Musket Fire, England, UK
A musket is a muzzle-loaded, smoothbore firearm, fired from the shoulder. Muskets were designed for use by infantry. A soldier armed with a musket had the designation musketman or musketeer.
The musket replaced the arquebus, and was in turn replaced by the rifle (in both cases, after a long period of coexistence). The term "musket" is applied to a variety of weapons, including the long, heavy guns with matchlock, wheel lock or flint lock and loose powder fired with the gun barrel resting on a stand, and also lighter weapons with Snaphance, flintlock, or caplock and bullets using a stabilizing spin (Minié ball), affixed with a bayonet.
16th-century troops armed with a heavy version of the arquebus called a musket were specialists supporting the arquebusiers and pikemen formations. By the start of the 18th century, a lighter version of the musket had edged out the arquebus, and the addition of the bayonet edged out the pike, and almost all infantry became musketeers.
In the 18th century, improvements in ammunition and firing methods allowed rifling to be practical for military use, and the term "rifled gun" gave way to "rifle". In the 19th century, rifled muskets (which were technically rifles, but were referred to as muskets) became common which combined the advantages of rifles and muskets. About the time of the introduction of cartridge, breechloading, and multiple rounds of ammunition just a few years later, muskets fell out of fashion.
Musket calibers ranged from 0.5 to 0.8 in (13 to 20 mm). A typical smooth bore musket firing at a single target was only accurate to about 100 to 150 yd (91 to 137 m) using the military ammunition of the day, which used a much smaller bullet than the musket bore to compensate for accumulation of ash in the barrel under battlefield conditions.
This musketeer is a member of the English Civil War Society which was founded in 1980 and is the umbrella organisation for the King's Army and the Roundhead Association. The purpose of the Society is to raise awareness of the conflict between King Charles I of England and his supporters and their opponents in Parliament and Scotland. The society does this by staging re-enactments of civil war battles and other types of living history displays across the UK. The re-enactment societies are concerned with technical details about regiments, their weapons and their clothing and way of life as well as mock battles using authentic pikes and muskets.
Musket Fire, England, UK
A musket is a muzzle-loaded, smoothbore firearm, fired from the shoulder. Muskets were designed for use by infantry. A soldier armed with a musket had the designation musketman or musketeer.
The musket replaced the arquebus, and was in turn replaced by the rifle (in both cases, after a long period of coexistence). The term "musket" is applied to a variety of weapons, including the long, heavy guns with matchlock, wheel lock or flint lock and loose powder fired with the gun barrel resting on a stand, and also lighter weapons with Snaphance, flintlock, or caplock and bullets using a stabilizing spin (Minié ball), affixed with a bayonet.
16th-century troops armed with a heavy version of the arquebus called a musket were specialists supporting the arquebusiers and pikemen formations. By the start of the 18th century, a lighter version of the musket had edged out the arquebus, and the addition of the bayonet edged out the pike, and almost all infantry became musketeers.
In the 18th century, improvements in ammunition and firing methods allowed rifling to be practical for military use, and the term "rifled gun" gave way to "rifle". In the 19th century, rifled muskets (which were technically rifles, but were referred to as muskets) became common which combined the advantages of rifles and muskets. About the time of the introduction of cartridge, breechloading, and multiple rounds of ammunition just a few years later, muskets fell out of fashion.
Musket calibers ranged from 0.5 to 0.8 in (13 to 20 mm). A typical smooth bore musket firing at a single target was only accurate to about 100 to 150 yd (91 to 137 m) using the military ammunition of the day, which used a much smaller bullet than the musket bore to compensate for accumulation of ash in the barrel under battlefield conditions.
This musketeer is a member of the English Civil War Society which was founded in 1980 and is the umbrella organisation for the King's Army and the Roundhead Association. The purpose of the Society is to raise awareness of the conflict between King Charles I of England and his supporters and their opponents in Parliament and Scotland. The society does this by staging re-enactments of civil war battles and other types of living history displays across the UK. The re-enactment societies are concerned with technical details about regiments, their weapons and their clothing and way of life as well as mock battles using authentic pikes and muskets.