[Chainmail]

"Furthermore, George Washington (!) contemplated a large purchase of Puckle Guns, high-capacity large-caliber rapid-fire weapons - while he declined due to production capacity limitations, he was familiar with the concept."

Indeed. That weapon was available in round bullet (for Christians) and square bullets (for non-Christians) too.

Not entirely sure any of those things were ever actually fired..

He'd have done better copying the wonderful (and fragile) Ferguson Rifle, the .65 caliber breechloading fires-six-times-a-minute beauty.

I hesitate to brag, but I built one and it works very well, is accurate - and a bear to clean afterward!

[ctdonath2]

Nifty! Reminds me to build a Revolution-era kit with my kids ASAP.

Don’t forget the Girandoni Rifle, which Thomas Jefferson gave 2 of to Lewis & Clark. In modern terms, it was a .45 caliber semi-automatic with 22-round magazine. Proved rather effective in persuading natives to not attack.

Point is: yes, the Founding Fathers were aware of rapid-fire high-capacity semi-automatic rifles. They hadn’t been optimized like the AR15, but concept was well apparent.