In all these nations of Europe, their militaries used muskets in the eighteenth century. The Spanish had a musket, the Dutch had a musket. The French called their musket a Charleville. My, what a lovely name for something made to kill somebody with. The musket was made for the military. You would literally starve to death if you tried to hunt with this thing. We get people that come out here all the time that think, how stupid; get out in an open field, stand up shoulder to shoulder, and shoot at each other!
What you have to understand…this thing is made to be loaded and fired as rapidly as possible. The enemy is over there; a blind man could use this, just point towards the noise.
And the object was to continue to advance upon the enemy, until it was time to be able to attach the bayonets. In the eighteenth century, battles ended in hand-to-hand combat. So, the bayonet, as you can see, basically turns the musket into a spear. If you could just imagine being stabbed with that, or your brains dashed out with the other end, it gets pretty nasty.
Picture in your mind all the horses and tents and fires. Governor Tryon had about a thousand men in his militia, and he brought eight cannons, similar to our three-pound field piece down there. These were all amateurs; there were no professional soldiers here.
But battle fields are far from ideal and the American Revolutionary war was primarily fought by amateur soldiers on the colonial side with American and French regulars amounting to a small fraction of overall troops strength.
The firing was sustained for I think three minutes, and from that the per-minute rate is derived. The studies were done in idealized conditions. However; Orourke numbers are not entirely fanciful. Another famous weapon widely used by colonial troops was the Kentucky long riffle. It could take longer than two minutes to load that weapon because the round had to be forced down the snug barrel.
Sometimes soldiers had to use a mallet to hammer the ball down the barrel. In general in the Revolutionary war soldiers didn't reload their weapons.
The Professional British Army had contempt for Revolutionary Minute Men and their typical move was to march into firing range, unload a single volley into the ranks of the colonials, and charge with bayonets. However in the American Revolutionary War militia soldiers amateurs were required to supply their own weapons and Kentucky long riffles were just more readily available than the favored smooth bore muskets.
Colonial armies, unlike the British did utilized sharpshooters. Specialized troops such as the famous Morgan's Riffles named for their commander General Daniel Morgan. Another famous sharpshooter of the revolutionary war was Timothy Murphy who killed Sir Francis Clerke and General Simon Fraser in a single afternoon at the second battle of Saratoga. Kentucky Riffles had more than twice the range of smoothbore muskets and greater accuracy. Colonial sharpshooters used these advantages to target British officers prior to the main forces engaging.
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Ask Question. Asked 2 years, 1 month ago. Active 2 years ago. Viewed 20k times. When the second amendment was adopted and ratified, it took three minutes to reload your musket. Full discussion Question: Did it in fact take something like three minutes to reload muskets when the Second Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified? Improve this question. Community Bot 1. Let us continue this discussion in chat.
Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. Of course the ignition system has some influence on speed: Rushing it with a matchlock might be possible but the lit ends of the slow match slows things down for safety reasons compared to a flintlock.
The actual loading and priming time might be the same but the extra steps putting the match out of reach of powder during the operation and reattaching the match plus making sure the tip is actually lit and that there is no long piece of ash that could fall of and cause a premature ignition. Well, that would seem like reasons why matchlocks would be at least a bit slower i.
You can easily give up your freedom. You have to fight hard to get it back! Jean Thibodeau wrote:. I could personally reload in 40 seconds with a musket rest.
One of my friends could reload in 30 seconds on a good day. There are more actions than with a flintlock so it's a bit slower. I would imagine that people who seriously trained might cut down our once a month re-enactors times. Stephen; I'm wondering, are you guys going through the manual per the de Gheyn drill, or using the later ECW stuff?
Being as I mostly do lateth Century, de Gheyn is the drill manual I use. I know that following that drill to the letter is the safest and most practical way to go about it, but it sure does take time. I also find that loading with ball seriously cuts down on my speed, especially as the bore gets dirtier.
Of course I'm using a fairly tight fitting ball in my bastard musket. With that combination I can manage 4 a minute. Good to have other shooters of matchlocks posting, so thanks! Now for Chris Last to chime in Posted: Mon 11 Dec, am Post subject:. Gordon, De Gheyn is the only way forward. Doesn't matter who you check, if you examine any woodcuts showing the drill, it's the same I've averaged 25 s with ball. The expression " Hurry up slowly " comes to mind and the right drill and lots of practice makes things faster no matter what skill we are talking about.
Nice to test if it can be done safely as some steps not done like leaving the match in place and praying are much too dangerous. I guess one could do a test using some substitute to powder that couldn't ignite and time things from start of the process to simulated firing? Using a real musket with real ball would be a pain having to remove the ball with a worm every time. A dummy musket with an open breech were the ball and phony powder would just fall out would make repeated speed re-loading less annoying?
Just and idea but an old and not very valuable musket repro or a special dummy barrel could be used as a practice tool to refine and practice maximum speed reloading using the approved and safe moves: Might be useful as a training tool. Oh, might be a safe way to teach novices and get them to repeat the loading drill at speed a few thousand time. Like practicing loading an M1 Garand with dummy rounds in concept. They might alternate the speed drill with doing it slowly for actual shooting.
Most people would like to do some real shooting in between the drills! Load times for muskets varied by weapon type, the use of prepared cartridges, and the training of the individual shooter. In under three minutes, in a Walmart in El Paso Texas, 22 people were killed.
When the second amendment was adopted and ratified, it took three minutes to reload your musket. Question: Did it in fact take something like three minutes to reload muskets when the Second Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified? If the musket is flintlock, when the cartridge is opened, the first portion of the black powder is used to prime the flash pan by pushing the frizzen up to expose the flash pan, pouring powder into the It would be about the same amount of time, normally twenty plus seconds.
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