Wood was highly used throughout the gun and made up the shoulder stock, receiver and forend. Mortimer & Company of England.Īll told, the Brown Bess was revered as a fine long gun design and was conventional in its form and function. Production was undertaken by several concerns including the Tower Armories and H.W. The title of 'Brown Bess' was never formally recognized and historically has gone on to cover all variations of the Land Pattern musket design. Origins of the 'Brown Bess' name are varied with some believing it to be a reference to Queen Elizabeth I, a reference to the brownish walnut stock color or a translation from the German 'Braun Buss' ('Strong Gun').

At any rate, the Brown Bess proved the weapon of choice for the standard military serviceman, the revolutionary, the guerilla fighter, the frontiersman, the sport hunter and the backwoods warrior.

While early forms were of the widely-accepted flintlock action, later forms were eventually converted to the more reliable and efficient percussion cap firing system which was then becoming the standard worldwide. The Brown Bess - known more formally as the 'British Land Pattern Musket' - was in service from 1722 well into the 1860s, a testament to its design and sheer global reach. Use of the Brown Bess came at a time when armies began to standardize on various weaponry types, allowing manufacturers to produce mass quantities of a single weapon to assist militaries manage their logistics more efficiently. It went on to be used by a multitude of parties including the Americans during the American Revolution, the Zulu Kingdom in their war against the British Empire and by Mexico in the battles against America during the mid-1800s. The Brown Bess was the standard musket of the British military during the height of its empirical reach.

Long land pattern brown bess