#10MinuteTalk 

The best part of this is how taken aback / surprised / confused everyone seems when they get started talking about this firearm

The Charleville is named after the armory of manufacture, not a person. Tulle, Charleville, St. Etienne.

Always great to talk history and keep the history alive, but it's essential to clarify several points here. During the revolution, neither French nor American soldiers referred to the musket as "Charleville." American soldiers instead called it a "French Musket" or specified by its model years, such as the Infantry Musket of 1763 or 1766. They also differentiated between the "Light French Musket (1763/66)" and the "Heavy French Musket (1763)." Charleville was just one of several Royal Armories in France. After the war, American National Armories produced their version of the French Musket, heavily influenced by the "System of 1766." The French recognized there were so many small changes to the 1766 model, they they name the whole model series as a 'System'. A modern day comparison is how we use the term ‘AR-Platform’, and the many variations to essential the same rifle. It was post-revolution Americans who dubbed it "Charleville." Some collectors and historians mistakenly refer to it as the "Model of 1795.", reason being because it fits in nicely for subsequent military arms naming convention, ie Model 1816, Model 1842, Model 1855 etc. Correct terminology for these American copies from 1795-1818, made at the National Armories, is ‘Charleville Pattern Muskets’ or ‘New Charleville Pattern’. Additionally, it's crucial to note that it's not a rifle, and the term "battle rifle" would have had no contemporary usage. I know it’s a nit pick, but for those interested in the history it’s just good knowledge to have.

Charleville was the name of the town where the guns were made

Our first U.S. service "rifle" was based on the Charleville. The Springfield 1795. Which is the musket used in the U.S. Army infantryman symbology of the crossed rifles and the Combat/Expert Infantryman Badges.

The flintlock reminds me of how many deer I have missed in rainy weather with my Lyman Trade rifle. If the strike area of the frizzen gets the least bit damp, the flint slides right across. No friction, no sparks, no boom and a nice click that is very audible to a whitetail.

During this period, continental soldiers would now have had possibles bags, they would have had cartridges full of waxed, rolled, and tied paper cartridges. The musket was considered a gun that was more designed with an emphasis on fast reloading and close quarters fighting. Basically, you rip the back of the cartridge off with your teeth, pour a dash in the pan, dump the rest down the barrel, then ram the ball, paper and all down the bore. The average guy could get off 2-3 shots a minute. Riflemen were a different story, and they were much like the process Ryan described, however they could only get off 1-2 good shots a minute, and they had a severe handicap in close quarters bayonet charges.

Sharpe's rifles TV series is a really good visual of flinters in use. Happy 4th

Archery was not used in a sanctioned way by any mainstream American troop (Potentially used in either improvised warfare or some method of special operations). But before the french gave us rifles and trained the less experienced they considered using spears and pikes

Rifles at ‘high level’ depends on where one is at. West Pennsylvania, Virginia, upstate New York, Vermont New Hampshire, west Maryland, North Carolina rifles were the primary personal arm. East areas were most of the colonist lived was mostly smoothbores. However these tended to be smaller Caliber and much lighter in weight compared to the musket. People primed the pan back in the day with the same powder that went in the bore. Priming with a finer grain is a modern concept. People had to learn their gun, just as a shooter does today. Even in rain and snow a careful shooter can shoot reliably, misfires happen when the shooter gets sloppy. Having spare flints with you was a must, soldiers were given extra. A civilian too had a ‘flint wallet’. Flints can easily last fifty or more shots. Forty caliber and smaller rifles are not seen until after 1790 and did not become regular until after 1810. Most rifles of the Revolution were forty five or bigger. The fifty four was common since it shot two balls to an ounce of lead.

Amazing episode. Good work.

I'm not an expert but can answer a few questions, dispersing made you vulnerable to cavalry as well as a bayonet charge hence the tight formation, the bayonet was offset so you had room to reload unobstructed,

Rifles did exist in America but they were civilian hunting weapons. The two main drawbacks was that the rifle took longer to load and did not take a bayonet. You could load and fire a smoothbore musket three to five times for every shot that you load and fire a rifled piece. You can hit a human sized target at about 75 yards or so with a musket. Charleville was only one armory in France where muskets were made. Two others were St. Etienne and Maubeuge. The French would have called it after the model year. The same thing with British muskets. They would be called land or sea-service muskets or simply the "King's Arm."

Battles back in the day were called for rain not only because flintlocks won't work in those conditions, but neither would artillery. Plus when it rained, the dirt roads turned into a quagmire, making it next to impossible to get supply wagons or gun carriages anywhere fast. Because of that, they would have to wait until the roads dried enough so they could get to the site. The average soldier didn't have a "cow's foot" to cover their action to protect against rain and snow, just hunters and skirmishers. It was a leather piece with a snap or thong to tie it around the cock and the closed frizzen. The closed frizzen would keep the ignition charge from pouring out, but the average soldier only had a loaded musket when they were on guard duty or on the firing line, after being ordered to load and make ready. If it snowed or rained during guard duty, they would cover their action with their poncho or rain cape. They had wooden tompions to plug their bore when they were on the march to keep water and other debris out of the muzzle. Most soldiers had a screwturn (what screwdrivers were called back in the day) to remove the sidenails so they could take the lock off for cleaning and oiling. (Sidenails are what the screws that held the lock in place were called). You can actually touch up a dull flint using the spine of a knife blade to hone it or you might have to reknap it altogether with a knapping hammer, but they would have spare flints in their gear or in the supply wagon. They had a patch worm to use with either a scrap of cloth or a wad of tow to use as a cleaning patch. Tow is a byproduct of the production of linen thread, it's similar to straw, but inflammable. They had ball screws used to unload a musket after guard duty. Since they used paper cartridges preloaded with powder and ball, they never made the mistake of loading a ball without powder, unless their musket was going into long term storage. Their Sergeant had a Seargeant's tool that could be used to take the lock apart or take the stock off the barrel. If a regular soldier did it without permission, they would be flogged (whipped). They used sperm whale oil as a lubricant, the same thing they used in oil lanterns . it was a fluid drawn from the skull of a sperm whale. It insulated the whale's brain from heat and cold and physical shock when they rammed opposing males with their heads. The guns were kept in the white to reduce cost and speed up production. Soldiers would use brick dust to polish off any rust. If they had rust on their musket during inspection, they were flogged. George Washington was a huge proponent of buck and ball, a .64" roundball with three .30" buckshot pellets. The French couldn't make powder as good as the British, so their cartridges were loaded with up to 200 grains of musket powder while the British loaded theirs with "only" 140 at the time. The French, English, and US upgraded to .65" balls during the war of 1812/French and Indian War when they improved the way they made powder with compression to make it denser and cleaner burning. They lowered the charges to 120 grains, with about 20 grains in the pan and to allow for spillage with the rest going down the bore, followed by the ball and paper, which were tamped down with the ramrod to let out the airgap, not rammed down hard. The paper held the ball in place and acted like a sabot to keep the ball centered, supposedly. Every time I shoot, I end up with confetti blowing out with the blast. With a smoothbore musket at 80 yards, you had a 270% hit probability with buck and ball. If you actually aimed with your eyes open (most US soldiers didn't do either during the Civil War), you would hit the guy you were aiming at and the guys on either side of him and maybe some rando behind them. Most Civil War monuments have buck and ball somewhere prominently displayed on them. And yes, French 1866/68 muskets and captured British Brown Bess muskets saw action during the Civil War on both sides.

I think the Pre 64 model 70 next would be good. It was the rifleman's rifle after all!

Soldiers using muskets did not use different grades of powder for the priming and the main charge. They primed from the cartridge. Riflemen sometimes carried a finer grade of powder for priming. This is one reason it took longer to load a rifle. You also had to start the rifle ball with a starter to fit the ball to the bore.

They used a spike type bayonet with no knife edges. Muskets were traditionally not aimed. They were pointed toward the enemy line and fired by volley. The idea being that no one person was guilty for killing an enemy soldier. In continental warfare, it was improper to single out a target, especially an officer.

Tow is the fiberous strands of flax used for weaving linen cloth.

Let’s not forget about the Puckle Gun basically an early flintlock Gatling gun

Such a cool gun! Great video. Would love to see more on America's old service rifles

Happy 4th gentlemen! Lead Ballon request Mark.

I would love you guys to talk about big bore pistols for hunting, pistol hunting in general, and the TC Encore Pistol.

So the Continental Army was the first army to have Snipers in the world, armed with Pennsylvania long rifle’s, there were 500 men in the unit under the command of Daniel Morgan. They mainly targeted artillery crews and officers. A British officer, General Simon Fraser, was about to turn the tide of the battle of Saratoga, and so the snipers went to work, and three shots later he and his second in command were both dead, 400 yards away, giving the hope of a new nation a little more time.

A high wind can blow the priming pan clean of powder. See 11 Bang Bang's shooting video on this. He did get some hits at 164 yards, tho.

Back in the day, individual marksmanship took a far back seat to firepower, slingin' lead over there. Ranked fire, you would have three or four ranks of 100 or more soldiers. The US slinging buck and ball (3 balls of .30" buck and one big .64" roundball) with four ranks of 100, that's 1600 rounds a minute of fire. Muskets were long because they were replacing the spear and pike for hand to hand. A ship's carbine with a 20" barrel is just as powerful and accurate as the looooong barreled infantry musket. With a large caliber musket, there's more volume and because there's more volume, there's less pressure, so the barrels can be thinner. With musket rifle barrels, you need thickness because removing materials for rifling soft steel weakens it, so you need a thicker bore. The best flint comes from the English Channel (on either side) where there's chalk deposits. The flint, chard, whatever in the US sucks compared to English or French flint. The "front sight" on a Brown Bess is actually the bayonet lug, but there are some versions that have a lug on top of the barrel to act like a rudimentary front sight and a lug on the bottom or side of the barrel. The British Irish Rifle Regiments used Baker rifles with patched roundballs (with linen patches, goat skin patches, or thin leather patches) but they could also use bare balls and get reasonable accuracy. They would have their rifle loaded with a patched roundball, and if they didn't have time to use a patch, they had bare ball cartridges. During the Revolutionary period they had cannon powder and gunpowder, which was used for their muskets and pistols, which were often the same caliber as the muskets. In the 1850's, they introduced pistol powder. Cannon powder had big granules, musket powder had smaller granules (about 1.5 F), and pistol powder was smaller. As someone mentioned, they used the same powder to prime out of the cartridges. You can check out a person's doctoral thesis on the Royal Armouries youtube channel that covers the history of guns and gunpowder in England from the 1200's. It took hundreds of years to change the way they made gunpowder and then just 30 years or so to make another major improvement.

I've seen videos where people can hit reliably at 100 yards. The best comparison to modern day guns would be a smoothbore 12 gauge slug gun. The Patriots in Massachusetts leading up to the outbreak of the war had gunsmiths make one off copies of the brown bess called committee of safety muskets. The minilutemen also used Fowler muskets, basically early shotguns. Rifles were used through the war primarily in the south. The British sent out a column to sieze and destroy the arsenal of muskets and powder at Concord which led to battle of Lexington and Concord and we all know what happened that April morning. Daniel Morgan lead a regiment of riflemen through out the war. You had to be a serious good shot and a hardy frontiersman to join. They used precursor guerilla and sniper tactics throughout the war. One of the riflemen is credited with killing British general Simon Fraser at the battle Saratoga who was rallying his troops against the American forces. He climbed into a tree and after a few shots downed General Fraser. The British fell back in disarray and the Americans pressed forward winning the battle. The battle was instrument in getting the French to join on our side. It is such an interesting war.

Happy 4th! God bless 🇺🇸

Happy 4th of july vortex team!!!

I love shooting my flintlock rifle. It's a .50 instead of a .70 but it takes a deer sized animal out to 100 yards easily! Beyond that is VERY possible, but my eyes can't make that shot with the iron sites. All with only 70 grains of powder and a projectile I pour myself!

Please do the Ruger No.1 next!

Petersoli is the top of the line production factory made firelock money can buy, next to having one custom made one at a time. I would not use 3 fg in anything larger than .50 cal. The Charleville is .69 cal.

You guys should do more gun reviews, and do a review for 357 mag, 10mm, or a 260 rem

7mm-08 as a lead balloon. I don't think so. It was the unanimous #1 deer cartridge until the creedmoor. Still the best whitetail round available in my opinion.

Hey great to see the gang all back together! Happy 4th of July! 🇺🇸

Where might I find data to help figure out what kind of percentage of US soldiers and militia were issued or owned the Charleville vs the Brown Bess vs. a KY or PA long rifle?

Happy 4th of July. Please celebrate Independence Day!!🇺🇸

Years later, we inspired the French Revolution. :)

I think, as a thank you to the French, we should do a similar thing for them now.

It's the blind leading the blind here. Many surely unintentionally false statements long disproven apocrypha are uttered. That said, this is a very good video for people that know absolutely nothing about flintlocks, which is honestly only slightly the next step down from the guy that knows the most here. I also want to say that thw same very basic knowledge would also make a terrific starting layman video for a beginner. Someone with academic level knowledge regularly confuses the casual learner.

Then there were "buck and ball" loads, as well as chain shot... FREEDOM!!!

You guys should see if you can hit a jell block with this. I can’t even describe how much I would like to see that wound channel.

My grandad had a small wood paddle type thing with holes drilled in it that had a bit of a wierd tapper to one side of it and he had .59 caliber balls with a patch wraped on them and he would tak that paddle place jt on the muzzle after he had already put the powder down the barel and take the ram rod and knock the ball and patch down the barrel right from the pa#le thing i cant remeber what he called the thing. He only used it that insaw once or twice just tonshow me my cousins or the random friend or family member over for a bbq or party that asked about the rifle and had never shot one or asked to shoot it and was willing to listen to my grandad go on for an hour or so aboit the history and where he had gotten the the rifle and what not. He actually took his last elk the year before he. Passed with a newrer muzzle loader with more modern 59 caliber mini ball shaped i think coppper jacketed rounds and it took caps it wasnt a flint lock ( i cant quite remeber the exact ammo i know it wasnt just a round lead ball forsure sorry lol) its been 9 years sjnce hes passed and my cousin has all his blackpowder stuff cause i got his big bore rifles and his 1911s and most everything else. He had a couple real old rifles that i think were actual civil war guns because all us kids knew we would get our buts whooped if we messed with any of them if i remember right he had 8 black powder rifles and 3 pistols 3 rifles he hunted with once in a while every couple years they were a bit newer then i thjnk 3 were reproduction guns he had got off a friend in a trade for some work hes done along with some other stuff i think lol and we never really did anything with those but the last 2 were not to be touched lol they were in side there own cases in the back of the smaller safe that just had all the black powder guns in them.

The powder in the pan was, most often, protected from moisture by a thin application of some kind of animal grease between the frizzen and the pan.

Guys, don't forget the Russian suppliers in both revolutionary war and civil war. They also protected some ports from the British in both conflicts.

For a moment there it sounds like they used weapons of war to hunt with and vice versa....hmmm!

Charleville was a place, not a person.

What's the G1 BC on a .69 (giggity) caliber ball made from melted lead toys? Does Barnes make a TTSX for this thing? Jokes aside great episode guys!

*Meat Ball* 😊 Idea: "How to store your ammo!" I am going through my ammo right now and found rust on a cartridge.

Lol, Thinking about the Wasp Nest.......Collect it in Winter?

Lots of guys on yt shooting these out to 100 yards and more. You're not getting MOA type accuracy but minute of dear no worries.

The Pennsylvania Long Rifle, sometimes called the Kentucky Long Rifle….

So which rifle was used the most by the colonist? The brown Bess or the the charleville?

7x57 Mauser

America’s Original

The charleville video was likely Mike Beliveau (Duelist1954) at ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-wYu03XUbAyY.htmlsi

I don't think people realize that the French bank rolled, armed, and fought for American independence. If it was not for that, we may have ended up pledging to a British flag. And we didn't get our independence in 1776. We got our independence after the war was over and we actually won between 81 and 83. That's like claiming you are on vacation before making it to the airport. One storm, cancelation, french not paying for your ticket and boom! No you aint.

Any russian weapons in the revolution war since the Russian empire supported the US?

Er, the title is wrong. 1766 was smoothbore, so couldn't be a battle rifle.

I ah ah ahhI ahi Ah ah I ah

Is it really okay to dry fire a flintlock rifle? Please debate.

I seem to always enjoy watching big bores blow some stuff up.

From what I hear, Brown Bess was kind of a soldiers joke or critique of the gun. A modern version would be “Plain Jane”…. Essentially, ugly but works!

Maybe they should have done a little research before making this video...