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From the American Revolution: Short Land Pattern Brown Bess (ad-free)
🕑 Added 2023-03-22 12:00:02 +0000 UTCThe standard weapon of the British Army in the American War of Independence was the “Brown Bess”, and today we are looking at a 1769 Short Land Pattern example of the Brown Bess. This was a smoothbore .75 caliber, 10.2 pound flintlock with a whopping 42 inch barrel (the Long Land Pattern it superseded had a 46” barrel). Adopted in 1769, it would serve as the British standard infantry arm until 1797.
This particular example was issued to the 53rd Infantry Regiment, otherwise known as the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry. This regiment arrived in Quebec City in May 1776 and participated in the fighting at Ticonderoga and Saratoga, where several of its companies were captured and interned until the end of the war.
Jonathan Ferguson's explanation of "Brown Bess": https://royalarmouries.org/stories/our-collection/brown-bess-musket-or-mistress/
Comments
Guido Schriewer
looks like this one made it much much longer than 12years. those were the standart for soooo long. must have worked kind of fine.
Matthew Stanchfield
There was a study in 2017 where actual cartridges were analyzed and the duplicated- the results were far lower muzzle velocities than were reported at the time. This duplicates my findings- 125 grs of shutzen FFg w/ a 69. cal ball w/ a muzzle velocity of about 950 fps (results using Swiss 11/2 fg don't vary significantly). Adding onto the charge- 130grs and 140 grs of powder don't vary the velocities by a significant degree- I have never reached a velocity above 1200fps, and have only done that with the use of a patched ball. This mirrors the findings of Scott, et.al. (funded by the Modern Heritage Foundation, 2017). As to larger charges, those were French charges, and the powder was far inferior to British powder.
Sonny Hughes
I remember reading a similar quote from, I believe, a British officer regarding the accuracy of the musket. Something to he effect of, "a man hit by an intentionally aimed shot beyond 100 paces was considered to be an extremely unlucky individual". Quite different from their views on the American rifle carrying "irregulars"
Logan
Neat! That is a good piece. I live not to far from Fort Ticonderoga and they have a very good collection of historical pieces there. I do not know if their brown Bess’s have as good of a connection to the fort as that one may. I did go to a private viewing of some of the muskets with the current curator a few years back and the focus was on the French muskets.
David Brewer
Sempai noticed me!
Stuart Morrow
Very early US thumbnails like the Chambers Flintlock should actually use the state flag as the individual states were the sovereigns (that's why they're called states) and the countries at the time.
Forgotten Weapons
Dang, you're right - I've gotten so used to the modern Union Jack that it didn't occur to me to check when it was actually adopted. :) I've fixed it now. And yes, I do try to get the proper US flags on everything.
David Brewer
The flag you are using to represent Britain/UK is wrong. Before 1801 the UK flag did not have the red diagonal strips (which are intended to represent Ireland). See Wikipedia entry for "Union Jack". You are usually pretty good about getting flags right for old polities that have been superceded (like various flavours of Germany). Admittedly, I've never checked to see if you use the correct number of stars in old American flags.
z c
Turns out the real Brown Bess was the friends we made along the way
Forgotten Weapons
I take them with me. They are very useful at museums and private collections that don;'t normally have good display stands around.
Mark Trombley
Do you carry the wooden blocks with you or are they supplied by the various auction houses?
I plan on getting a firing replica one
