From your Hand cannon to your conical all muskets are
single shot and very slow firing. They require your primer(if using a percusion cap you don't need this)gun powder put down
the barrel. Then you ram with a ramming rod your projectille down
the barrel
A musket was first made back in the 1300s . They where first just simple metal tubes that had gunpowder, a ball, and a hole to stick a flaming piece of rope down.These where called hand cannons. The ottomans where one of the first groups to use a matchlock musket.
A matchlock musket was shaped about 5 to evn six feet long . It was fired by the trigger being pulled and slaming a lit piece of rope down on a hole that gunpowder was in.
Then came along the wheellock. It was fired by a piece of gyraphite slaming on a wheel inside the musket causing sparks .
The next musket was a flint lock . When you pulled the trigger a piece of flint would slam on to a piece of metal . The sparks created by this would light the powder.
For hundreds of years muskets wher very innaccurate and only had a maxium distance of 100m. Until rifling came into the picture. Rifling is a set of spiraled groves
in the barrel. It gives the projectille a spin and makes it more accurate and go longer distances.
This made there effective range skyrocket and in some muskets , the ball would hit where you aimed for 300 yards. During the
revolutionary war the
British standard weapon was the brownbess which was a rifled musket and some of the colonist had kentucky long-rifles.
Two more major inventions came for muskets during the 1800s . The percussion cap was the main one.
On a percussion cap musket there is a tube called the nipple. You place the percussion cap on ther and fired. This allowed powder to burn much better and due a way with the use of primer and reduced fowling or
the barrel getting so dirty it couldn't fire.
After that a
french man invented something called the minne' ball or as we know the conical bullet. It was shaped as a cone like a modern bullet.
alot of muskets could have this shoved down there muzzle and still fire or there was a gun called a breach loader which is not a musket could fire them.
The conical made alot of guns have accuracy with the proper sights up to 1000 yards.
