A firearm is any type of gun designed to be readily carried and used by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries.
A rifle is a long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting, 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, shooting sports, and crime.
A shotgun is a long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge known as a shotshell, which usually discharges numerous small pellet-like spherical sub-projectiles called shot, or sometimes a single solid projectile called a slug. Shotguns are most commonly smoothbore firearms, meaning that their gun barrels have no rifling on the inner wall, but rifled barrels for shooting slugs are also available.
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.
Shooting sports is a group of competitive and recreational sporting activities involving proficiency tests of accuracy, precision and speed in shooting — the art of using ranged weapons, mainly small arms and bows/crossbows.
A muzzleloader is any firearm into which the projectile and the propellant charge is loaded from the muzzle of the gun. This is distinct from the modern designs of breech-loading firearms. The term "muzzleloader" applies to both rifled and smoothbore type muzzleloaders, and may also refer to the marksman who specializes in the shooting of such firearms. The firing methods, paraphernalia and mechanism further divide both categories as do caliber.
In firearms terminology, an action is the functional mechanism of a breech-loading firearm that handles the ammunition cartridges, or the method by which that mechanism works. Actions are technically not present on muzzleloaders, as all those are single-shot firearms with a closed off breech with the powder and projectile manually loaded from the muzzle. Instead, the muzzleloader ignition mechanism is referred to as the lock.
A breechloader is a firearm in which the user loads the ammunition via the rear (breech) end of its barrel, as opposed to a muzzleloader, which loads ammunition via the front (muzzle).
Sharps rifles are a series of large-bore, single-shot, falling-block, breech-loading rifles, beginning with a design by Christian Sharps in 1848 and ceasing production in 1881. They were renowned for long-range accuracy. By 1874 the rifle was available in a variety of calibers, and it was one of the few designs to be successfully adapted to metallic cartridge use. The Sharps rifles became icons of the American Old West with their appearances in many Western-genre films and books. Perhaps as a result, several rifle companies offer reproductions of the Sharps rifle.
The M1819 Hall rifle was a single-shot breech-loading rifle designed by John Hancock Hall, patented on May 21, 1811, and adopted by the U.S. Army in 1819. It was preceded by the Harpers Ferry M1803. It used a pivoting chamber breech design and was made with either flintlock or percussion cap ignition systems. The years of production were from the 1820s to the 1840s at the Harpers Ferry Arsenal. This was the first breech-loading rifle to be adopted in large numbers by any nation's army, but not the first breech-loading military rifle – the Ferguson rifle was used briefly by the British Army in the American Revolutionary War. The Hall rifle remained overshadowed by common muskets and muzzleloading rifles which were still prevalent until the Civil War. The early flintlocks were mostly converted to percussion ignition.
Thompson/Center Arms was an American firearms company based in Springfield, Massachusetts. The company was best known for its line of interchangeable-barrel, single-shot pistols and rifles. Thompson/Center also manufactures muzzle-loading rifles and was credited with creating the resurgence of their use in the 1970s.
The National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association (NMLRA) is the largest association of muzzleloaders in the United States. The Association was founded in 1933 and is known for its promotion of the sport of muzzleloading which involves the firing of muzzleloader or black-powder firearms.
Hunting weapons are weapons designed or used primarily for hunting game animals for food or sport, as distinct from defensive weapons or weapons used primarily in warfare.
The Hawken rifle is a muzzle-loading rifle that was widely used on the prairies and in the Rocky Mountains of the United States during the early frontier days. Developed in the 1820s, it became synonymous with the "plains rifle", the buffalo gun, and the fur trapper's gun. It was displaced after the Civil War by breechloaders and lever-action rifles.
An antique firearm is a term to describe a firearm that was designed and manufactured prior to the beginning of the 20th century. Although the exact definition of what constitutes an "antique firearm" varies between countries, the advent of smokeless powder or the start of the Boer War are often used as cut-off dates. Antique firearms are usually collected because of their historical interest and/or their monetary value.
Val J. Forgett, Jr., founded the Navy Arms Company, Inc., in 1956 and is internationally recognized as the "father of the modern replica firearms business". Forgett created and designed over 100 different replica firearms models. Forgett was President of the National Firearms Museum and Chairman of the United States International Muzzle Loading Team, leading the U.S. to five consecutive World Championships, a feat unmatched to this day. An avid big-game hunter, Forgett was recognized by Safari Club International (SCI) as the first person in over 100 years to take all "Big Five" game species of Africa with a muzzle-loading rifle.
During the American Civil War, an assortment of small arms found their way onto the battlefield. Though the muzzleloader percussion cap rifled musket was the most numerous weapon, being standard issue for the Union and Confederate armies, many other firearms, ranging from the single-shot breech-loading Sharps and Burnside rifles to the Spencer and the Henry rifles - two of the world's first repeating rifles - were issued by the hundreds of thousands, mostly by the Union. The Civil War brought many advances in firearms technology, most notably the widespread use of rifled barrels.
The .44 Henry, also known as the .44 Henry Flat, the .44 Rimfire, the .44 Long Rimfire, and the 11x23mmR in Europe, is a rimfire rifle and handgun cartridge featuring a .875 in (22.2 mm)-long brass or copper case. The round has a total overall length of 1.345 in (34.2 mm), with a 200 or 216 gr .446 in (11.3 mm)-diameter cast solid-lead heeled bullet. The original propellant load is 26 to 28 gr of black powder. The round has a muzzle velocity of approximately 1,125 ft/s (343 m/s), giving a muzzle energy of 568 foot-pounds.
A silencer, also known as a sound suppressor, suppressor, or sound moderator, is a muzzle device that suppresses the blast created when a gun is discharged, therefore reducing the acoustic intensity of the muzzle report and jump, by modulating the speed and pressure of the propellant gas released from the muzzle. Like other muzzle devices, a silencer can be a detachable accessory mounted to the muzzle, or an integral part of the barrel.
The French Shooting Federation (FFTir), FrenchFédération Française de Tir, is the umbrella organization for sport shooting in France. It was founded in its current form in 1967, but has roots as far back as 1866.
