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 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.
A cartridge, also known as a round, is a type of pre-assembled firearm ammunition packaging a projectile, a propellant substance and an ignition device (primer) within a metallic, paper, or plastic case that is precisely made to fit within the barrel chamber of a breechloading gun, for convenient transportation and handling during shooting. Although in popular usage the term "bullet" is often used to refer to a complete cartridge, the correct usage only refers to the projectile.
In guns, particularly firearms, but not artillery, where a different definition may apply, caliber is the specified nominal internal diameter of the gun barrel bore – regardless of how or where the bore is measured and whether the finished bore matches that specification. It is measured in inches or in millimeters. In the United States it is expressed in hundredths of an inch; in the United Kingdom in thousandths; and elsewhere in millimeters. For example, a US "45 caliber" firearm has a barrel diameter of roughly 0.45 inches (11 mm). Barrel diameters can also be expressed using metric dimensions. For example, a "9 mm pistol" has a barrel diameter of about 9 millimeters. Since metric and US customary units do not convert evenly at this scale, metric conversions of caliber measured in decimal inches are typically approximations of the precise specifications in non-metric units, and vice versa.
A grenade launcher is a weapon that fires a specially designed, large-caliber projectile, often with an explosive, smoke, or gas warhead. Today, the term generally refers to a class of dedicated firearms firing unitary grenade cartridges. The most common type are man-portable, shoulder-fired weapons issued to individuals, although larger crew-served launchers are issued at higher levels of organization by military forces.
A semi-automatic firearm, also called a self-loading or autoloading firearm, is a repeating firearm whose action mechanism automatically loads a following round of cartridge into the chamber and prepares it for subsequent firing, but requires the shooter to manually actuate the trigger in order to discharge each shot. Typically, this involves the weapon's action utilizing the excess energy released during the preceding shot to unlock and move the bolt, extracting and ejecting the spent cartridge case from the chamber, re-cocking the firing mechanism, and loading a new cartridge into the firing chamber, all without input from the user. To fire again, however, the user must actively release the trigger, allow it to "reset", before pulling the trigger again to fire off the next round. As a result, each trigger pull only discharges a single round from a semi-automatic weapon, as opposed to a fully automatic weapon, which will shoot continuously as long as the ammunition is replete and the trigger is kept depressed.
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.
The Makarov pistol or PM is a Soviet semi-automatic pistol. Under the project leadership of Nikolay Fyodorovich Makarov, it became the Soviet Union's standard military and Militsiya side arm in 1951.
A gun barrel is a crucial part of gun-type weapons such as small firearms, artillery pieces, and air guns. It is the straight shooting tube, usually made of rigid high-strength metal, through which a contained rapid expansion of high-pressure gas(es) is used to propel a projectile out of the front end (muzzle) at a high velocity. The hollow interior of the barrel is called the bore, and the diameter of the bore is called its caliber, usually measured in inches or millimetres.
The APS underwater assault rifle is an underwater firearm designed by the Soviet Union in the early 1970s. It was adopted in 1975. Made by the Tula Arms Plant in Russia, it is exported by Rosoboronexport.
The Heckler & Koch P11 is an underwater firearm developed in 1976 by Heckler & Koch. It is loaded using a pepper-box-like assembly, containing five sealed barrels each containing an electrically-fired projectile. Two styles of barrel assembly can be used: one containing five 7.62×36mm flechette darts for use underwater, or five 133-grain bullets for use above water.
The KS-23 is a Soviet shotgun. Because it uses a rifled barrel, it is officially designated by the Russian military as a carbine. KS stands for Karabin Spetsialniy, "Special Carbine". It is renowned for its large caliber, firing a 23 mm shotgun shell, equating to 6.278 gauge using the British and American standards of shotgun gauges and approximately 4 gauge using the current European standards, making it the largest-bore shotgun in modern use.
Imperial Tula Arms Plant is a Russian weapons manufacturer founded by Tsar Peter I of Russia in 1712 in Tula, Tula Oblast as Tula Arsenal. Throughout its history, it has produced weapons for the Russian state. Its name was changed from Tula Arsenal to Tula Arms Plant during the Soviet era.
The ASM-DT is a Russian prototype folding-stock underwater firearm. It emerged in the 1990s.
The history of firearms begins in 10th-century China, when tubes containing gunpowder and pellet projectiles were mounted on spears to make portable fire lances, operable by one person. This was later used effectively as a shock weapon in the Siege of De'an in 1132. In the 13th century, fire lance barrels were replaced with metal tubes and transformed into metal-barreled hand cannons. The technology gradually spread throughout Eurasia during the 14th century and evolved into flintlocks, blunderbusses, and other variants. The 19th and 20th centuries saw an acceleration in this evolution, with the introduction of the magazine, belt-fed weapons, metal cartridges, and the automatic firearm. Older firearms typically used black powder as a propellant, but modern firearms use smokeless powder or other propellants. Most modern firearms have rifled barrels.
The TOZ-194 is a 12 gauge, pump-action shotgun manufactured by the Tula Arms Plant.
TOZ rifles are a family of .22 Long Rifle bolt-action cadet rifles manufactured by the Tula Arms Plant. Most notably the TOZ-8, TOZ-17 and TOZ-78 which were used to train generations of Russian military, paramilitary and police cadets.
An underwater firearm is a firearm designed for use underwater. Underwater firearms or needleguns usually fire flechettes or spear-like bolts instead of standard bullets. These may be fired by pressurised gas.
The ADS is a Russian assault rifle specially made for combat divers. It is of a bullpup layout and is chambered in the 5.45×39mm M74 round. The ADS can adapt a suppressor and optical sights.
The 7.92×33mm Kurz is a rimless bottlenecked intermediate rifle cartridge developed in Nazi Germany prior to and during World War II, specifically intended for development of the Sturmgewehr 44. The ammunition is also referred to as 7.9mm Kurz, 7.9 Kurz, 7.9mmK, or 8×33 Polte. The round was developed as a compromise between the longer 7.92×57mm full-power rifle cartridge and the 9×19mm Parabellum pistol cartridge, and is the first mass-used intermediate cartridge in the world.
