When it comes to the firearms of the American Civil War, most enthusiasts think about the rifle musket as one of the principal arms of the conflict. However, smoothbore muskets continued to see ...

Before the Civil War, battling armies used smoothbore muskets that ... were reaching the boiling point in the 1850s. At the same time that the musket was being perfected, experiments conducted ...

Of all the U.S. military arms of the mid-19th century, one of the most interesting, effective and well-built was the Model ...

The matchlock shown here was made around 1640, and is typical of the muskets used by militia in ... as "a 9 or 10 inch barreled, smooth bore flintlock of 1 inch bore, carrying a ball of 48 to ...