The musketoon is a shorter-barrelled version of the

musket A musket is a muzzle-loaded long gun that appeared as a smoothbore weapon in the early 16th century, at first as a heavier variant of the arquebus, capable of penetrating plate armour. By the mid-16th century, this type of musket gradually dis ...

and served in the roles of a

shotgun A shotgun (also known as a scattergun, peppergun, or historically as a fowling piece) is a long gun, long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge (firearms), cartridge known as a shotshell, which discharges numerous small ...

carbine A carbine ( or ) is a long gun that has a barrel shortened from its original length. Most modern carbines are rifles that are compact versions of a longer rifle or are rifles chambered for less powerful cartridges. The smaller size and ligh ...

. Musketoons could be of the same

caliber In guns, particularly firearms, but not #As a measurement of length, artillery, where a different definition may apply, caliber (or calibre; sometimes abbreviated as "cal") is the specified nominal internal diameter of the gun barrel Gauge ( ...

as the issue musket or of a much larger caliber, 1.0–2.5 inches (25–63 mm). The musketoon is most commonly associated with

naval A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operatio ...

use, and

pirate Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and valuable goods, or taking hostages. Those who conduct acts of piracy are call ...

s in particular, though they also served in a carbine role with

cavalry Historically, cavalry (from the French word ''cavalerie'', itself derived from ''cheval'' meaning "horse") are groups of soldiers or warriors who Horses in warfare, fight mounted on horseback. Until the 20th century, cavalry were the most mob ...

. Musketoon barrels were often flared at the muzzle, resembling a

cannon A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder during th ...

or blunderbuss.

Description

Musketoons had a

brass Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, in proportions which can be varied to achieve different colours and mechanical, electrical, acoustic and chemical properties, but copper typically has the larger proportion, generally copper and zinc. I ...

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

barrel, and used a

wheellock A wheellock, wheel-lock, or wheel lock is a friction-wheel mechanism which creates a spark that causes a firearm to fire. It was the next major development in firearms technology after the matchlock, and the first self-igniting firearm. Its name ...

flintlock Flintlock is a general term for any firearm that uses a flint-striking lock (firearm), ignition mechanism, the first of which appeared in Western Europe in the early 16th century. The term may also apply to a particular form of the mechanism its ...

or caplock firing mechanism, like the typical musket of the period. They were fired from the shoulder like the musket, but the shorter length (barrels were as short as a foot (30 cm) long) made them easier to handle for those in restricted conditions, such as mounted infantry and naval boarding parties. Smaller bore musketoons matched the caliber of the muskets in service, and were generally used the same way, with single musket ball or a buck and ball load, while large bore musketoons were loaded with multiple

buckshot A shotgun cartridge, shotshell, or shell is a type of rimmed, cylindrical (straight-walled) ammunition used specifically in shotguns. It is typically loaded with numerous small, spherical sub-projectiles called shot. Shotguns typically use a ...

or pistol balls (generally smaller in diameter than musket balls) and used as shotguns. It is this type of loading that is most associated with naval use. Their resemblance to earlier weapons like the blunderbuss has led to their misidentification in both scholarly and popular media.

Service

Due to its smaller size and weight the " Paget carbine" was used through the Napoleonic wars by the British cavalry units. It had a 16 inch smoothbore barrel and could be better wielded from horseback than the standard "Brown Bess" musket or Baker rifle. The British army updated their cavalry carbines in the percussion era, issuing the Enfield pattern of 1858 and the 1861 artillery or cavalry carbines, both with 24 inch rifled barrels. Other European armies also armed their cavalry units with shorter-barreled carbines or musketoons. Musketoons saw service with the US Army on land as the short length musket-caliber Springfield Model 1847 Musketoon. The weapons were issued to antebellum

dragoon Dragoons were originally a class of mounted infantry, who used horses for mobility, but dismounted to fight on foot. From the early 17th century onward, dragoons were increasingly also employed as conventional cavalry and trained for combat wi ...

s and Sappers & Miners between the Mexican-American War and the American Civil War and are known to have been used at the Battle of Pine Creek, and by Captain Andrew Jackson Smith's forces near Big Meadows.

References

Musketoons
in the British

National Maritime Museum The National Maritime Museum (NMM) is a maritime museum in Greenwich, London. It is part of Royal Museums Greenwich, a network of museums in the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. Like other publicly funded national museums in the Unit ...

online collections
Usage information
from the British National Maritime Museum {{Early firearms Muskets 19th-century weapons 18th-century weapons

Description

Service

See also

References