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A firearm is any type of gun that uses an explosive charge and is designed to be readily carried and used by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries.
A machine gun (MG) is a fully automatic, rifled auto-loading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) are typically designed more for firing short bursts rather than continuous firepower and are not considered true machine guns. Submachine guns fire handgun cartridges rather than rifle cartridges, therefore they are not considered machine guns, while automatic firearms of 20 mm (0.79 in) caliber or more are classified as autocannons rather than machine guns.
A rifle is a long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting and higher stopping power, with a barrel that has a helical pattern of grooves (rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus on accuracy, rifles are typically designed to be held with both hands and braced firmly against the shooter's shoulder via a buttstock for stability during shooting. Rifles are used extensively in warfare, law enforcement, hunting and target shooting sports.
In firearm designs, the term single-shot refers to guns that can hold only a single round of ammunition inside and thus must be reloaded manually after every shot. Compared to multi-shot repeating firearms ("repeaters"), single-shot designs have no moving parts other than the trigger, hammer/firing pin or frizzen, and therefore do not need a sizable receiver behind the barrel to accommodate a moving action, making them far less complex and more robust than revolvers or magazine/belt-fed firearms, but also with much slower rates of fire.
The percussion cap, percussion primer, or caplock, introduced in the early 1820s, is a type of single-use percussion ignition device for muzzle loader firearm locks enabling them to fire reliably in any weather condition. Its invention gave rise to the caplock mechanism or percussion lock system which used percussion caps struck by the hammer to set off the gunpowder charge in rifles and cap and ball firearms. Any firearm using a caplock mechanism is a percussion gun. Any long gun with a cap-lock mechanism and rifled barrel is a percussion rifle. Cap and ball describes cap-lock firearms discharging a single bore-diameter spherical bullet with each shot.
Flintlock is a general term for any firearm that uses a flint-striking ignition mechanism, the first of which appeared in Western Europe in the early 16th century. The term may also apply to a particular form of the mechanism itself, also known as the true flintlock, that was introduced in the early 17th century, and gradually replaced earlier firearm-ignition technologies, such as the matchlock, the wheellock, and the earlier flintlock mechanisms such as the snaplock and snaphaunce.
A breechloader is a firearm in which the user loads the ammunition from the breech end of the barrel, as opposed to a muzzleloader, in which the user loads the ammunition from the (muzzle) end of the barrel.
A repeating rifle is a single-barreled rifle capable of repeated discharges between each ammunition reload. This is typically achieved by having multiple cartridges stored in a magazine and then fed individually into the chamber by a reciprocating bolt, via either a manual or automatic action mechanism, while the act of chambering the round typically also recocks the hammer/striker for the following shot. In common usage, the term "repeating rifle" most often refers specifically to manual repeating rifles, as opposed to self-loading rifles, which use the recoil, gas, or blowback of the previous shot to cycle the action and load the next round, even though all self-loading firearms are technically a subcategory of repeating firearms.
The pin-fire is a type of metallic cartridge used in firearms, where the priming compound is ignited by striking a small pin that protrudes radially from above the base of the cartridge. Invented by Frenchman Casimir Lefaucheux in 1832, but not patented until 1835, it was one of the earliest practical designs of a metallic cartridge to hasten the loading and firing process of a firearm. Its history is closely associated with the development of the breechloader, which would eventually replace all muzzle-loading firearms.
The Winchester Model 1887 and Winchester Model 1901 are lever-action shotguns originally designed by famed American gun designer John Browning and produced by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The shotgun has become iconic for its use in the 1991 film Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
The Gardner gun was an early type of mechanical machine gun. It had one, two or five barrels, was fed from a vertical magazine or hopper and was operated by a crank. When the crank was turned, a feed arm positioned a cartridge in the breech, the bolt closed and the weapon fired. Turning the crank further opened the breechblock and extracted the spent case.
Skelp is wrought iron or steel that is rolled or forged into narrow strips and ready to be made into pipe or tubing by being bent and welded. The word is most commonly used in the traditional terminology of smithing and in the iron and steel industries. Before the 20th century, the welding was likely to be forge welding. In the 20th and 21st centuries, it has been likelier to be arc welding or gas welding.
The Kalthoff repeater was a type of repeating firearm that was designed by members of the Kalthoff family around 1630, and became the first repeating firearm to be brought into military service. At least nineteen gunsmiths are known to have made weapons following the Kalthoff design. Some early Kalthoff guns were wheellocks, but the rest were flintlocks. The capacity varied between 5 and 30 rounds, depending on the style of the magazines. A single forward and back movement of the trigger guard, which could be done in 1–2 seconds, readied the weapon for firing. The caliber of Kalthoff guns generally varied between 0.4–0.8 in (10–20 mm), though 0.3 in (7.6 mm) caliber examples also exist.
The following are terms related to firearms and ammunition topics.
The 8 bore, also known as the 8 gauge, is an obsolete caliber used commonly in the 19th-century black-powder firearms for hunting large dangerous game.
Four bore or 4 bore is a black powder caliber of the 19th century, used for the hunting of large and potentially dangerous game animals. The specifications place this caliber between the larger 2 bore and the smaller 6 bore rifles. This caliber was the quintessential elephant gun caliber of the black powder safari rifles. The caliber was also used for the Coffman cartridges used for starting large aero engines such as the Rolls-Royce Griffon as used in the later Marks of Supermarine Spitfire.
Recoil operation is an operating mechanism used to implement locked-breech autoloading firearms. Recoil operated firearms use the energy of recoil to cycle the action, as opposed to gas operation or blowback operation using the pressure of the propellant gas.
Henry Nock (1741–1804) was a British inventor and engineer of the Napoleonic period, best known as a gunmaker. Nock produced many innovative weapons including the screwless lock and the seven-barrelled volley gun, although he did not invent the latter despite it commonly being known as the Nock gun. He was a major supplier to the military during the Napoleonic wars. His high quality duelling pistols and double-barrelled shotguns were much sought after and it is largely through Nock that the latter became the weapon of choice for hunters.
The Chelembron system was a magazine system used for flintlock repeating rifles that originated around 1668. While the invention of the system is attributed to Michele Lorenzoni, the system is named after French gun-makers who made many guns in India using the system. The basis of the Chelembron system is a barrel, as well as magazines, that rotate around a central axis, and are turned to load first powder and then ball into the breech. Weapons of the system carry 20 rounds.
A repeating firearm or repeater is any firearm that is capable of being fired repeatedly before having to be manually reloaded with new ammunition into the firearm.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 Neal, W. Keith (William Keith) (1984). Great British gunmakers : 1540-1740. Historical Firearms. ISBN 0-9508842-0-0. OCLC 12973229.
- ↑ Hoff, Arne. (1978). Dutch firearms. Sotheby Parke Bernet. OCLC 562137041.
- ↑ Hayward, J. F. (John Forrest), 1916-1983. (1965). The art of the gunmaker. Barrie and Rockliff. OCLC 3652619.
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