Some sources say that the matchlock musket take one minute to reload (before the reforms provided by the king Gustav Adolf). Other sources say that it take more than two minutes. Anyone could confirm any of these affirmations considering a time took by a soldier with ordinary training, and the evolution of this time until the came of the flintlock musket.

Guilherme;

It all depends upon the time frame you're asking about. In 1530, with the "moschetto" that the Spaniards were experimenting with that were little more than wall-guns with a staff to support them (rather than a wall), and no clear proceedure as to how to go about reloading, yes, it probably DID take two minutes to reload one.

If you are talking 1590's or so, with the details long since worked out and usually some established "drill" in each company or army to follow (even moreso with the reforms of Maurice of Nassau in 1599), then the rate of fire would be much closer to the one minute mark you mentioned. Sir Roger Williams claimed in his 1590 treatise Brief Discourse on Warre that veteran musketeers could fire 40 rounds in an hour, which when you take into account the need to recharge bandoliers and fatigue is probably about the same as a shot every minute when really needed.

Personally, I can reload my matchlock in less than a minute, but then, I have a Bastard Musket, not a full sized one, and thus I don't have to wrestle with the musket rest. I suspect that most calivers could be shot just as rapidly, if not moreso.

Google "Matchlock Musket" and I am sure that you will come up with far more information than you can absorb. :)

Cheers,

Gordo

Gordon has the real world experience and I'm just speculating here:

With paper cartridges with loose fitting ball ( easier to load with a dirty bore. ) 2 to 4 shots a minute with no time taken for more than rough aiming might be the maximum: This would include percussion lock rifles with mini ball.

With all loose components, a rifled bore, tight fitting ball and patch I could see it taking at least a couple of minutes per shot ?

Of course the ignition system has some influence on speed: Rushing it with a matchlock might be possible but the lit ends of the slow match slows things down for safety reasons compared to a flintlock. The actual loading and priming time might be the same but the extra steps putting the match out of reach of powder during the operation and reattaching the match plus making sure the tip is actually lit and that there is no long piece of ash that could fall of and cause a premature ignition. :eek:

Well, that would seem like reasons why matchlocks would be at least a bit slower i.e. more steps to safely load.

I could personally reload in 40 seconds with a musket rest. One of my friends could reload in 30 seconds on a good day. There are more actions than with a flintlock so it's a bit slower. I would imagine that people who seriously trained might cut down our once a month re-enactors times.

Cheers
Stephen

Stephen;

I'm wondering, are you guys going through the manual per the de Gheyn drill, or using the later ECW stuff? Being as I mostly do late-16th Century, de Gheyn is the drill manual I use. I know that following that drill to the letter is the safest and most practical way to go about it, but it sure does take time. (I also find that loading with ball seriously cuts down on my speed, especially as the bore gets dirtier.) Of course I'm using a fairly tight fitting ball in my bastard musket (.715" in a nominal 12-bore) so it does take some effort, much more than loading the same ball in a paper cartridge in my Brown Bess (11-bore). With that combination I can manage 4 a minute. :cool:

Good to have other shooters of matchlocks posting, so thanks! Now for Chris Last to chime in... :D

Cheers!

Gordon

Gordon, De Gheyn is the only way forward. Doesn't matter who you check, if you examine any woodcuts showing the drill, it's the same... If you look here, at a dutch held copy of Hexham
http://www.geheugenvannederland.nl/gvn/search...ode=LEMU01

Thro this page might interest you http://www.geheugenvannederland.nl/gvn/search...ode=LEMU01


By and large, I average about 20 seconds without ball. I've averaged 25 -30s with ball. thro I suspect that's a little quick for the period, Modern powder is too clean and balls tend to be better cast and more liable to be the right size!

The expression " Hurry up slowly " comes to mind and the right drill and lots of practice makes things faster no matter what skill we are talking about.

Probably everyone has a comfortable speed, a maximum fumble free speed and the " I'm going against a stop watch speed and I"m taking every short cut I can speed " and would probably mess up 50% of the time. :eek:

Nice to test if it can be done safely as some steps not done like leaving the match in place and praying are much too dangerous.

I guess one could do a test using some substitute to powder that couldn't ignite and time things from start of the process to simulated firing ? Using a real musket with real ball would be a pain having to remove the ball with a worm every time. ;)

A dummy musket with an open breech were the ball and phony powder would just fall out would make repeated speed re-loading less annoying ? Just and idea but an old and not very valuable musket repro or a special dummy barrel could be used as a practice tool to refine and practice maximum speed reloading using the approved and safe moves: Might be useful as a training tool.

Oh, might be a safe way to teach novices and get them to repeat the loading drill at speed a few thousand time.
( Like practicing loading an M1 Garand with dummy rounds in concept. )

They might alternate the speed drill with doing it slowly for actual shooting. ( Most people would like to do some real shooting in between the drills ! Sort of reminds me of " The Karate Kid " and polishing M. Miyagi's car: " WAX ON / WAX OFF " a few million times before he would even teach him any real techniques. :p :lol: )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Karate_Kid

It depends, because the definition of "musket" seems to have changed with time. In the 16th century it referred only to the Spanish moschetto, a heavy-duty specialist weapon that took forever to load and required rather considerable strength to use. This was considered a distinct weapon from the more popular general-purpose arquebus, which was both much lighter, much more practical, and could be loaded much faster. On a good day and wit hall possible shortcuts I managed to make three shots in a minute with the arquebus on several occasions--but with the musket three shots in two minutes was more typical for me. A larger and stronger man would probably have required less time because he wouldn't have tired as quickly fro mthe weapon's weight and the damned huge recoil.

In the 17th century, though, the word "arquebus" shifted in meaning to refer to the precursor of the cavalry carbine, and I got the impression that the old arquebus got lumped into the "musket" category--so when talking of a 17th-century musket, we can no longer be so sure of whether we're talking of the real huge musket or a firearm more closely resembling the moderate-sized arquebus of previous days. Same with loading time.

I'm a bit of an obsessive driller. On the bus or another public transportation vehicle--and when there's enough room--I often go through the motions of either archery or musket drills in the air. That has attracted more than a few odd ooks from people, but I don't really care. ;)

This is a pretty amusing thread! When I say "Less than a minute" I mean to imply that a minute is somewhat longer than I need. I CAN shoot my matchlock rather rapidly... but I certainly don't choose to very often. :cool: As noted, I can get off four rounds a minute with a Brown Bess with cartridges...and ball. However, with matchlock, and using bandoliers and the full de Gheyn drill manual, I'm sure that one every 30-40 seconds is quite plausible. I just haven't timed it of late. ;)

My "Bastard Musket" is about 9-10 pounds, with a rather short (36") barrel of 12-bore. Too short to be a mosquet, too large-bore to be a caliver/arquebus. Thus "Bastard Musket" seems to be the period (1560-1620) designation that fits it best. Here's a pic of it (along with some other goodies that aren't relevant to this discussion, made by the same gunsmith)

[ Linked Image ]

And another of my Daughter and I shooting our matchlocks at a range, at a Schützenfest.

But mostly I tend to shoot wheellocks and flint-ignition-locks anymore, since I'm not keen on the idea of dropping a burning match on my horse's neck... :eek:

Cheers!

Gordon

Gordon

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From my experience using drill based on DeGehyn, we get a shot every 45-60 seconds with the muskets. Now that is moving at a clip and with some of our guys that have been doing the drill for a season or two (3 months on 2 day a week practice). I've found that a new recruit averages about 75 seconds the first few times they try it out. This is with bandolier and double lit match.

When doing a competition against a bowman, I've managed about 25-30 seconds with a matchlock. That isn't so much ramming as it is thumping the butt of the gun hard against the ground and hoping everything sets in appropriately though. :D

Best-

Chris

I saw in a site that one of the military reforms provided by the king Gustav Adolf reduced in one third the reload time of the musket. Considering that in the beginning the musket took 1 minute to reload, after that it took 20 seconds. I know that a ordinary soldier, after the flintlock revolution, could shoot 3 times a minute. So what it's the point of the matchlock/flintlock transition besides, of course, of the considerable evolutions in aspect of safety and simplicity.

A match also gives off a tiny pin-prick of light and a thin trail of smoke that can give off an attempt at an ambush.

Not that the flint-based locks don't have their disadvantages, though. The flint requires periodic readjustments, and you'd better know how to knap your own flint if you don't have to bug your fellow soldiers every time your flint breaks or goes missing. And the downside of not carrying a match is that yo ucan more easily lose track of time--a smoldering slow match is a surprisingly good timekeeper!

That being said, I'd say "no way 'to Gustaf Adolf's drills suddenly cutting the reload time by two-thirds. if the reload time of a musket at the beginning of the 16th century is compared to the general-purpose "musket" more closely resembling the arquebus used with the imporved drills of the 17th century, there will certainly be a very appreciable increase--but it would be a faulty kind of comparison because 1) the weapons are different and 2) the change occured over many decades, and more evolutionary than revolutionary.

However, if it's "one-third" as in cutting down from thirty seconds to twenty seconds (that is, from two shots a minute to three), I can still believe it. After all, the Prussian drills promulgated by Frederick William and further improved by the other Frederick (the Great, that is) effectively allowed the Prussian soldiers to fire four musketballs in the time it took most of their opponents to fire three.

Yes, can I add my name to the chorus of people who doubt that claim. Modern research is showing that Gustavus was less of an innovator than first thought. Many of his "advances", such as commanded shot interleaved with hsi cavalry and the return of the cavalry charge were due to the poor quality of his cavalry equipment, not enough armour and guns so they needed to be reinforced by musketeers and had to rely on swords rather than firepower.

The salvo is still regarded as a significant innovation of Gus.

By the way, in my experience flintlocks are more adversely affected by wet weather than matchlocks. Matchlocks are, however, very susceptible to losing the powder in the pan in high winds. I've personally shot in falling rain and falling snow, where those with flintlocks were often regaled with the cry "get a matchlock" as the hammer came down to no effect.

A regiment of 1000 with two thirds musketeers was said (I forget by which period author) to need a hundred weight of match a day (100 pounds is a lot of match!) and could take as long as a hour to get all matches lit in preparation for the whole regiment firing. They were faced with the choice of having all matches lit, at roughly a foot of match per man, per hour, or having just a few matches lit and lighting the others off the lit ones if trouble appeared. No wonder they needed pikemen. I always liked the story of Hopton's Royalist Army in the ECW requisitioning the cords from all the bed bases in the town of Devizes to be made into match.

Oh, and although some people have alluded to it, no one has come out and said that there is a huge difference between firing for five minutes and sustained fire over long periods. I can load and fire off a bondolier of twelve powder flasks in under ten minutes, but there's no way I could fire through six sets of bandoliers (72 shots) in an hour. When you figure in time to reload the bandoliers, time to flush powder residue out of the barrel (which starts to become an issue after about two bandoliers or 24 shots) then the 40 shots an hour quoted above sounds pretty reasonable. Oh, and of course I've never reloaded under hostile fire.

Cheers
Stephen

[quote="Gordon Frye"]

Stephen Hand wrote:

I'll chime in and agree with Lafayette, Daniel and Stephen on the subject of Gustavus Adolphus too. Concerning adding his musketeers between his columns of Horse, Henri of Navarre did exactly the same thing at the battle of Coutras in 1587 (partially due to having insufficient pikemen to back them up), which was well known to the Protestant soldiers of that day and age, so Gustavus hardly could be claimed to have come up with it by himself. Perhaps siezed upon it and codified it, but that's about it. This is turning into quite a nice discussion! :D Cheers! Gordon

Gustavus half-brother Karl Karlsson Gyllenhjelm served in Henri IV's army in the 1590's and recomended similar tactics during the war in Livonina 1600-1611 were he served as field commander prior to being captured. He ended up as member of the Royal Council and the Swedish Lord-Admiral so it would have been strange if the and Gustavus never discussed military matters. Shot supporting horse Henri style and shot supporting Gustavus style are two similar but in many ways rather diffrent things. Henri's shot woudl get of one salvo and get out of the way as the Huguenot 'Millers' charged in and took only limited part in the further action. Swedish shot would reload in place and wait for the Swedish cavalry to rally and return to their starting positions. One polish eyewitness decribed the Swedish horse as protecting the musketeers while they reloaded.

IMHO Henri used his shot to prepare the way for a decisive charge with his horse while Gustavus tatcis were more drawn out and attritional, the enemy horse was worn down with musketry and limited counter-charges rather than risking everything on one slavo and one all out charge. Which is just the thing to do when your men are less well mounted and armoured than the enemy.

/Daniel

I'd also like to add that the drills used by the Gustaf Adolf's Swedish musketeers were actually Dutch drills, which tallies well with the recurring mention of de Gheyn's late 16th-century drill manual in this thread. The Swedish army adopted the drills through the agency of officers who had served in Maurice of Nassau's army in the early 17th century. Perhaps the reason why they became more popularly known as the innovator is that Maurice was a cautious general by nature and he fought very few battles, preferring to fight a territorial war of attrition from well-fortified places. Gustaf II was a much more battle-oriented commander, so he fought more battles and gave people more chances to appreciate the tactical effects of the new drills. Still, he would look remarkably cautious compared to the battle-crazy ECW generals.

Edited to add: here's one such Swedish officer who studied the methods of the Dutch army.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_De_la_Gardie