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Breech-loading firearms are known from the 16th century. Henry VIII possessed one, which he apparently used as a hunting gun to shoot birds. [5] Meanwhile, in China, an early form of breech-loading musket, known as the Che Dian Chong, was known to have been created in the second half of the 16th century for the Ming dynasty's arsenals. [6]
The second variation used a vertical cylindrical breech block, stored powder beneath the lock, and had a capacity of up to 10 shots. [1] These guns had a removable cap over the breech, allowing the breech to be easily cleaned. [1] An additional variation of the Kalthoff used a cylindrical breech that rotated on an axis parallel to the bore. [6]
It was decided that a breech loaded rifle was needed, more accurate than the old smoothbore muskets, yet quicker to load than the rifles issued to the Norwegian Jeger and Skijeger units. A special committee was created, and it started considering various firearm actions in 1837. It was soon clear that the desired weapon should:
Firearm muzzle velocities range from approximately 120 m/s (390 ft/s) to 370 m/s (1,200 ft/s) in black powder muskets, [3] to more than 1,200 m/s (3,900 ft/s) [4] in modern rifles with high-velocity cartridges such as the .220 Swift and .204 Ruger, all the way to 1,700 m/s (5,600 ft/s) [5] for tank guns firing kinetic energy penetrator ammunition.
The Ferguson rifle was one of the first breech-loading rifles to be put into service by the British military. It was designed by Major Patrick Ferguson (1744–1780). It fired a standard British carbine ball of .615" calibre and was used by the British Army in the American Revolutionary War at the Battle of Brandywine in 1777, and possibly at the Siege of Charleston in 1780.
A revolver cannon is a large-caliber gun that uses a revolver-like cylinder to speed up the loading-firing-ejection cycle. Unlike a rotary cannon , a revolver cannon has only a single gun barrel . An early precursor was the Puckle gun of 1718, a large manually-operated flintlock gun, whose design idea was impractical due to it being far ahead ...
During the U.S. Civil War, the advantage of breech-loading rifles became obvious.The rifled muskets used during the war had a rate of fire of 2 or 3 rounds per minute. . Breech-loading rifles increased the rate of fire to 8 to 10 rounds per minute with the additional advantage that they can be easily loaded from a prone, rather than standing, position, reducing the rifleman's visible cross ...
A "Brown Bess" muzzle-loading musket, used by the British Army from 1722 to 1838. A muzzleloader is any firearm in which the user loads the projectile and the propellant charge into the muzzle end of the gun (i.e., from the forward, open end of the gun's barrel).