What is the difference between musket and arquebus?

[Excalibur]

I'm pretty sure all arquebus are match lock type guns, succeeded by the musket that employed flintlock for the ignition.

[commando552]

Originally Posted by Excalibur

I'm pretty sure all arquebus are match lock type guns, succeeded by the musket that employed flintlock for the ignition.

No, originally when only the matchlock existed you had arquebuses, calivers and muskets all with the same type of action. Here is an image showing the relative sizes of the three (in the order listed above from top to bottom) and they all have a matchlock. When the wheellock came in these were also referred to as arquebuses. As for muskets, throughout history these have used most types of locks including matchlocks, wheellocks, snaplocks, snaphaunce, doglocks and flintlocks.

[Excalibur]

Good point since the term musketeers came out way before the invention of flintlocks. But in some of the histories I've read, it keep telling me that muskets is the next evolution after the earlier guns.

[commando552]

Originally Posted by Excalibur

Good point since the term musketeers came out way before the invention of flintlocks. But in some of the histories I've read, it keep telling me that muskets is the next evolution after the earlier guns.

That is kind of true, in that arquebuses were an earlier invention being an evolved form of the handgonne. Them and muskets were used concurrently for different roles though and there are historical accounts that talk about the different ratios between arquebuses and muskets that different countries used. The original musket was a much more powerful weapon than the arquebus, however it was much heavier needing to be fired from support, it was impossible to skirmish with, and had about half the rate of fire of smaller weapons like calivers and arquebuses. Due to the weaight and the fact that they were often used from a longer distance in a static more protected position, musketeers were also the first soldiers to totally do away with any form of armour. Due to all of this I believe they were also paid twice as much as regular soldiers.

I think where the notion that the musket was an improved form of the arquebus might come from is that fact that it was in the end replaced by the musket, but only once technology and metallurgy had gotten to the point where to musket had changed significantly into a weapon that was much more effective as a standard infantry weapon, resembling what we would stereotypically refer to as a musket today (Brown Bess like).