The Model 1851 Minie Rifle,Before the widespread use of rifles on the battlefield, the common arm of

The Model 1851 Minie Rifle,Before the widespread use of rifles on the battlefield, the common arm of every military force was the smoothbore musket.  Unlike rifles, smoothbore muskets lack rifling, which cause the bullet to spin while flying through the air.  This spin stabilizes the bullet, making it more accurate and giving it further range.  In Before the mid 9th century, all firearms fired round balls.  While rifles were accurate, they were slow loading because it was difficult to cram a patch and ball down the barrel against the rifling.  As a result rifles were slow loading (about 1-2 shots a minute) and thus rifles were uncommon, and only usually reserved for specialized soldiers such as scouts and sharpshooters.  Most infantrymen were armed with smoothbore muskets, since the smooth bore allowed for faster loading (around 2-3 shots or more per minute). Smoothbores, however, were very inaccurate, with an optimum range of 100 - 150 yards.In 1848 a French Army captain named Claude Etienne Minie invented a new bullet called the “minie ball”.  The new minie ball was conical shaped instead of round, and most importantly had a hollow base.  Minie balls were loaded under caliber, thus a .58 rifle would be loaded with a .57 caliber minie ball.  When fired, the hollow base allowed pressure to expand the bullet, which made contact with the rifling.  As a result, a rifle could maintain it’s accuracy while being as fast to load as a smoothbore musket.  Eventually, armies began to adopt “rifled muskets”. For the first time when it came to accuracy, infantrymen could have their cake, and eat it too.To complement the minie ball, the French introduced the minie rifle in 1851.  The 1851 Minie Rifle was like most other percussion muskets before it, except for a rifled barrel of course.  It rifling increased effective range from 100 yards hundreds of yard.  Because of its increased range and accuracy, the Minie rifle came with something that most muskets before it; a rear sight.  The Minie rifle was the first rifled musket used by any army.  Shortly thereafter, other nations came out with their own models.  The British adopted the Enfield in 1853, the Americans the Springfield Model 1855, and the Austrians the Lorenz rifle in 1855.  By the mid 1850’s, smoothbore muskets were totally obsolete.  The use of rifled muskets would especially be popular in two major wars; the Crimean War in the 1850’s, and the American Civil War in the 1860’s.The Minie rifle served primarily through the Crimean War in Russia.  It was short lived, however, as the French adopted a bolt action rifle called the Chassepot rifle in 1866.  Many Minie rifles were exported, especially to the Confederacy during the American Civil War, and Japan.  By the 1870’s, most major powers were phasing out their rifled muskets for even more advanced firearms which used self contained metallic cartridges. -- source link

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