SMOOTHBORES were the workhorse guns on the colonial American frontier. For warfare and for hunting they dominated the American firearms scene for most of the eighteenth century. But, as the frontier moved to the open spaces of the Great Plains in the 19th century, big-bore rifles, with their ability to accurately hit big game at long distances, became the standard guns of frontiersmen.
For a time, smoothbore muskets maintained their pre-eminence on the battlefield because they had much higher rates of fire than slower-loading muzzle-loading rifles. But in 1849, the invention of the rifled musket, firing a Minié ball, erased that advantage.
The Minié ball was an undersized, hollow-based bullet. Because it was undersized, it could be loaded as quickly as a smoothbore musket ball, but, upon firing, the hollow…
