Firelocks: The Pirate's Favorite Arm | Pirate Weaponry 

Whilst there are documentations of buccaneers utilizing the tap loading technique(known to them as "Chargée a la Boucanier) it is rather dangerous to attempt yourself. Spitting a bullet down the muzzle is hard in a stressful situation, and if you've primed the pan and poured down powder, the cock might go off and burn your face off! It's best to keep any flesh as far away from the gun as possible .)

The inaccuracy of muskets is often greatly exaggerated, they were plenty accurate enough for engaging within 100 yards and you could still hit an animal-sized target (like a human) within that range with a degree of reliability, and combat of the time mostly took place within a hundred so the accuracy of muskets was not that big of a drawback, rifling became more of a necessity as combat started to take place at longer and longer range. Firing in volleys was more of a way to keep steady gunfire going to ensure a hit on the enemy due to the slower rate of fire of muskets compared to modern firearms and this practice carried on into the era of bolt action firearms until after WWI when the role of delivering steady fire was given over to the designated machine gun (WWI changed combat entirely, we were still using parts of the 1700s model up until then). The Machine Gun is still the deliverer of steady fire today and combat rifles today are moreso for picking off targets and personal defense or covering the machine gunner, even these days Machine Guns are not the most accurate (barrel heats up and expands throwing off bullets and it's built to looser tolerances than rifles) but like in the olden days of muskets they don't need to be.

Being a reenactor I once owned a Brown Bess reproduction in .75 caliber. I fired live rounds at a man sized target to see the accuracy. I could consistently hit the target at 50 yards. Beyond that it progressively got harder. I would say it was probably a 50-50 chance at 100 yards. This would be compounded by powder fouling after 6 or 7 rounds and reloading time increased. Rogers Rangers of the American French and Indian war would drill their musket touch holes out so powder would get into the pan from the barrel with the frizzen closed and drop the ball down the barrel with no patch. These tactics greatly increased their firing speed and some of this may have been done at sea. As a side note to your excellent video, the longer the barrel, the better the powder burn, no unburned powder blowing out of the muzzle. THAT would contribute to bullet energy and accuracy. Just some practical info for you.

Treasure Island 1990 might be the only pirate movie to show pirates (not soldiers fighting pirates) actually fire a volley.

Fun enough , most of the modern Portuguese words for weapons are still the names from the flint lock era , a fusil is a single shot carabine , a carabina is a automatic , a escopeta , although less used it's a shotgun. Says a lot about our country weapons wise.

Yo this channel deserves attention

My favourite is the blunderbuss. Because who wouldn't love a predecessor to the Shotgun.

As a fan of Flintlocks and Pistols I appreciate this video very much and in terms of history

Our krewe held a fund raising event at the local gun range about 3 years ago or so. Several of our pirates are certified with blackpowder weapons. I got a chance to fire a flintlock musket. I can say this for sure it was so much fun! A totally different experience than firing modern firearms! There is an element of danger firing them too! Lol! The re-enactors fire flintlocks and cannons for the Pirate Seale's Invasion of St Augustine (I did a video of it a few years ago). I only have replica flintlock pistols in my Pirate Armory! Very informative video mate!

At 1:23, that inside view of a rifled barrel reminds me of part of the opening sequence to the 007 movies. The name’s Sparrow. Jack Sparrow. Licensed to take all you can, and give nothing back 🏴‍☠️

If I remember right, the wooden gunpowder holders on the bandolier were not called apostles until long after they went out of fashion, and were called so retroactively. I believe the period appropriate term is "charges"

Love this channel, I wonder if any pirates ever wore some sort of armor?

Good job! It's refreshing to hear someone talk intelligently about early firearms. I'm a collector of firearms, both early and modern, and most self proclaimed "experts" know little about the true nature of early back powder firearms.

I've heard from Brandon F that reloading via the pounding method could be quite dangerous and spitting the musket balls into a musket would be unwise after firing multipe shots.

In terms of the accuracy and range of a musket, most armies of the time period could engage targets up to 300 yards, but the commonly accepted best combat range was 100-150 yards

just found this channel, this is definitely top tier content

loved the glowie joke

3:55 the quality of that shot, the video shot, was incredible

Very well done!

0:59 one other thing is cannon were normally double shotted and sometimes triple shotted meaning they had 2 or 3 cannon balls being fired at once making them more expensive

One of my favorite pirate weapons was actually a dagger or knife, perfect for dealing with friend or foe... we are pirates after all.

I am so happy we do not have to use these types of weapons any longer. I can't even imagine having to load one of these things just to fire one round and aiming them must have been a nightmare. Addendum- modern pistols might be typically used in close quarters but their effective range is 100 to 150 feet. Further, using the Weaver Stance with both hands and controlled breathing you can hold a pistol grip very steady.

I am sooo enjoying these videos, thank you!

Another great informative & interesting video. I’m subbing right now! ✨👏🏼😎✨

Arrrrr! This content really shiver me timbers! You have earned a subscriber matey. Are there any plans making a video about pirate ship weapons (cannons, swivel guns etc)?

Please refer to the comments I made in your first video allowing me to convey my appreciation and gratitude for your videos! I am impressed by how comprehensive and well-presented what I have seen is so far! Even presenting some very obscure yet interesting points. Like I mentioned previously, I will not be able to comment on each video but thank you for each video I look forward to the series and applaud you for your efforts and meticulous attention to detail! 0 Your series is on auto-play and I am not going to be able to comment after each video, so again let me convey my appreciation and gratitude for your whole series!

I am noticing British rifleman and buccaneers both are tap loading of the muskets and working in pairs of shooting. I know the pirates are not having rifles, but tactics similar seeming.

Great video! Thanks for the information

Another outstanding video.

love the information!

Love your videos! Beautiful work!

Nice video as usual

Golden Info my Pirate friend

great video!

Great info!

Great vid

During the age of muskets a lot of people had with them a bayonet but were much more comfortable using a sword. So when out of ammo, they would fix bayonets, and throw the musket like a javelin before drawing their sword and charging.

on square shot: this was common=ish in the Balkans. Austrian musketeers would poor extra lead into a trough to make a square bar and then coil that to make it easy to carry. if they ended up in a fight were they lacked round balls they'd cut of pieces of the bar and use that.

Bows and crossbows are not often associated with pirates, but they were probably also used. Could be an interesting topic.

Interesting video!

Great video, excellent thanks for the education/ entertainment

Stay strapped PPL.

You're correct about impact not setting off gunpowder, but since the guns of the day spit a lot of flame, you could ignite powder by firing a flintlock gun close enough so the flame would ignite the powder. Of course, you would have to be fairly close, thus doing so would kill you. If you made a trail of powder and then ignited it, that would work. As long as you ran like hell! Note that fire arrows were used on more than one occasion to ignite a powder storage room, destroying the fortification and anyone nearby.

OMG!!!!! Willem can you do in the future a video about a pirate by the name of Roberto Cofresí. He was a puertorican pirate that operated from 1791 to 1825. This really means a lot to me because I am from Puerto Rico. Also would love to know more of Puerto Rico’s role during, or around the period of the pirates and privateers.

Awesome video! I would love to know more about their relationship with arms dealers of the period

Nice one

👍 thank you

11:57 nice lose yourself reference

Cool! I love it!

Good videos

What are a few of your favorite pirate movies? Im looking for realism, and not sure where to start. Figured id ask here. Great vid as always man, keep it up.

Lol I love pirates so much! Just would want to get scurvy. That's my one and only dream in life

May love pirates

I managed to pick up a black powder pistol a long time ago and it was really quite a ride to play with I didn't have any ammo for it at first and I ended up wanting to shoot it so bad that I just use a grease fitting it's pretty hilarious! Actually a great weapon the fact that you can kind of make anything be your projectile is pretty handy ! Even the item that I was shooting was pretty accurate and trust me you would not want to be hit with it

Lots of modern idioms from these old firearms. "Half-cocked" for unprepared, and "flash in the pan" for a showy event with no lasting effect.

Great weapon!

' Thump Loading ' a musket can be very dangerous after a couple shots if the ball gets stuck on fouling and not firmly compressed onto the powder like it's supposed to be. This will allow the build up of hot gas behind the ball and can blow up the musket

The tactical flintlock might have been a rave back then with its tactical sights and laser 🤣🤣

I cannot unsee the rooster.

18:00 I have fired an arrow out of a musket. Worked well.

sparky go boom!

i feel like reloading would be frustrating, especially in the heat of battle. you're being blasted yet you have to do this slowish process only for it to miss.

Smoothbore bullets dont "bounce around the barrel" when firing, they just arent spin stabilized after they exit. Anything small enough to do that would be wasting powder because most of the expanding gas would go around the bullet instead of accelerating it

love your videos! Did buccaneers use paper cartridges?

A patch was put around the lead ball to make them fit tight and shoot straighter. At close range 1/4 inch shot was used they called pea shot .

Another hazard of being shot with a musket ball was fabric from clothing getting pushed into the wound channel causing infection if not extracted (usually with bare fingers).

Pirates favorite arms are actually their right ones

I`d love to fire one

The hammer does not cause steel sparks, instead, it is the flint which is sparking since the steel is harder than flint. Trivia - the term "running off half-cocked" comes from folks forgetting to fully cock their guns before attacking and thus running into combat and being unable to fire until they realize they need to fully cock the weapon. This could be fatal since if you're depending on your firearm to discharge at the person rushing at you with a weapon or aiming their own gun at you and it doesn't fire because it's only at half-cock, they could hurt or kill you in the time it takes you to realize and then fully cock the weapon. The wheel-lock was never in favor because it was an expensive gun to manufacture, with it typically only being used by nobles and other wealthy individuals and normally just as a hunting rather than a combat weapon. In addition to being expensive, wheel-locks required a lot of maintenance and upkeep and could easily fail if they got dirty, something which would be inevitable on the battlefield or on a ship, never mind the risk of rust from the salt water and moist air. Three shots a minute for a flintlock was considered expert level shooting as that was the qualifying requirement for the Minutemen during the American Revolution. The six shot a minute trick was done by using smaller balls than normal, hence the reason they didn't need to be rammed home. Muskets were realistically accurate out to around 50 yards for individual targets while firing volleys - a bunch of people all firing together - into a crowd made them feasible out to a hundred yards or so but beyond that, it required a skilled shooter. It wasn't until the invention of rifling and the Minie Ball - a bullet which resembles our modern bullets - that aiming at an individual target at ranges of 100+ yards started to become realistic, with the Pennsylvania Long Rifles of the American Revolution regularly killing individual targets at 250 yards. Black powder smells like sulfur when fired, not charcoal, due to sulfur being one of the three components, the other two being charcoal and potassium nitrate, or salt peter as it was known back in the day. The bullets didn't burst due to imperfect metallurgy as there's nothing fancy about making lead bullets, especially round balls, while lead itself is extremely easy to process and purify thanks to its low melting point - you can melt lead on your stove top or any small fire which is capable of boiling water, heck, put a small piece of lead on a spoon and hold it over a candle long enough and it will melt. Instead, bullets would easily deform upon impact due to them being made of pure lead, which is extremely soft and thus far more likely to deform upon impact. Square bullets were unique to the Puckle gun, which was a muzzle loading version of the modern Gattling guns. The thought was that the square bullets made nastier wounds, so nasty in fact that it was declared they could not be fired at Christians and the Puckle gun was to be used exclusively against savages and Muslims. Nothing mythical about firing arrows from a musket - or more likely, a blunderbuss - as that was one of the first things people fired in addition to rocks when firearms first started being invented - whether or not wrapping cloth around it and causing it to set stuff on fire worked out is another matter.

That Terry Davis reference totally caught me off guard 😂

12:26 That looks like a sawed off shotgun bazooka 😨🤔

You're a big guy

What movie footage did you use? that film looks good.

"I’d never even held a blunderbuss afore. I’m like… “Well, I be needin’… I be needin’ some shot, too.” And the ol’ salt reached under the counter, put two boxes of shot on the counter. He said, “All right, matey. Which box do ye want?” I didn’t know. One box had a picture of some seagulls on it. The other box had a picture of some stags. I said, “Well, what’s that box with them seagulls?” He said, “Oh, that there’s swanshot.” And then he goes just like this, I’m not exaggerating, he goes, “That won’t kill a man.” He said, “It’ll just pepper him up nicely.” I said, “What the blazes? Pepper?” Ye know what it means to pepper a scallywag up? It means that when the shell explodes, hot BBs will shoot out of the barrel of the blunderbuss, not killing a scallywag, but penetrating their skin and shallow flesh. Boy, that’s gotta hurt. Hot BBs? “Aah! Aaaah!” Remember when Dick Cheney shot a scallywag in the face and he lived? That was swanshot. I said, “Well, what’s that box with the stag on it?” He goes, “Oh, that there is buckshot. That’ll put a hole in a goddamn galleon if ye wanted to. So, which box do ye want?” And he picked the one with the stag up and shook it. I thought he was trying to trick me. I was like, “Do ye have a box, uh, with a picture of a white landlubber trespassing on it? 'Cause… …that’s exactly the strength I’m looking for. But I didn’t know that if ye’re defending yer home with a blunderbuss, the formula dictates that ye’re supposed to buy both boxes. This was not a formula that I was familiar with. It goes like this: there’s six shots in a 12-gauge blunderbuss. So when ye load the gun, ye load it like this. First shot, swanshot. Next shot, buckshot. Swanshot, and then after that, gun’s Jamaican. Buckshot, buckshot, buckshot.”

Maintaining a black powder gun is no joke. I destroyed the barrel of my hawken rifle by cleaning it improperly.

Cia land lubbers glow and thus are easier to keelhaul on your ship, arrrgh. You can also be keepin one up the navigator's nest as a dasdardly spotlight, but they need a lot of strange white nose sugar to work!

Nice video! Did they ever use weapons, besides flintlocks and cutlasses? Like axes, or bows/arrows?

What movie or show was playing in the background of this video @7:13 and numerous other times throughout?

I'd love to know more on Golden/Silver Age sharpshooters who fired from the rigging. The Buccaneering ages and the Buccaneer/Flibustiers had their go-to marksmen of the old Boucaniers, though I can never find any information on 18th century, Golden/Silver Era pirates who sniped from the fighting tops, aside from in your (great) videos. Did those who fought in the rigging/tops use Buccanner Guns/fowling pieces as the previous Buccaneers or did they just use typical muskets? Did they just designate any (well, capable) crewman as sharpshooter and send them up in the rigging or was it a specific role?

Some observe: -Sash carry progenitor of appendix carry. -Marty from POTC is carry mortar / granate launcher not blunderbuss. (Lego POTC epic!) -Some square bullet artillery and musket advert "for using against infidels"

I was so happy when I heard that the Spanish got the short end of the stick for once, instead of the Dutch.

What is the pirate/naval movie whose clips are used in many of your videos? Looks like it's from the 1960s or 70s by the film quality. I want to check it out! I worked at a gun shop for a time and we had a collector sell a few of his older items through us. Among the guns we got from him was a blunderbuss with hilariously-flimsy spring-loaded spike bayonet (was made in the early 1800s), a Queen Anne pistol from 1810 or so in great shape, and a mystery muzzle-loading flintlock pistol from the late 1700's. All were well worn from use over their centuries of life, but they all still worked well and I've no doubt they'd have fired if we put new flints on them. I still kick myself for not buying the Queen Anne pistol for myself.

what is that film or series playing in the background

Just a casual terry davis joke

Idk about the evolution of the word, but the word “fusil” which originally referred to a musket, now generally means gun or firearm, so that’s kind of interesting

I liked the vid before it even started

There is only a single historical example of wooden cartouches, cartridge's or flasks being referred to as "Apostles" and it was done so in quoting a Spanish monk who was drunk and raving. There are no other examples of these flasks being called such and bandoleers could have between 10 to 24 flasks. 12 was common only because it matched the number of musket balls commonly produced from a 1 pound bar of lead. "Apostle" is a common modern contrivance among reenactors taken from a source that was actively mocking the man who used that term by pure chance.

The arrow story isn't that implausible

How has Pilps not discovered this channel? It has one of his favorite things in the title.

I'm a black powder gun nut too

👍

what kind of melee weapon's did pirates use in some pictures i see axe's and stuff

👍🏻

I miss u

Gold and Gunpowder: This doesn't derive from anything dirty Me at 6:27: *takes it dirty anyway* 🤣

What movie is that at 1:09?

i don't think that muskets often been used as bats, because of the thin wood of the buttstock, much likely they just used it as a spear more often. But hey in dire circumstances anithing goes i guess

Da best pirate channel

What is that movie that keeps showing up in the video

what is the show or movie that some of the clips are from