Muzzleldrs Musketoon - what equipment is appropriate?

drezac

First Sergeant
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Baltimore,Ohio
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photo: by @JOHN42768 https://civilwartalk.com/threads/be...military-musketoon-rifle.180911/#post-2348720
Our battery acquired a musketoon ( reproduction) through a donation ( It was hanging on the wall in someone's office at the Ohio State House. Nobody else wanted it so they gave it to Battery A). Not being familiar with weapons using ammunition under 3", What equipment would be appropriate for a musketoon ( cartridge box, capbox,etc)? Since we already have it, I would like to get the appropriate items so we can issue it at events where we are required to post a guard in camp. However I don't know enough about small arms to determine exactly what we need - for example, would we use a standard infantry cartridge box?

Thanks.
 
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Dwayne, I assume we’re taking about a US Springfield Musketoon? W’d be looking for a .69 cal cartridge box, if so... the musketoon was originally a cavalry weapon so presumably it’d be issued with cavalry style accoutrements.

Others can correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the cap box is basically the same for everyone, but cavalry cartridge boxes are worn on a waist belt, instead of a cross sling like the infantry. They’d also have a cavalry sling and clip to attach to the ring on the slider bar. That’s the basic standard for cavalry accoutrements, but I don’t know if the reproduction cavalry cartridge boxes come in .69 caliber. I suppose we could make a new wood block for the inside of the box though if we had to.
 
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https://www.horsesoldier.com/products/firearms/longarms/14183

Here’s an original artillery musketoon, and as you say it doesn’t seem to have a cavalry style sling. Others seem to have infantry style slings, so probably that means they would have typical infantry style accoutrements, bayonet & scabbard, cap box, and .69 cal cartridge box. Or .57 if you have the Enfeild version. Can you post a picture?
 
https://www.horsesoldier.com/products/firearms/longarms/14183

Here’s an original artillery musketoon, and as you say it doesn’t seem to have a cavalry style sling. Others seem to have infantry style slings, so probably that means they would have typical infantry style accoutrements, bayonet & scabbard, cap box, and .69 cal cartridge box. Or .57 if you have the Enfeild version. Can you post a picture?
not yet - I'll pick it up the next time I get to the warehouse
 
I would say that standard infantry accoutrements would probably be most appropriate. You can put them all on the belt rather than putting the cartridge box on a separate sling.
 
Good question, I'll have to look into it. I'd assume so for the Springfeild Musketoon, because it was in .69 and a smoothbore (initially anyhow, some of the late ones may have been rifled). That one was said to "be an arm... which has no advocates" because of it's high inaccuracy and slow reload, so buck and ball probably wouldn't have been a bad idea, at least you'd maybe get one ball of many to hit something.

Enfeild musketons I know less about, but they were .57 cal rifles, so would have used the Minne ball.

It's hard to say what the accessories for a artillery musketoon would be partly because they were rare beasts, and partly because artillery small arms aren't super well documented. I imagine that's because such guns were largely tools for artillery men, something to mount guard of the carriage park or horses with, or in the case of pistols dispatch wounded horses with. I imagine something like a musketoon would live in one of the battery wagons most of the time and get handed to whoever drew the short straw for guard duty when you got to camp...
 
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