Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Minié ball, or Minie ball, is a type of hollow-based bullet designed by Claude-Étienne Minié for muzzle-loaded, rifled muskets. Invented in 1846 shortly followed by the Minié rifle , the Minié ball came to prominence during the Crimean War [ 1 ] and the American Civil War where it was found to inflict significantly more serious wounds ...
The long rifle was the product of German gunsmiths who immigrated to new settlements in southeastern Pennsylvania in the early 1700s, and later in Virginia and other territories, reproducing early Jäger rifles (meaning "hunter" and sometimes anglicized Jaeger), which were used for hunting in Germany in the 17th and early 18th century. [3]
The Minié rifle was an rifled musket used by the infantry of a number of countries in the mid-19th century. A version was adopted in 1849 following the invention of the Minié ball in 1847 by the French Army captain Claude-Étienne Minié of the Chasseurs d'Orléans and Henri-Gustave Delvigne.
The accuracy of American long rifles like the Pennsylvania and Kentucky rifles far exceeded that of any smooth bore weapon. Rifles would not replace muskets on the battlefield until the invention of the Minie Ball solved the problem of barrel fouling, but prior to that, many rifles were used by U.S. forces.
The Model 1861 was a step forward in U.S. small arms design, being the first rifled shoulder weapon adopted and widely issued as the primary infantry weapon (earlier U.S. martial rifles such as the Harpers Ferry Model 1803 rifle were issued to riflemen rather than the infantry as a whole and production and issuance of the Model 1855 prior to ...
A smaller caliber Minié ball could be used to provide as much mass on target as the larger .69 caliber round ball. For these reasons, the Model 1842 was the last .69 caliber musket. The Army later standardized on the .58 caliber Minié Ball, as used in the Springfield Model 1855 and Springfield Model 1861.
Enjoy a classic game of Hearts and watch out for the Queen of Spades!
Claude-Etienne Minié (13 February 1804 – 14 December 1879) was a French military instructor and inventor famous for solving the problem of designing a reliable muzzle-loading rifle by inventing the Minié ball in 1846, and the Minié rifle in 1849. He succeeded the pioneering work of Henri-Gustave Delvigne and Louis-Étienne de Thouvenin.