Quote Originally Posted by Storm Bringer View Post
a question of a idle mind:

the Minie ball came into usage in the 1840s (ish), but is thier any reason why, if it had been thought of, it could not have been invented eariler. from my understanding of the tech, the only thing that prevented it form being invented eariler was that no one had thought of it.

am i right, or am i missing something? is thier some critical element of the Minie ball or the rilfes of the time that prevented it form working any eariler?
Concerning the topic of the Minie ball. I just came across a reference to the "Nessler Ball" (or bullet). Apparently during the mid-1850s, this was a sort of minie ball for *smoothbore*(!) muskets. And was said to extend the effective range of muskets considerably. It's description sounds like a short minie ball. It was popular with European armies, especially in the 1850s, as a stop-gap measure, but for some reason was never adopted by the US during the Civil War. Here's a link to some more info:

http://www.civilwarguns.com/9910b.html

Can't seem to find out too much info about it, but that article mentions a test. If anybody knows anything else, I would be interested to hear.