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A breechloader [1] [2] is a firearm in which the user loads the ammunition from the breech end of the barrel (i.e., from the rearward, open end of the gun's barrel), as opposed to a muzzleloader, in which the user loads the ammunition from the end of the barrel.
The Ferguson rifle: British Major Patrick Ferguson designed his rifle, considered to be the first military breechloader in the 1770s. A plug-shaped breechblock was screw-threaded so that rotating the handle underneath would lower and raise it for loading with ball and loose powder; the flintlock action still required conventional priming.
The gun was expressly designed to defend larger warships against the new small fast-moving torpedo boats in the late 1870s to the early 1880s and was an enlarged version of the successful rifle-calibre Nordenfelt hand-cranked "machine gun" designed by Helge Palmcrantz. The gun fired a solid steel bullet with hardened tip and brass jacket.
The Armstrong RBL 7-inch gun, also known as the 110-pounder, [4] was a heavy caliber Armstrong gun, an early type of rifled breechloader. William Armstrong 's innovative combination of a rifled built-up gun with breechloading had proven suitable for small cannon.
The gun as originally adopted had a barrel 84 inches long, with a bore of 73.375 inches. The Royal Navy adopted a version with a 72-inch barrel, with a bore of 61.375 inches, by simply cutting 12 inches off the end, and from 1863 the shorter length was incorporated into a common version for both land and sea use.
The M1819 Hall rifle was a single-shot breech-loading rifle (also considered something of a hybrid breech and muzzle-loading design) designed by John Hancock Hall, patented on May 21, 1811, and adopted by the U.S. Army in 1819.
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 ...
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