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Old 09-27-2015, 09:00 PM
Pyramid Silent Pyramid Silent is offline
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Default What is the difference between musket and arquebus?

Some muzzleloader black powder handheld firearms named muskets (charleville, Brown Bess, wheellock, matchlock etc), but some similar firearms named arquebus (Tanegashima and other). So, I don't know: what are the criteria to inclusion in Category muskets or Category Arquebus? What is the difference between musket and arquebus?
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Old 09-28-2015, 12:20 AM
commando552 commando552 is offline
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The definition is very imprecise and varies with the time period and level of technology. I believe that originally the Arquebus was a smaller weapon with little or no stock. Conversely, the original muskets were rather huge, having a barrel of at least 4 foot and a caliber approaching and inch, and they were only ever fired from support on a shooting fork. During this same period you also had something called a Caliver, which was an intermediate between the two more closely resembling what we would today think of as a "musket" in its proportions.

As time goes on the whole thing becomes very muddy though, with the musket shrinking in size to the point where they didn't use forks gradually the terms arquebus and caliver were phased out in favour of calling everything a musket. An extra confusion is that whellocks seem to have been referred to as arquebusses even when the terms caliver or musket would have been more correct.

All in all, its best just to not worry about it too much as whatever you call something you will probably be right in one time/place or another.
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Old 09-28-2015, 03:07 AM
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Excalibur Excalibur is offline
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I'm pretty sure all arquebus are match lock type guns, succeeded by the musket that employed flintlock for the ignition.
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Old 09-28-2015, 04:40 PM
commando552 commando552 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Excalibur View Post
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.
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Old 09-29-2015, 12:06 AM
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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.
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Old 09-29-2015, 08:33 AM
commando552 commando552 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Excalibur View Post
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).
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