Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Breech-loading firearms are known from the 16th century. Henry VIII possessed one, which he apparently used as a hunting gun to shoot birds. [5] Meanwhile, in China, an early form of breech-loading musket, known as the Che Dian Chong, was known to have been created in the second half of the 16th century for the Ming dynasty's arsenals. [6]
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.
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 .
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 smoothbores.
Bolt: The part of a repeating, breech-loading firearm that blocks the rear opening of the barrel chamber while the propellant burns, and moves back and forward to facilitate loading/unloading of cartridges from the magazine. The extractor and firing pin are often integral parts of the bolt. Bore rope: A tool used to clean the barrel of a gun.
The nature of cannon operation often depended on the size of the cannon and whether they were breech-loading or muzzle-loading. English cannons of the late 14th century became mobile, while the largest cannon (such as the heavy siege cannon of the Ottoman Turks or the Jaivana cannon of India) required huge crews to transport and operate them.
The M1867 Russian Krnka (Винтовка Крнка́) was a breech loading conversion of the muzzle-loading Model 1857 Six Line rifle musket designed by Austro-Hungarian arms maker, Sylvester Krnka.
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).