Minié ball
Encyclopedia
The Minié ball is a type of muzzle-loading
Muzzleloader
A muzzleloader is any firearm into which the projectile and usually the propellant charge is loaded from the muzzle of the gun . This is distinct from the more popular modern designs of breech-loading firearms...

 spin-stabilising rifle
Rifle
A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile , imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the...

 bullet
Bullet
A bullet is a projectile propelled by a firearm, sling, or air gun. Bullets do not normally contain explosives, but damage the intended target by impact and penetration...

 named after its co-developer, Claude-Étienne Minié, inventor of the Minié rifle
Minié rifle
The Minié rifle was an important rifle in the 19th century, developed in 1849 following the invention of the Minié ball in 1847 by the French Army captains Claude-Étienne Minié of the Chasseurs d'Orléans and Henri-Gustave Delvigne. The rifle was designed to allow rapid muzzle loading of rifles, an...

. It came to prominence in the Crimean War
Crimean War
The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...

 and American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

.

Design

The Minié ball was a conical-cylindrical soft lead bullet, slightly smaller than the intended firearm barrel's bore
Caliber
In guns including firearms, caliber or calibre is the approximate internal diameter of the barrel in relation to the diameter of the projectile used in it....

, with (originally) four exterior grease-filled grooves and a conical hollow in its base. The bullet was designed by Minié with a small iron plug and a lead skirting. Its intended purpose was to expand under the pressure and obturate
Obturate
Obturate means to block or obstruct. With reference to firearms and airguns, obturation refers to the process of a bullet or pellet, made of soft material and often with a concave base, flaring under the pressure of firing to seal the bore and engage the barrel's rifling...

 the barrel and increase muzzle velocity.

The precursor to the Minié ball was created in 1848 by the French Army
French Army
The French Army, officially the Armée de Terre , is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces.As of 2010, the army employs 123,100 regulars, 18,350 part-time reservists and 7,700 Legionnaires. All soldiers are professionals, following the suspension of conscription, voted in...

 captains Montgomery and Henri-Gustave Delvigne
Henri-Gustave Delvigne
Henri-Gustave Delvigne was a French soldier and inventor. He became a captain in the French infantry service, from which he resigned on the outbreak of the 1830 July Revolution...

. Their design was made to allow rapid muzzle loading of rifle
Rifle
A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile , imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the...

s, an innovation that brought about the widespread use of the rifle as a mass battlefield weapon. Delvigne had invented a ball that could expand upon ramming to fit the grooves of a rifle in 1826. The design of the ball had been proposed in 1832 as the cylindro-conoidal bullet
Cylindro-conoidal bullet
The cylindro-conoidal bullet was invented by Captain John Norton of the British 34th Regiment in 1832. It had a hollow base, so that, when fired, the bullet would expand and seal the bore...

 by Captain John Norton, but had not been adopted.

Usage

The bullet could be quickly removed from the paper cartridge
Paper cartridge
Paper cartridge refers to one of various types of small arms ammunition used before the advent of the metallic cartridge. These cartridges consisted of a paper cylinder or cone containing the bullet, gunpowder, and, in some cases, a primer or a lubricating and anti-fouling agent...

 with the gunpowder poured down the barrel and the bullet pressed past the muzzle rifling
Rifling
Rifling is the process of making helical grooves in the barrel of a gun or firearm, which imparts a spin to a projectile around its long axis...

 and any detritus from prior shots. It was then rammed home with the ramrod
Ramrod
A ramrod is a device used with early firearms to push the projectile up against the propellant . It is also commonly referred to as a "scouring stick"...

, which ensured that the charge was packed and the hollow base was filled with powder. When fired, the expanding gas pushed forcibly on the base of the bullet, deforming it to engage the rifling. This provided spin for accuracy, a better seal for consistent velocity and longer range, and cleaning of barrel detritus.

History

The Minié ball only saw limited distribution in the Crimean War but later Minié-derived weapons were the most common firearm in the American Civil War. The adoption of this ammunition allowed soldiers to reload their rifled muskets faster and fire them more accurately. This increased the lethality of weapons used on the battlefield and effectively rendered conventional line infantry
Line infantry
Line infantry is a type of infantry which composed the basis of European land armies from the middle of the 17th century to the middle of the 19th century....

 tactics obsolete.

The increased range and accuracy of the Minié ball was a major factor in the defeat of the Russians in all of the early battles of the Crimean War. The Russians had antiquated muskets, with a range of 300 paces; the British and French could fire accurately from four times that range and hence could avoid close combat.

The government of the United States adopted the Minié ball before the Civil War, with some changes. The skirt of the bullet base was made slightly thinner and the plug was omitted, as the pressure of the powder gas alone was sufficient to expand the skirt to engage the rifling. Also, as adopted by the U.S. government, only three exterior grease-filled grooves were used, instead of four.

Like the musket ball, the Minié ball produced terrible wounds on those struck in battle. The large-caliber
Caliber
In guns including firearms, caliber or calibre is the approximate internal diameter of the barrel in relation to the diameter of the projectile used in it....

 rounds easily shattered bones, and in many cases the attending surgeon simply amputated the limb rather than risk a typically fatal secondary infection
Infection
An infection is the colonization of a host organism by parasite species. Infecting parasites seek to use the host's resources to reproduce, often resulting in disease...

. Due to the increased accuracy of rifled muskets firing these rounds, the American Civil War and to a lesser extent the Crimean War resulted in mass casualties on a larger scale than any previous conflicts.

External links

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