The Swedish infantry musket, or the Swedish Land Pattern Musket, was a

muzzle-loaded A muzzleloader is any firearm in which the user loads the projectile and the propellant charge into the muzzle end of the gun (i.e., from the forward, open end of the gun's barrel). This is distinct from the modern designs of breech-loading fire ...

0.63 (16.002 mm) to 0.81 (20.7 mm)-inch calibre

smoothbore A smoothbore weapon is one that has a barrel without rifling. Smoothbores range from handheld firearms to powerful tank guns and large artillery mortars. Some examples of smoothbore weapons are muskets, blunderbusses, and flintlock pistols. ...

long gun A long gun is a category of firearms with long Gun barrel, barrels. In small arms, a ''long gun'' or longarm is generally designed to be held by both hands and braced against the shoulder, in contrast to a handgun, which can be fired being held w ...

. These weapons were in service within the Royal Swedish Army from the mid-16th century until the mid-19th century.

History

At the end of the 16th century, the Swedish military

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 ...

became a style-setter. Its style remained the same until about 1669 in most armies. In Sweden, its basic style lasted for many years—until the end of the 1680s. The

matchlock A matchlock or firelock is a historical type of firearm wherein the gunpowder is ignited by a burning piece of flammable cord or twine that is in contact with the gunpowder through a mechanism that the musketeer activates by pulling a lever or Tri ...

was the dominant mechanism on the Swedish Army soldiers' muskets as well as among other European armed forces, and remained so until the latter half of the 1600s when the snaphaunce mechanism increasingly took over. But it was not until the

flintlock mechanism The flintlock mechanism is a type of lock (firearm), lock used on muskets, rifles, and pistols from the early 17th to the mid-19th century. It is commonly referred to as a "flintlock" (without the word ''mechanism''). The term is also used for th ...

as well as the

bayonet A bayonet (from Old French , now spelt ) is a -4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ... , now spelt ) is a knife, dagger">knife">-4; we might wonder whethe ...

had taken hold in earnest—around the turn of the 17th–18th centuries—that the matchlock became completely obsolete among the various squadrons within the

Swedish Empire The Swedish Empire or the Great Power era () was the period in Swedish history spanning much of the 17th and early 18th centuries during which Sweden became a European great power that exercised territorial control over much of the Baltic regi ...

. However, some weapons equipped with wheellock mechanism were primarily reserved for the

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 ...

. The Swedish, purely warlike musket design remained in its basic form from Model 1696 until Model 1775. Before that, long guns – military as well as civilian – were produced in a variety of designs.

Clear variants

Model 1673

Model 1688

Matchlock Musket M1688
Snaphaunce Musket M1688

Model 1690

Model 1696

The flintlock carbine M1696 was the first bayonet-equipped.

Model 1704

Model 1716

Model 1725

Model 1738

Model 1762

''Krävan'' with the ''krävan''-fitting was abandoned in favour of a third scouring stick-pipe, where a

ramrod A ramrod (or scouring stick) is a metal or wooden device used with muzzleloader, muzzleloading firearms to push the projectile up against the propellant (mainly blackpowder). The ramrod was used with weapons such as muskets and cannons and was u ...

(now made of

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 ...

) instead rested and a fourth scouring stick-pipe (all now in brass) next to the chamber. And the

stock Stocks (also capital stock, or sometimes interchangeably, shares) consist of all the Share (finance), shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided. A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporatio ...

was equipped with a nose cap, also in

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 ...

Model 1775

With the manufacturing of the 1775 model, the pins holding the barrel in place were abandoned in favour of two scouring stick-pipe-bands with associated ''kräkor'' and a front barrel band nose cap with bow-shaped front sights in brass infused.Swedish Army Museum
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Model 1784

Model 1791

Model 1805

Model 1815

Model 1840

Model 1848

External links

Swedish Army MuseumForum for Living HistorySwedish Ingermanland National Association (in Swedish)

References

Firearms of Sweden Muskets Napoleonic Wars weapons