The Second Wind of the Smoothbore Musket

Part I: The Nessler Bullet

Edme-Adolphe Fontaine Attaque de la Redoute de Selinghinsk (Musée de l’Histoire de France) (Wikimedia Commons)

In the age of muzzle-loading shoulder arms, shooters could either shoot far or load quickly, but they couldn’t do both. Hunters, who enjoyed the freedom to load at leisure, usually took the time to ram (and, at times, hammer) tight-fitting bullets into the barrels of their weapons. Soldiers, however, often opted for musket balls that required less in the way of external encouragement to make the same sort of journeys.

A rifled barrel enhanced, by leaps and bounds, the performance of snuggly-seated spheres. Nonetheless, men armed with rifles would sometimes shoot somewhat smaller shot, thereby trading both range and accuracy for a higher rate of fire. Consider, if you will, this tale of Nathanial Foster (1766-1840), the American rifleman who may well have served as the model for Natty Bumppo, the fictional frontiersman frequently featured in the works of James Fenimore Cooper.

Foster’s quick shooting was in the days of flintlocks. He had a powder flask with a charger, and with six well-pared balls between his fingers, he would pour in the powder, drop in a ball that would just roll down without a patch, and striking the breech of his gun with his hand, it was primed; soon after which the bullet was speeding to its mark.¹

These rapid discharges could only be made at a short distance, as to make long shots it became necessary to patch the balls and drive them down with a rod, the latter being dispensed with in the former case. Foster would make his six shots, so as to kill so many men, within one minute, at a distance not exceeding ten rods.²

NC Wyeth Natty Bumppo