alternatehistory.com

As you can probably guess from the title, this thread is about how firearms would have developed if the Minie ball hadn't been introduced. Historically, early rifles were impractical for line infantry because they tended to foul up when fired, making it harder to push the ammunition down the barrel. The Minie ball OTOH expanded when fired, filling the barrel and reducing fouling, giving soldiers the range of a rifle with the loading speed of a musket.

IRL, the adoption of the Minie ball was followed by the widespread introduction of breech-loading rifles. What I was wondering is whether such weapons would still be useful without the Minie ball, or whether we'd have seen breech-loading smoothbore muskets instead. Given their design, it would be easy to reload breech-loaders regardless of the fouling, so would this be enough to make breech-loading rifles practical for line infantry? Or would the rifling get fouled up enough to fill in the grooves, and essentially turn it into a smoothbore anyway after a couple of shots?
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