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Breech-loading firearm that belonged to Philip V of Spain, made by A. Tienza, Madrid circa 1715. It came with a ready-to-load reusable cartridge. This is a miquelet system. Mechanism of Philip V's breech-loading firearm (detail) The breech mechanism of the Ferguson rifle. Breech-loading firearms are known from the 16th century.
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). This is distinct from the modern designs of breech-loading firearms, in which user loads the ammunition into the breech end of the barrel. The term "muzzleloader ...
Muzzle-loading guns (as opposed to muzzle-loading mortars and howitzers) are an early type of artillery, (often field artillery, but naval artillery and siege artillery were other types of muzzleloading artillery), used before, and even for some time after, breech-loading cannon became common.
Muzzle velocity: The speed at which a projectile leaves the muzzle of the gun. Muzzle velocities range from approximately 800 ft/s (240 m/s) for some pistols and older cartridges to more than 4,000 ft/s (1,200 m/s) in modern cartridges such as the .220 Swift and .204 Ruger.
A wheellock pistol or puffer, Augsburg, c. 1580. A wheellock, wheel-lock, or wheel lock is a friction-wheel mechanism which creates a spark that causes a firearm to fire. It was the next major development in firearms technology after the matchlock, and the first self-igniting firearm. Its name is from its rotating steel wheel to provide ignition.
A muzzle-loading rifle is a muzzle-loaded small arm that has a rifled barrel rather than a smoothbore, and is loaded from the muzzle of the barrel rather than the breech.. Historically they were developed when rifled barrels were introduced by the 1740ies, which offered higher accuracy than the earlier smooth
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 (e.g. matchlock, wheellock, flintlock, and caplock).
With the muzzle facing upwards, laterally rotating the trigger guard approximately 155° to the right and back deposited a ball and load of powder in the breech and cocked the gun (or wound the wheel if the gun was a wheellock). [6] [23] On some guns a small trigger had to be depressed before rotating the trigger guard.