Posted on 11/22/2012 5:19:28 AM PST by marktwain
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifling
When you are 50 cal, you don’t need to be rifled.
You just need to be close.
And brave!
Actually, the American Rifleman’s video “Ten Guns that Changed the World” didn’t mention this one.
But it did mention the Kentucky Flintlock.
This wheel-lock is in the NRA Museum. Its exhibit description says that "almost all traces of rifling have been worn away". Sounds like a very early rifled barrel to me. If anyone is near the museum, it's open today. Go ask!
An early assault rifle.
No. Actaully most of the major developments: spring loaded matchlocks, the wheellock, striking locks, and rifling all date to the same period around or just after 1500.
But because military use was volley fire at the time, only the first and cheapest became normal infantry equipment.
Because of the additional advantages the wheellock gave to cavalry - and that fact that they were already more expensive and the relative cost increase was less, horse soldiers were carrying multiple wheellock pistols from 1520. But because their use was short range, rifling was not required.
That leaves the more expensive hunting arms, and there is no reason that a civilian wheelock rifle would not be available in 1620.
from mayflowerhistory.com-
Priscilla Mullins was born probably in Dorking, Surrey, England, to William and Alice Mullins. She, her parents, and her brother Joseph all came on the Mayflower to Plymouth in 1620. Her entire family, herself excepted, died the first winter. She was shortly thereafter, in 1622 or 1623, married to John Alden, the Mayflower's cooper, who had decided to remain at Plymouth rather than return to England with the ship. John and Priscilla lived in Plymouth until the late 1630s, when they helped found the neighboring town of Duxbury. John and Priscilla would go on to have ten or eleven children, and have an enormous number of descendants, including poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams, and Vice President Dan Quayle.
The article makes the case that it was originaly a rifle, but when the rifling wore away, it became a musket. I have seen bores that were orginally rifled that only have faint traces of rifling remaining, so it is possible, I suppose.
Barrel rifling was invented in Augsburg, Germany at the end of the fifteenth century.[5] In 1520 August Kotter, an armourer of Nuremberg, Germany improved upon this work. Though true rifling dates from the mid-16th century, it did not become commonplace until the nineteenth century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifling
I really hate TV and rarely watch anything. But I do remember about 15 years ago there as a pathetic show called "sportsnight". In one episode some member of the TV crew found a revolutionary war musket in the attic and wanted to turn it into the authorities for destruction, as all guns, new or old, are EVIL!!!!!!!!
**** Effectively, they have only existed since the middle of the 19th Century, but were a major breakthrough.***
I have a book THE AGE OF FIREARMS by Heald which shows rifles were used as far back as the 1500s. They were super accurate back then but not good for the military as they were too slow to load.
Rifles were rejected by George Washington as they were too slow to load and could not be fitted with a bayonet. Only certain riflemen used them, but not the main body of troops.
America founded by religious nuts with guns -— Bless ‘em.
The book THE AGE OF FIREARMS by HELD disproves this. I am right now looking at a photo in the book of ...
“Fig 101.Wheellock RIFLE of the Tshinke type developed in the north German provinces between circa 1585and 1610.”
On page 64 is another wheelock RIFLE made between 1610 and 1632.
At that time Guns were considered to have a devil ride the bullet as you could hear the devil scream when the bullet went past you, and the woulds were exceedingly deadly.
Rifling was in use as far back as the 1520. Accuracy was so good that the Necromancer Moretius (Herman Moritz) said the spinning of the ball caused the devil to be thrown off.
Everyone who talks guns should have a copy of THE AGE OF FIREARMS by Robert Held. It is chock full of interesting tidbits of gun lore.
Well cool. You learn something every day.
Well cool. You learn something every day.
Bookmark.
ping
Note: this topic is from 11/22/2012. Thanks marktwain.
Gaspard Koller in the 15th century or Augustus Kotter of Nuremberg in the 16th century made the first KNOWN rifled guns. German gunsmith were building them here at least as far back as the French and Indian war. Rifled guns originally took longer to load and fire as the bullet needed a tight fit with the bore in order to receive the spin of the rifling. Fowling mandated frequent cleaning. It was rare for a rifled long arm to have a bayonet which made it useless in hand to hand fighting without damaging the gun. It was used by hunters, skirmishers, scouts and sharpeshooters.
Muskets were thin walled, smooth bored military pieces more quickly loaded and fired and capable of holding a bayonet. As such they were used in a line of battle by average troops.
By the time if the civil war, the invention of the minie ball allowed the use of a rifled musket capable of the quick loading of a musket and the long range accuracy of a rifle ( hence, “rifled musket”).
Age of Firearms,
Held.
got it ,
Thanks
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