Musket balls were an early form of ammunition used in muskets in the early 1800’s as the standard ammunition for most troops. Musket balls were much bigger than standard bullets today, reaching 75.caliber at the largest. Musket balls were much bigger than bullets today and so caused massive internal injuries. Some musket balls were filled with grape shot, which would burst out of the thin layer of lead and spread out to cause more damage to massed troops. Musket balls lacked accuracy because of lack of rifling in the barrel of the musket from which it was being fired, therefore it could only accurately shoot up to 50 yards.
During the civil war armies started using rifling in their muskets and using minie balls. Minie balls were not actually balls, but were shorter and larger version of our bullets. They were called balls because the term had carried over from musket balls, which they used at the beginning of the war. In the middle of the 19th century musket balls became completely obsolete because of the invention of the minie ball and the rifled musket, and due to its inaccuracy and slowness of loading.
By: Tristan