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A musket ball was an early form of ammunition
Ammunition

Ammunition, often referred to as ammo, is a generic term derived from the French language la munition which embraced all material used for war , but which in time came to refer specifically to gunpowder and artillery....
 used for loading musket
Musket

A musket is a Muzzle -loaded, smoothbore long gun, which is intended to be fired from the shoulder.Usually, the musket is thought to be the weapon that replaced the arquebus, and was in turn replaced by the rifle....
s. Musket balls were generally made from lead
Lead

Lead is a main-group Chemical element with symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal, also considered to be one of the heavy metal ....
 (though at times stone musket balls were used), and were muzzle-loaded into the barrel of the musket, wrapped in a loosely-fitting paper patch and backed with gunpowder
Gunpowder

Gunpowder, also called black powder, is an explosive mixture of sulfur, charcoal and potassium nitrate, KNO3 that burns rapidly, producing volumes of hot solids and gases which can be used as a propellant in firearms and as a pyrotechnic composition in fireworks....
.

Musket balls were of a diameter considerably larger than today's modern 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....
s - the Brown Bess
Brown Bess

Brown Bess is a nickname of uncertain origin for the British Army's Land Pattern Musket and its derivatives. This musket was used in the era of the expansion of the British Empire and acquired symbolic importance at least as significant as its physical importance....
 fielded a caliber of more than .75", and hence the ball could cause large wounds.






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A musket ball was an early form of ammunition
Ammunition

Ammunition, often referred to as ammo, is a generic term derived from the French language la munition which embraced all material used for war , but which in time came to refer specifically to gunpowder and artillery....
 used for loading musket
Musket

A musket is a Muzzle -loaded, smoothbore long gun, which is intended to be fired from the shoulder.Usually, the musket is thought to be the weapon that replaced the arquebus, and was in turn replaced by the rifle....
s. Musket balls were generally made from lead
Lead

Lead is a main-group Chemical element with symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal, also considered to be one of the heavy metal ....
 (though at times stone musket balls were used), and were muzzle-loaded into the barrel of the musket, wrapped in a loosely-fitting paper patch and backed with gunpowder
Gunpowder

Gunpowder, also called black powder, is an explosive mixture of sulfur, charcoal and potassium nitrate, KNO3 that burns rapidly, producing volumes of hot solids and gases which can be used as a propellant in firearms and as a pyrotechnic composition in fireworks....
.

Musket balls were of a diameter considerably larger than today's modern 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....
s - the Brown Bess
Brown Bess

Brown Bess is a nickname of uncertain origin for the British Army's Land Pattern Musket and its derivatives. This musket was used in the era of the expansion of the British Empire and acquired symbolic importance at least as significant as its physical importance....
 fielded a caliber of more than .75", and hence the ball could cause large wounds. The smooth bore muskets of the Brown Bess period had considerable hitting power and were able to penetrate the armor of the day, but had limited accuracy due to the lack of rifling
Rifling

Rifling is the helix-shaped pattern in the Gun barrel of a gun or firearm, which imparts a spin to a projectile around its long axis. This spin serves to gyroscope stabilize the projectile, improving its Aerodynamics stability and accuracy....
 in the barrel. In practice muskets were fired at close range in volley fire and rarely beyond 50 yards. The rifled muskets of the American Civil War
American Civil War

The American Civil War , also known as the War Between the States and several Naming the American Civil War, was a civil war in the United States....
 were much more accurate and combat ranges of 300 yards were practical. The term 'ball' lingered on in that conflict as applied to the standard ammunition used by both sides - the Minie ball
Minié ball

The Mini? ball is a type of muzzleloader rifle bullet named after co-developer, Claude Etienne Mini?, inventor of the Mini? rifle. It came to prominence in the Crimean War and American Civil War....
. However the Minie ball was not a ball, but a conical lead bullet designed to be fired down a rifled barrel. With the invention of the Minie ball and the development of the bullet cartridge, the musket ball became obsolete after the middle of the nineteenth century due to its inaccuracy.