Alternate meaning for musket?

C

chanman

CGN frequent flyer
Rating - 100%
13   0   0
Location
Vancouver
All this time, I've thought of muskets as smoothbores, but has the term ever been used to refer to full-stocked military rifles? Every definition I've found seems to support the former, but I've seen the Russian military contract Winchester 1895s referred to as muskets, ditto Savage 99s made for the Montreal Home Guard.

tumblr_mka3hhOe6Z1s57vgxo1_500.jpg


389win1895wholeleft.jpg
 
Last edited:
Old world militaries had a real hard time changing, for instance...

General Ferdinand Foch Prior to world war one said : Aviation is fine as a sport. But as an instrument of war, it is worthless.

There is another one about machine guns that escapes me but its quite funny.

Mclean
 
Musket may have simply been used as a term to designate a general-issue infantry weapon. Minie-type muzzle-loading rifles were commonly referred to as rifle-muskets, in contrast to previous rifles, which were issued only to special units.
 
Actually, the term musket comes from the olde Englysh term musskyt, or muss-kyt, and refers to a fine doe-skin leather glove worn by officers. Using firearms was a huge privilege in the early days, reserved to those who showed great drive, motivation and bravery. It was a great honour, so when a soldier graduated to a hand-cannon, the officer would muss his hair as a congratulatory gesture. Due to the prevalence of head lice, and unwashed hair, the officer would wear a fine leather glove, which became part of his muss kit.

Gawd, that BS story almost sounds believable:D Not bad for something made up on fly the morning after, huh?????:bump:
 
From the post US civil War era the term musket was often used to describe a full stocked rifle in military configuration. Compare both the Savage 1899 and the Winchester 1895 pictured above with a commercial version. In civilian guise both rifles had a half stock fore-end. The military didn't like the idea of a long unprotected barrel sticking out there where it could easily be damaged.
 
Musket does refer to a smoothbore weapon, however, during the early 19th century as mentioned, specialist Rifle units carried shorter rifles (usually about a 33" barrel as opposed to the 40" muskets carried by the line infantry), usually mounting a sword bayonet. When the Minie ball made it possible to fire a rifled weapon as fast as a smoothbore, and rifles became general issue to the infantry, there were in the long-barelled configuration of muskets. Hence, Rifle-Muskets.

Once muzzleloaders in general were replaced by breechloaders and then repeaters, any long-barrelled, full stocked version of a sporting rifle was considered to be in musket configuration. There were actually musket models of the Winchester 1866, 1873, 1885 and 1886 as well, and the 1866 model was actually used to great effect by the Turks in the Battle of Plevna in 1877, which did alot to prove the concept of the repeating rifle to the European armies.
 
Winchester produced all of their rifles from the M1866 to M1895 in a military configuration which they called "muskets". This was to differentiate them from "rifles" which were sporters.
 
Okay, that's what it seemed like. Now why doesn't this definition seem enshrined in any glossary or dictionary?*

*I googled 'double-plug' for alternate meanings of the term. I'm now more careful to elaborate that I'm referring to wearing ear muffs over ear plugs and not anything associated with urbandictionary
 
PROPERLY speaking, a Musket is a smooth-bored military long arm: 1777 Charleville, Sea Service Musket, Indian Pattern Brown Bess, Lee-Enfield MUSKET et cetera.

The other terms, a la Winchester and Savage, are regarded as obsolete, although they did look good in the catalogues. The gun companies were attempting to break nto the military market, so they put out MUSKETS and CARBINES, these being terms which were familiar to the military. SAVAGE even brought out their own cartridge (.303 Savage)as part of the attempt.

GAWDS! Can you even IMAGINE the problems with an entire Army equipped with `86 Winchesters????????????? I would NOT want to be their weapons tech!!!!

But it really is supposed to refer to a SMOOTHBORED long firearm. The French word is "fusil" and the French Army still calls its rifles "fusils", even though the things are rifled. Napoleon did not have a good opinion of rifles, refused to have them in his Armies. He lost, too.
.
 
Musket was originally used to refer to a smooth bore gun that was not a blunderbus or a pistol, however it soon became the denotion for a barrel length. Muskets being the largest,Musketoons were the next largest then dragoons, and so on. Each size of barrel had a name associated with it since each gun was handmade and there were minute barrel length differences they created size categories or groups. Later there were; "rifled-muskets to distinguish the difference between the two types of barrel. Once smothbores were a thing of the past and guns came with specific barrel lengths the term slowly fazed out. (carbines,dragoons, rifes, musketoons, muskets) I'm probably missing some but you get the idea.
 
Last edited:
chanman said:
All this time, I've thought of muskets as smoothbores, but has the term ever been used to refer to full-stocked military rifles? Every definition I've found seems to support the former, but I've seen the Russian military contract Winchester 1895s referred to as muskets, ditto Savage 99s made for the Montreal Home Guard.

7ba4b940430d83b7c8338b85bd23e8cf.jpg


389win1895wholeleft.jpg
Click to expand...

Yes, and when Winchester brought out their two NRA .30-30 commenoratives, years ago, the 'rifle' had a pistol grip stock, a great
deer rifle whereas the 'musket" had a longer barrel, a square but and a rear sight with a flip up for elevation. I had one of each at a great price from Allen Leaver in Vancouver. The tagged list price by Winchester was $150, for each. Allen had them priced at $75.:eek:
 
smellie said:
PROPERLY speaking, a Musket is a smooth-bored military long arm: 1777 Charleville, Sea Service Musket, Indian Pattern Brown Bess, Lee-Enfield MUSKET et cetera.

The other terms, a la Winchester and Savage, are regarded as obsolete, although they did look good in the catalogues. The gun companies were attempting to break nto the military market, so they put out MUSKETS and CARBINES, these being terms which were familiar to the military. SAVAGE even brought out their own cartridge (.303 Savage)as part of the attempt.

GAWDS! Can you even IMAGINE the problems with an entire Army equipped with `86 Winchesters????????????? I would NOT want to be their weapons tech!!!!

But it really is supposed to refer to a SMOOTHBORED long firearm. The French word is "fusil" and the French Army still calls its rifles "fusils", even though the things are rifled. Napoleon did not have a good opinion of rifles, refused to have them in his Armies. He lost, too.
.
Click to expand...

Napoleon simply had objections to short barreled guns! They were less acurate and generated less velocity with more flash and smoke, also with bayonets fixed they became short spears not pole arms!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom