How to Fire a Matchlock Musket 

Crikey imagine having to do all that with pikemen advancing on you. Or cavalry round the flanks. Poor buggers. Great video though, and what a satisfying noise the musket makes.

the deadly simplicity of that design really impresses me.....just blows my mind. QUESTION: In battle, back in the 1640s, did the soldier leave the burning match rope "in place" or have to take it out for fear of it firing during loading?

Cool. Will you be demonstrating a wheel lock at some point?

This is from whence the expression 'a flash in the pan'

nice

Flintlocks weren't so fast in ignition (more passages, from flint to sparks to shot) while they were more protected against rain and wind. Matter of choice, finally.

really intresting

great tutorial

Imagine reloading that while getting shot at, or during wind or rain. :S I wonder why they didnt use flintlocks... I imagine reloading a flintlock musket to be slightly easier to reload than a matchlock musket, since you didnt have to worry about keeping the fuse lit.

wow

This was technology during the 17th century.Replaced the bow and crossbow

thats right. You didn't have to blow a cord to light a fuse. the flint created a spark to ignite the gun powder to push the lead ball.

no, the English civil war (1642-1652)-parliment vs.King. otherwise an englishman wouldn't be talking about this.

So this is what my Spanish ancestors used. Pretty hardcore. Many of them still used the crossbow though. Crossbow used a large amount of kinetic energy and was way more accurate than the longbow and could use armor piercing arrows and fire faster which made it the most common weapon used by conquistadors, but we still used the matchlock muskets mainly for forts because the bullets traveled a lot further and hit way harder making them great for holding off hordes of enemies and heavily armored threats like the British's heavy infantry units, for hunting since these could easily drop a bear, and fantastic choice of weaponry for a ship battle since you can use them to punch a bunch of smaller holes into your enemies ship while the main cannons are being reloaded. It would be hard to decide between a musket and crossbow. Crossbows are nice but muskets and way more intimidating and have much more kinetic energy but it's only 1 shot. I would probably have chosen a blunderbuss though. a scatter of pellets means all you need is one shot.

JKB didn't say they were more expensive. I said they were.

Flintlocks were more advanced, and thus more expensive.

herp derp, do you see him wearing anything remotely american looking?