Round shot is frequently (and mistakenly) referred to by the generic term ‘musket ball’ regardless of its size or weight. During the period in which the muzzle loaded smoothbore weapon took off as a small arm, the musket was only one of numerous forms of firearm in use: other weapons shooting round shot included the pistol (in the smallest calibre single-ball-firing weapon), followed by the carbine, arquebus, caliver, musket, large musket and wall piece. In the 18th century this list had condensed down into just the three main categories of weapon size: musket, carbine and pistol, with a fourth, the wall piece, still being manufactured up until the start of the 1800s. While there may have been other firearms with varying calibres in small scale use, these remain the main groupings. Categorisation of the shot into weapon sizes is, unfortunately, never quite as clear cut as this. For example, pistols came in three bores: pistol, carbine and musket, while carbines came in carbine and musket bore. While the shot sizes remain grouped by , as shown below, the identification of the weapon that fired them may not be so straightforward.
The generalised calibres of the smoothbores and diameters of the shot that they fired are shown below.
- Pistol calibre: 0.560 in
- Pistol shot diameter: 0.515 in
- Carbine calibre: 0.650 in
- Carbine shot diameter: 0.615 in
- Musket calibre: 0.753 in
- Musket shot diameter: 0.685 in
- Wall piece calibre: 0.980 in
- Wall piece shot diameter: 0.890 in
18th and 19th century smoothbore weapons
