The Rifle - Tales of the Gun

The rifle will increase " Range ", " Power ", " Accuracy ", but the " Rate of Rifle " ; still needed to be conquered in 18th century. The critical challenge is to find the way to make the projectile small enough and easily fit down to the rifle.


Minié ball
The Minié ball is smaller than the barrel that easily to fit into the gun, and the base is hollow, after the black powder fired, the base would expand to the barrel causing the spinning of the bullet.

Ferguson Rifle.
The Ferguson rifle was one of the first breech loading rifles.

Sharps Rifle

The Sharp Rifle " Breech Loading ", that can avoid the leaking of hot gas during fire.

Spencer Rifle.

Wikipedia:
The Spencer repeating rifle was a manually operated lever-action, repeating rifle fed from a
tube magazine with cartridges.

Winchester Rifle
The Winchester rifle was popular for the westward frontier.

Bolt-Action

Door Bolt.

Smokeless Gun Powder
Smokeless gun powder had the great explosive power allowing the bullet to make narrower
and sleeker in the shape.

Tubular Magazine.
The smokeless gun powder make storing bullets in the tubular magazine dangerous.

M1 Garand Rifle.

In a conclusion:
From the above chief history of rifle, we can understand theses factors that determined the
evolution of the rifle are :

Power :   Black Powder -->> Smokeless Gun Powder. Bigger projectiles.
Accuracy :  Grooves in the barrel.
Range :  Smokeless gun powder + grooves in the barrel.
Rate of Fire :  Muzzle Loading -->> Breech Loading. Tubular Magazine -->> Box Magazine.