There are a lot of firearms and what to know about them is difficult. Especially when you are trying to firgure out how to role play with one and what kind. Here are a few things to know.
There are three types of guns.
Musket, rifle and blunderbuss.
Some may think these are the same, but that is incorrect. Here are the diffrences.
Musket - A musket is diffrent from a rifle because it is a smoothbore and is just a tube that a projectile shoots out of. Its range and accuracy is less effective then a rifle.
Rifle - A rifle is diffrent from a musket because the reason they call it a rifle is because inside the barrel there is a twisted groove inside the barrel called rifling. This causes the projectile to spin inside the barrel this would cause the firearm to be more accurate and shoot at a much farther range.
Blunderbuss - A blunderbuss is just a shotgun, its ammunition consists of a pact cluster of metal or shrapnel in some cases. It is a smoothbore like a musket when set off these small projectiles would form a small cluster, but would expand when traveling a farther distance.
I will post more about firearms possibly later tonight or tomorrow to share more information.