About military heritage muskets review
A gun that fired small balls that were a fraction of the size of the bore, the smoothbore musket was an essential component of early 17th century infantry combat. While authors writing after the development of rifled muskets have denigrated this weapon, its story is deeply intertwined with both the history and technology of the period as well as the social attitudes about who should fight and how to do so.
In the 1600s, improvements in flintlock design began to lighten the weapons. By the time of the French and Indian War, muskets supported by forks could be made to weigh 5.5 to 6.5 kg, but this lightened design came at the expense of accuracy – a 16-mm ball was not much of a challenge for a sharpshooter.
Nevertheless, by the time of the American Revolution, many army soldiers still carried dog lock muskets and, until replaced with the Brown Bess, so did many sailors of the Royal Navy. The brass hardware styles on this musket, a 1738 Sea Service model, are consistent with these earliest incarnations of the weapon.
As the musket gained ascendancy, a standardization program began to emerge. A weapon was chosen by an officer or a regiment to serve as the "pattern", stored in a pattern room so that arms makers could reference it and reproduce it. This musket, like most of its counterparts in the British army of the 1740s, had a Long Land Pattern barrel – 42 inches (1,200 mm). It was later found that shorter barrels did not adversely affect accuracy and thus gave rise to the Militia or Marine Pattern and the Short Land musket of 1768 (shown here). This musket is produced with a bright finish.
