[Why are muskets better in melee than rifles?]

8 hours ago, Fred Sanford said:

Smoothbore muskets can be loaded with "buck and ball", which is a combined musket ball and buckshot load.  This acts somewhat like a shotgun load and is very effective at short range.  The buckshot would ruin the rifling on a rifled musket though, so wasn't an option for rifles.

I never heard of that - it makes the ACW combat even more bloody than I realised. It would certainly explain the difference in stats. Thanks everyone for the quick responses; time for me to buy the game!

[Why are muskets better in melee than rifles?]

I'm about to buy this game, but reading about it, I am curious about one thing. Why do smoothbore muskets have a higher melee rating than rifles? 

I know in the Napoleonic period, rifles had a lower rate of fire, so would be less effective if an enemy was closing. But that doesn't seem to be the case in the ACW: there's a separate fire rate statistic in the game and it is, if anything, slightly higher for rifles. 

I don't know how the stats affect actual performance, but the differences seem large: 95 for a Farmer musket compared to 60 for a Springfield M1855. 

Thanks for any insights!