Earliest development of a functional carbine

GdwnsnHo

Banned
I flippantly mentioned in this thread : https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=372649 The idea of Genghis Khans descendants developing carbines and cannons, and using them to conquer the world.

This is why I thought I'd ask, what is the earliest a flintlock musket (and therefore theoretically a flintlock carbine, if primitive and simply rifled) could be developed?

The three (four) biggest problems I can see are

1) Metallurgy -> most primitive cannons and hand-cannons were heavy, because of the sheer amount of metal involved. Who would have the best metallurgy, or be on the cusp of developing it, that a small PoD could take advantage of.

2) Loading -> You can't load a musket on a horse. You can with levies, and I imagine a Mongol army could use ammunition-controlled levy-musketmen very well. Horsemen however, not so easy because it is difficult to load. Is there some other horse-mounted method that could be used?

3) Firing -> Honestly, I can't see this working without Flintlocks, a matchlock carbine is an interesting idea, but I don't it being reliable.

4) Gunpowder -> Actually developing gunpowder to be used this way
 
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I flippantly mentioned in this thread : https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=372649 The idea of Genghis Khans descendants developing carbines and cannons, and using them to conquer the world.

This is why I thought I'd ask, what is the earliest a flintlock musket (and therefore theoretically a flintlock carbine, if primitive and simply rifled) could be developed?

The three (four) biggest problems I can see are

1) Metallurgy -> most primitive cannons and hand-cannons were heavy, because of the sheer amount of metal involved. Who would have the best metallurgy, or be on the cusp of developing it, that a small PoD could take advantage of.

2) Loading -> You can't load a musket on a horse. You can with levies, and I imagine a Mongol army could use ammunition-controlled levy-musketmen very well. Horsemen however, not so easy because it is difficult to load. Is there some other horse-mounted method that could be used?

3) Firing -> Honestly, I can't see this working without Flintlocks, a matchlock carbine is an interesting idea, but I don't it being reliable.

4) Gunpowder -> Actually developing gunpowder to be used this way

Without necessarily getting into the likelihood, I do want to point out that muskets can be loaded on horseback. Especially long muskets (like the Kentucky long rifle), where the butt can be made to rest on the ground and the barrel rises to knee-level or higher for the mounted gun user. It also never really developed, but there's no compelling reason that you couldn't put a plate or hook on the stirrups to place the butt of a musket while loading.

There's other issues involved with using very long barrels on a horse (namely that they're even less stable while moving than shorter guns), but loading isn't necessarily the issue.
 
and it will be a while before carbines are more effective than composite bows on horseback.pistols will be a good addition though.
 
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