The Swedish infantry musket, or the Swedish Land Pattern Musket, was a muzzle-loaded 0.63 (16.002 mm) to 0.81 (20.7mm)[7] -inch calibre smoothbored long gun. These weapons were in service within the Royal Swedish Army from the mid-16th century until the mid-19th century.
At the end of the 16th century, the Swedish military musket became a style-setter. Its style remained the same until about 1660 in most armies.[8] In Sweden, its basic style lasted for many years—until the end of the 1680s.[9] The matchlock was the dominant mechanism on the Swedish Army soldiers' muskets as well as among other European armed forces, and remained so until the latter half of the 1600s when the snaphaunce mechanism increasingly took over. But it was not until the flintlock mechanism as well as the bayonet had taken hold in earnest—around the turn of the 17th–18th centuries—that the matchlock became completely obsolete among the various squadrons within the Swedish Empire. However, some weapons equipped with wheellock mechanism were primarily reserved for the cavalry. The Swedish, purely warlike musket design remained in its basic form from Model 1696 until Model 1775. Before that, long guns – military as well as civilian – were produced in a variety of designs.[10]
Matchlock Musket M1688[11]
Snaphaunce Musket M1688[12]
The flintlock carbine M1696 was the first bayonet-equipped.[13] [14]
Krävan with the krävan-fitting was abandoned in favour of a third scouring stick-pipe, where a ramrod (now made of iron) instead rested and a fourth scouring stick-pipe (all now in brass) next to the chamber. And the stock was equipped with a nose cap, also in brass.[15]
With the manufacturing of the 1775 model, the pins holding the barrel in place were abandoned in favour of two scouring stick-pipe-bands with associated kräkor and a front barrel band nose cap with bow-shaped front sights in brass infused.[16]