What is a "musket"?

[the11]

If you are really fortunate, you live near a museum that has a comprehensive collection of American firearms.

Alas.....

Anyway, thanks Russ. I think I will try to find that book. Learn something new every day eh? :hatsoff:

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

Learning is one of the most entertaining things we can do. Even at my age. In a way school, like youth, is often wasted on the young as they are mostly too young to appreciate it.

 

[Bryanbrown]

Russ

Sorry that is not correct. Standard British Carbine ball was .615 caliber for use in 62 caliber arms. This was a standardized caliber designation in the British Army in the entire 18th century, and actually dates back to the 1600's. May I direct you to Dewitt Baileys Rifles in the British Army, and Blackwells Guns and Rifles of the World for documentation.

The Brown Bess aka Short Land Pattern musket or earlier Long Land Pattern Musket is nominally 75 caliber, I think your confusion maybe coming from paper wrapped cartridges for the Bess shooting nominal 69 caliber ball. But patched ball you would use .735 ball.

 

[Bryanbrown]

Telocera,

You are quite correct I should have stated my focus in that post was 18th century flintlock arms. But you added excellent info reaching deeper into pre flintlock weapons. Good info too by the way.

 

[tmdreb]

What's even more confusing is that the terminology wasn't used consistently. You can't necessarily read "rifled musket" and assume it began life as a smoothbore and vice versa. I've seen this before in original writings.

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

The English Light Horse carbine of 1756 was actually .66 to.68 caliber as was the Model 1779. The Sergeants of Grenadier's carbine also carried .66 to .68 bore along with the Artillery carbine that was produced mid 18th century and the Artillery model of 1776. The Light Infantry carbine of 1760, the Eliot Light Horse carbine of 1760 and the Eliot Light Dragoon carbine of 1773 along with the Royal Forester carbine also were bored for this caliber. Nominally, they probably were supposed to fall in the .65"-.66 " range.

If you have a copy of one of Neumann's books there are some good photographs of these carbines in there.

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

If you read the term rifled-musket anywhere, and the writer is NOT referring to a smoothbore traditional musket that was given rifling AFTER it was FIRST made as a traditional smoothbore musket then said writer is using the term rifled-musket incorrectly. There just is not any grey area here. :v

 

[the11]

Russ,
So is it being used incorrectly here and here?
:v

 

[Stophel]

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the term "musket" meant a full sized gun...rifled, smooth, flint, percussion, whatever...that was made to be used by infantry, and to take a bayonet.

There was even a "musket model" of the 1895 Winchester rifle available.

 

[the11]

Certain versions of the Model 94 and Model 95 were both produced as muskets. Sorry Russ. I return to my original contention. I have to conclude that musket is a military term, possibly referring to the length, but having nothing specifically to do with the whether or not the bore is rifled, or to the calibre. There are simply too many examples of the term being used on originally rifled weapons to discount them all as mistakes.

 

[tg]

Some of these guns are out of our permited time frame for subject matter. That should help narrow this down a bit if we stay within our time line.

 

[the11]

I disagree. I believe the continued usage of the term "musket" to refer to breech loaded cartridge military rifles right up until near the turn of the 20th century demonstrates that the term does not mean "smoothbored" or even "muzzle loaded". Stepping beyond the timeframe that we generally associate with the term "musket" shows us that perhaps it is we who have assigned a meaning to the word which was never considered correct in the era of muzzleloading firearms.

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

Depends on the time frame referred to in the books.

 

[the11]

They are manuals of arms published in 1861.

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

I disagree. I believe the continued usage of the term "musket" to refer to breech loaded cartridge military rifles right up until near the turn of the 20th century demonstrates that the term does not mean "smoothbored" or even "muzzle loaded". Stepping beyond the timeframe that we generally associate with the term "musket" shows us that perhaps it is we who have assigned a meaning to the word which was never considered correct in the era of muzzleloading firearms.

I referred to the breech loading "muskets" in an earlier post. They are not real muskets and in any case are way outside the purview of this thread--or Forum for that matter.

Within the time period properly discussed, by the late 17th century until they fell out of favor in the 1850 period a musket was a clearly defined piece. The English had King William era muskets and Queen Anne era muskets for example.

In America, muskets served alongside U.S. rifles such as the Harpers Ferry 1803 and Model 1841 right up to the Model of 1855. They even served in the Civil War to great effect in their original smooth bored form. The last U.S. rifle, the Model 1863, didn't make it into the war, but the rifled-musket version of the 1842 did. The 1855, 1861 and 1st and 2nd Model 1863 rifle-muskets also served alongside our last musket and our first rifled-musket, the 1842.

Over the years, modern writers have misused historical terms and caused much confusion. I suppose if some folks want to cling to incorrect ideas and perpetuate this rubbish the world won't end. But it is hard to understand why they would do this when the facts are so simple and readily available. Perhaps they just enjoy saying as they pick up their longrifle, "I think I'll take my trusty musket and go shoot me a few squirr'ls fer suppah!" Oh well. At least they didn't say rifled-musket.

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

Then it is possible that rifled-muskets were being used since the 1855 and 1861 rifle-muskets would be issued directly to front line soldiers as supplies were short at the war's onset. The difference between a rifled-musket and a rifle-musket was certainly well known in the military since they developed the terms. So if the books detail drill with rifled-muskets and no typos occured at the print shop, then rifled- muskets they were.

I'm having a hard time understanding the difficulties people are having with these terms. They are simple, they describe specific arms and in the period under discussion they always did. No matter how many red herrings are thrown in the way and how many nits get picked or how much the time period gets stretched, they are what they are.

 

[Bryanbrown]

I believe you will find any number of errors in the Neumann books on caliber, they tended to measure at the muzzle (often a bit worn from use) and not deeper in the bore or at the breech. As a solid example Neumann also reports the Ferguson Ordinance Rifle to be 65-69 caliber, when it shoots a .615 Carbine ball.

Don't get me wrong, George Neuman is a great source, and a great asset to historians and collectors. But keep in mind he was a furniture collector, not an arms historian and you may wish to temper some of his conclusions with other sources. I would again suggest looking at DeWitt Bailey's or Howard L. Blackmore various works on the topic.

 

[the11]

Russ,
The thing I am questioning (genuinely questioning, seeking to learn I might add) is the sharp distinction you are making between the terms "rifled musket" and "rifle musket" as it seems to me that in original sources such as the two I linked to, "rifled musket" is a term used to refer to weapons which never existed as a smoothbore. Or at least as far as I can tell.

It is obvious to anyone who reads here however that I am a neophyte at this compared to you, especially in your knowledge of specific weapons, their manufacture, their refitting, etc. But I direct you to my first link from a previous post which is to the 1861 manual of arms by E.E. Ellsworth entitled: "The zouave drill: Being a complete manual of arms for the use of the rifled musket, with either the percussion cap, or Maynard primer . Containing also the complete manual of the sword and sabre"

My presupposition is that people living in the time period in question (especially people like E.E. Ellsworth who set about the task of producing manuals of arms for the military) would use the correct terms for those arms.

Since the Maynard primer is mentioned in the title in connection with rifled muskets, if your thesis is correct, then there ought to be some citation somewhere to smoothbored muskets equipped with the Maynard primer which were also rifled sometime in the course of their service. If such a citation can be found (and I will look tomorrow), then I will concede the point to you, and to your obvious knowledge of the subject at hand. If no such citation can be found, then it leaves us with three options.

1) The terms "rifled-musket" and "rifle-musket" were used interchangeably, thus demonstrating that at least in the minds of the people in the time period, "musket" did not mean "smoothbore".

2) E.E. Ellsworth used the terms incorrectly.

3) That some smoothbored muskets were rifled which either had been, or were subsequently equipped with the Maynard priming system, for which we can find no historical records.

In any case, as so often happens in historical study, it is exceedingly difficult to find a "smoking gun" (if you will allow the play on words) which can determine the point with absolute certainty. The best you can do sometimes is to ascertain a high or low degree of historical probability. Depending on what we find out about my previous query, I will leave it up to the readers of this forum to determine for themselves the degrees of probabilities for the various possible conclusions.

In any case, soon I will stop :dead: :hatsoff:

 

[tg]

My point is that we generaly use 1865 as a cut off date for topics, we can talk aboput muskets made in 1850 but not ones made in 1870 that is what I was getting at, I was not dating or defining anything about muskets, only the time/date cutoff for forum discussions.

 

[mastrsgt]

Bryan, I did as you suggested and looked at Pattern Date for British Ordnance Small Arms 1718-1783 by DeWitt Baily, Ph.D. and it states on page 4 the following. "There are four standard calibres in which all Ordance barrels were produced: Wallpiece .98 in.;Musket .76 in.; Carbine .66 in.; Pistol .56 in." Is it possible that you are speaking of the ball size rather than calibre for the carbine?

Don R