Everything's a Musket.

[Osseon]

So hopefully I assume correctly:

• All Muskets are Muzzleloaders,
• Not all Muzzleloaders are Muskets,
• Not all Muzzleloaders are Rifles
• No long Rifles are Muskets,
• Some Muskets are Rifled.
• Arquebus is just doing its own thing, but it was a Musket on a stick.
• A Blunderbuss is basically a Musketoon, which is a short Musket.

Am I missing anything?

If the above is true, what makes a Musket a Musket, is there a clear definition?
If I referred to my long rifle as a musket it would be inaccurate, but many people outside of the hobby do, so what is the response?
I have said Musket in my head too many times in my head now and its starting to sound weird.

Thanks for your help!

 

[tenngun]

There is not a clear definition.
The first muskets were large two man guns. Then it went smaller.
The eighteenth century musket was different then the mid nineteenth century.
Today we define it as large bore flintlock made to take a bayonet, or early percussion types, specifically military guns. But even in the old days Guns made for trade were at times called trade muskets.
It’s where blue stops being blue and becomes green
People that don’t play the game think musket means Muzzleloaded
Ekert in his narratives of the west call all guns rifles

 

[Ivery Keys]

you seem to have decimated the meaning of musket, which used to mean you only defined ten percent of the possibilities, but now appears to have defined ninety percent of the definitions...words change meaning, even in our lifetime...
Regards,
Ivery

 

[necchi]

.words change meaning, even in our lifetime...
Regards,
Ivery

Cool,
Hot,
Fly,
Sweet,

 

[Notchy Bob]

Interesting. I want to look into it for a definitive answer, but I think of muskets as primarily military smooth bored long arms conforming to specific patterns. Anybody can find lots of problems and exceptions, but I'm speaking in general terms.

The ones that were rifled for conical bullets, in the mid 19th century, were technically called "rifle muskets," to distinguish them from the smoothbores and from the military rifles, which up until that time were loaded with patched round balls.

I think of "musketoons" as the shorter versions, although many shooters and collectors distinguish the long and short ones as "three band" versus "two band" lengths.

I thought a blunderbuss, by definition, had a belled muzzle. Notably, some Hispanic escopetas had belled muzzles, but most did not.

There are reasons most things are called what they are. It might be worthwhile to investigate this topic a little further.

Best regards,

Notchy Bob

 

[Loyalist Dave]

So hopefully I assume correctly:

• All Muskets are Muzzleloaders,
• Not all Muzzleloaders are Muskets,
• Not all Muzzleloaders are Rifles
• No long Rifles are Muskets,
• Some Muskets are Rifled.
• Arquebus is just doing its own thing, but it was a Musket on a stick.
• A Blunderbuss is basically a Musketoon, which is a short Musket.

Am I missing anything?

If the above is true, what makes a Musket a Musket, is there a clear definition?
If I referred to my long rifle as a musket it would be inaccurate, but many people outside of the hobby do, so what is the response?
I have said Musket in my head too many times in my head now and its starting to sound weird.

Thanks for your help!

Technically in the age when people were armed with muskets as a primary arm and not as a hobby, a "musket" was a muzzleloading, long barreled, smoothbore, with a fitted bayonet. At first the bayonet was fitted to go into the bore, but later it had a socket or tube and went on the outside of the barrel near the muzzle.

IF the muzzleloader has a rifled barrel, it's a "rifle"..., and at first, rifles were not fitted with bayonets. Longrifle, or not, (like a Jaeger rifle) rifling makes it a rifle. Around the beginning of the 19th century, the British introduced a military rifle as part of their official inventory, but they also fitted it to take a bayonet. The lines started to blur.

Now just before the American Civil War [ACW] America and other countries took guns that had the characteristics of a military musket, and gave them rifled barrels. So NOW the musket, which still had a fitted bayonet, and looked like older version of muskets, had a rifled barrel, so they called these..., rifled muskets. Since they still looked like smoothbore muskets, a lot of folks even in official documents called them "muskets" when the proper term was actually "rifled musket".

A "musketoon" was likely not a blunderbuss. BUT we can't say for sure as some of the side terms were even less precise than "musket" and "rifle"....,
A musketoon was likely what we'd call a "carbine", but the term musketoon was used prior to carbine. A blunderbuss was actually a rather specialized weapon, more like a "coach gun" for protection of a coach by the fellow "ridin' shotgun", and on a naval vessel for repelling boarding parties. It's been suggested that when blunderbuss are found in military inventories, they are used when pay chest are being sent or delivered, but records are not precise on this...


We think of "carbine" as a shorter version of a rifle, and often with a less powerful cartridge, and back then a carbine could be:

A smaller caliber version of the same gun, so a Bess that was identical to other Bess but was .69 caliber was a "carbine" if it's issued to the troops or a "fusil" if it was ordered and paid for by an officer.

Then if you shorten the Bess and the caliber is .65 or .62, it's a "carbine" for the artillery, but used for other troops as well. BUT..., you can also just shorten the musket, like a Charleville while keeping the same caliber, and it's now a carbine..., unless all the soldiers get a shortened musket, with some cosmetic changes, and that's now a newer model of the same musket.... a la the 2nd Model Bess, then the 3rd Model Bess......

Yeah it gets confusing.....

OH and not all "muskets" are "muzzleloaders"... Winchester called one version of their 1873 lever action rifle a "musket" as it had a long barrel, and a full length stock, but I think that was a marketing ploy to try to sell that version to the US Army. But it's referred to as a "musket" by a lot of gun historians....

LD