Question About Muskets

[Morph]

Humor me with an answer to this question, or at least an educated guess.

How long would it take a modern teenager to become proficient with a matchlock musket given the following conditions?

--Their only past experience with guns of any kind are bad action movies.

--They have access to the musket at all times but are only allowed to fire it during battle due to the scarcity of black powder, the supply of which is tightly monitored. Battles occur with some frequency.

--They have above average hand-eye coordination, and can generally hit what they aim at.

--They were briefly given basic instructions on how to use the weapon (keeping the matchcord lit, making and using paper cartridges, cleaning, etc).

--Assume "proficiency" means firing at least one shot per minute, and that failure to do so within a reasonable timeframe will result in a most painful death.

For bonus points, if you were this teenager, what steps would you take to learn as fast as you could?

 

[TheZanta]

Having used one with previous gun experience, I could say that proficiency at a shot per minute is probably likely after consistent use after a month? People using muskets are capable of reloading by 20 seconds if they were properly trained, but someone with no intensive training or active use of the weapon, I'd say they could do a shot a minute or a minute and a half after using it for a solid 1 or 2 months.

 

[Nilum]

Professionals could reload them as fast as every 15 seconds.

In terms of a teenager and learning it? Constant use and having a mentor who can teach them shortcuts and show them the motions. It would likely take them a couple months to learn it on their own.

 

[Conman2163]

That is quite a difficult question. Given the conditions however, I will attempt to answer it as simply as possible.

We are assuming that the teenager has had no real prior experience with the firearm, however, said teen does have access to it off the battlefield. In terms of being able to reload, the teen should be able to practice more then enough when it comes to reloading to become proficient at the reloading part of the process, the shooting part is the issue.

You see, matchlock muskets are finicky things. Due to the technology at the time of their invention, they were prone to misfire, accidental discharges, and since they didn't have the knowledge that a rifled barrel would make the weapon more accurate, they just weren't accurate.

So if you want to talk about being proficient with a matchlock in terms of firing the weapon, you could easily learn to load and fire the weapon within threeish weeks of receiving such a weapon, particularly since you don't need to have gunpowder to learn to load it, just the gun itself and maybe a bullet or two. Their have been written accounts from soldiers who have reportedly been able to fire and load their muskets under fourteen seconds, but give 'em some adrenaline and they could probably get that down to twelve.

However, if you wished to learn to shoot it accurately (and therefor truly be proficient), due to the issues mentioned above (and assuming that the weapon and ammunition is of 16th century make) it would be a process that could take well over six months, maybe even over a year, to learn to do proficiently. Top that off with the teen only having access to gunpowder to fire it during a battle, and the teen having to fire it proficiently within a battle to stay alive means that this could take even longer. Assuming they did not meet a gruesome end within those battles, it could take them up to a year and a half. A person that could say they are a marksman with the weapon would probably spend even longer then that.

But moving past that to the bonus section, to learn to use the musket proficiently, i'd likely practice loading the weapon without gunpowder until I could meet said quota. After all, the firing part is only one half the battle, you can still "pretend" that you placed gunpowder in the muzzle and firing pan.

 

[Qeno]

Going by the conditions you are giving, if this teenager doesn't die a gruesome death before he/she becomes proficient enough to use a musket I would give this person 6 months. I would also comment that muskets were never accuate to begin with, hence why in military history they were fired in volleys so I am also counting this in the 6 months of strenuous training.