Musket

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.