Read main thread: Musket Barrel Rifling
May 15th, 2007  
Bugfatty
Optio
 
 
Quote:
As far as I understood Missileer muskets of that era and particularly the ones we colonial had access to were NOT rifled but smooth bore hence the tactics on the field of marching in lockstep, closing to within spitting distance and firing as a unit. It wasn't until the American civil war that we had rifling in the barrels and the technology made the old tactics obsolete. The fact we still used them accounts in large part for the high casualty rates of that war. I could be wrong but this is what I was taught and have read.
Actually "rifling" had been around for quite a while before the American Revolution. The problem was that rifling a barrel didn't lend easily to mass preduction hence why militaries still used muskets. Also the militaries were very conservative and choose to use muskets instead.

Colonials used a mixture of both hunting rifles and what ever military muskets they could get.

As for how they made rifling, gunsmiths simply used a turning lathe or a special version called a "rifling machine" to cut out the grooves in the barrel.
 
 
(c)02-08 Military-Quotes.com