Musket
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 musketeers continued as the generic term for smoothbore long sticks until the mid-19th century. In turn, this style of musket was retired in the 19th century when rifled muskets using the Minié ball became common. The development of breech-loading firearms using self-contained cartridges, introduced by Casimir Lefaucheux in 1835, began to make muskets obsolete. The first reliable repeating rifles, the 1860 Henry rifle and its 1866 descendant the Winchester rifle, superseded muskets entirely. Repeating rifles quickly established themselves as the standard for rifle design, 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 mousquette, which is a male sparrowhawk. An alternative theory is that derives from the 16th-century French mousquet,, from the Italian moschetti,, meaning the bolt of a crossbow. The Italian moschetti is a diminutive of mosca, a fly.Terminology
The first recorded usage of the term "musket" or moschetti 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 an arquebus that was so heavy that it needed to be rested on a forked stick. Such muskets were used to kill heavily armored targets. 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. According to historian David A. Parrot, the concept of the musket as a legitimate innovation is uncertain and may consist of nothing more than a name change.Parts of a musket
s began appearing in 1575.Bayonets were attached to muskets in several parts of the world from the late 16th to 17th centuries.
Locks came in many different varieties. Early matchlock and wheel lock mechanisms were replaced by later flintlock mechanisms and finally percussion locks. In some parts of the world, such as China and Japan, the flintlock mechanism never caught on and they continued using matchlocks until the 19th century when percussion locks were introduced.
In the latter half of the 18th century, several improvements were added to the musket. 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 phrase "lock, stock, and barrel" refers to the three main parts of a musket.
Ammunition
Sixteenth- and seventeenth-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 were achievable using the rifled muskets during 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, pour some of the powder into the pan and the rest into the barrel, follow it with the ammunition, 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.
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.History
Heavy arquebus
The heavy arquebus known as the musket appeared in Europe by 1521. In response to firearms, thicker armour was produced, from in the 15th century to in the late 16th century. Armour that was thick required nearly three times as much energy to penetrate as did armour that was only thick. 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. However, at this point, long-barrelled, musket-calibre weapons had been in use as wall-defence weapons in Europe for almost a century.The musketeers were the first infantry to give up armour entirely. Musketeers began to take cover behind walls or in sunken lanes and sometimes acted as skirmishers to take advantage of their ranged weapons. In England, the musket barrel was cut down from to around 1630. The number of musketeers relative to pikemen increased partly because they were now more mobile than pikemen.
Muskets of the 16th to 19th 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.
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 shouldered firearms, 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.A variation of the musket known as the caliver, a standardized "calibre", appeared in Europe around 1567–1579. According to Jacob de Gheyn, the caliver was a smaller musket that did not require a fork rest. Benerson Little described it as a "light musket".
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 Minkhaung 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.South Asia
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 Kingdom of Kandy, 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 the Sri Lankan 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."Middle East
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:Archaeological evidence indicates that muskets continued to be used in peripheral rural areas of the Ottoman Empire well into the early modern period, often outside formal military frameworks. A rare Ottoman-period mold for casting lead musket balls, discovered at Horvat Midras in the Judean Shephelah, shows that ammunition was produced locally rather than supplied through centralized channels. The mold was found concealed within a temporary rural structure, suggesting that firearms were associated with personal security and everyday self-defense in unstable countryside settings. Such finds highlight the persistence of musket technology among non-elite, rural populations in the Ottoman provinces long after its introduction.