Musket
The naming of guns, like the naming of diseases, has generally declined over the centuries (remember when we had St. Vitus’ Dance and The Black Death? Now we just contract SCIDS and athlete’s foot). The hand cannon was replaced by the arquebus, which was replaced by the musket, which was replaced by the rifle, which was replaced by the handgun, which was replaced by TCP/IP denial-of-service spam attacks. See our point?
Muskets were smooth-bore guns responsible for a lot of white smoke and “poof” sounds between the 15th and 18th centuries. Occasionally, they hit targets more than 50 yards away. One musket didn’t do a lot of damage, not with that 3-rounds-per-minute fire rate and aim-distracting white smoke. Consider that a good athlete can cover 50 meters running in about 6 seconds, or 8 seconds if he’s carrying a mace. If it takes 20 seconds to load a musket, our musketeer has 1 shot before his enemy gets within “clobbering range.” Not so great for home defense.
However, like mixed shots, muskets were effective en masse. Put together 200 muskets held by a double line of 100 British soldiers, and somebody is bound to hit our mace-wielding sprinter. So while the musket may not have defended your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather’s house from a mace-wielding burglar, it probably saved his country from invasion by a horde of Maceists.
The musket rating is where history drinks begin to demand more focused attention. A modest Jack and coke, or a high-alcohol beer like Victory Golden Monkey, should not be the basis for a story that begins, “Oh man, I got soooo drunk last night…” However, like a musket, don’t turn your back on these drinks for too long, or you might get embarrassed.
