I believe using cap and minie ball, 4 rounds a minute was a good rate of fire from a Springfield/enfield muzzle loader.
central-va wrote:
“I believe using cap and minie ball, 4 rounds a minute was a good rate of fire from a Springfield/enfield muzzle loader.”
As a former black-powder rifle owner, I do not disagree!
However, your rifle of choice was just that, rifled, whereas the original rifle, in the original article was a smoothbore.
So, the progression of the soldier’s capacity to ‘bring fire to the enemy’, increased by a total of one round per minute, from 1776 to 1860, correct?
(Really makes those folks that had Spencer and Henry rifles appear to be ‘speed demons’, does it not?)