really identify it further.

If I had to guess, based on the 1894 Winchester, I'd think it was a longer-barrel firearm generally. But what do I know.

 

[Zonie]

I think the "Winchester musket" was an early stage of advertising gimmickry, thought up by people who had no idea what a musket really was.

To them, a full length (or almost full length) stock meant it must be some sort of military arm so what better name to call it than, "Musket"? :grin:

 

[coloradoclyde]

What's the difference between a musketeer and a fusilier?..... :hmm:

 

[Gene L]

Not just Winchester. Savage got into the act as well.
http://jamesdjulia.com/item/lot-2135-rare-savage-model-99-lever-action-musket-35148/

Here's an example of the original 94 with a socket bayonet. Big time money (I suspect.) 1909 mfg. date.
http://jamesdjulia.com/item/lot-12...nchester-model-1894-lever-action-musket-47587/

 

[hawkeye2]

The full length stock was to protect the magazine tube from damage that would put the gun out of action and to protect the firer's hand from the heat. They made the 66, 73, 76, 86, 94 & 95 in that configuration.