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The 1955 western Kentucky Rifle gravitates around a trail wagon containing one hundred long rifles. The gun, which is actually the main star of that movie, is displayed under every angle and is even the object of lyric descriptive monologues by veteran actor Chill Wills. On the show Antiques Roadshow an 1810 Kentucky rifle was appraised at $20,000.
A musket was a muzzle-loading smoothbore long gun that was loaded with a round lead ball, but it could also be loaded with shot for hunting. For military purposes, the weapon was loaded with ball, or a mixture of ball with several large shot (called buck and ball ), and had an effective range of about 75–100 m (246–328 ft).
This gave the rifled musket an effective range of several hundred yards, which was a significant improvement over the smooth bore musket. For example, combat ranges of 300 yd (270 m) were achievable using the rifled muskets during the American Civil War .
Such lengths were never common in European rifles (with the exception of the Spanish espingarda circa 15th century), but were more common in American rifles, such as the Kentucky rifle. The American rifles were used for hunting, and tended to be of a smaller caliber with .35 to .45 inches (8.9 to 11.4 mm) being typical.
Similarly, the word "Bess" is commonly held to either derive from the word arquebus or blunderbuss (predecessors of the musket) or to be a reference to Elizabeth I, possibly given to commemorate her death. The OED has citations for "brown musket" dating back to the early 18th century that refer to the same weapon.
While older muskets had an effective range of about 50 to 100 yards (46–91 m), the Model 1855 had an effective range of 400 yards (370 m) and was deadly to over 1,000 yards (910 m). [ 2 ] Following Pattern 1853 Enfield and the Lorenz rifle , barrel on the Model 1855 was .58 caliber, which was smaller than previous muskets.
Based on the Jäger rifle, [3] these long rifles, known as "Pennsylvania Rifles", were used by snipers and light infantry throughout the Revolutionary War. The grooved barrel increased the range and accuracy by spinning a snugly fitted ball, giving an accurate range of 300 yards compared to 100 yards for smoothbore muskets.
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.