Firearms History, Technology & Development

Many months ago, we had explored the differences between various members of the AK family (e.g.) AK-47, AKM, AK-74, AK-101 etc. In today's post, we will explore some of the popular members of the M16 family and discuss the differences between them. We will study the differences in multiple posts, as there are quite a few variants with major differences.

M16: This is the first operational version of the rifle and was only adopted by the US Air Force initially. Among its distinctive features are a triangular shaped forward hand guard, no cleaning compartment in the stock (as Colt famously declared that this rifle was so advanced that it didn't need one), no forward assist lever and a duckbill shaped flash suppressor at the muzzle. The original version was issued with a 20 round magazine. It is capable of selecting firing modes and can fire in single-shot as well as fully automatic modes. The barrel has a rifling twist of 1 turn in 12 inches.

Original M16 rifle. Click on image to enlarge. Public domain image.

In the above image, we see an original M16 rifle. This variant was adopted by the US Air Force, which continued to use this model until 2001 before switching to the M16A2 variant. It was also used by some other military forces, notably the British SAS.

M16A1: This is the variant that was first accepted by the US Army. Soon after the original M16 was ordered by the US Air Force, the Army got in the act and asked for a model with a few changes to it, notably, the addition of a forward assist lever, in case the cartridge did not properly seat in the chamber. Colt and the US Air Force believed that this change was unnecessary, over-complicated the weapon and increased its cost by $4.50. Hence, the Air Force got the M16 variant and the Army got the M16A1 variant., which has the forward assist lever. One more difference is that the duckbill flash suppressor was found to pick up twigs and leaves in jungle conditions and was replaced by a bird-cage style flash suppressor. This variant retains the same triangular forward hand guards, selectable firing modes (single-shot and fully automatic) and rifling twist of the original M16.

The M16A1 rifle. Note the bird-cage flash hider in front of the muzzle and the presence of a forward assist lever.

Early versions of the M16A1 were issued with no cleaning kits and without a chrome lined chamber. This led to a number of jamming issues early on and investigations were made to determine why this was happening. A change in the ammunition formula was found to be the cause, as the new ammunition left more residue in the rifle. Since the rifle was issued without a cleaning kit, soldiers could not properly maintain their weapons and this led to jamming problems in the field. Immediately after the cause was determined, the rifle was changed to include a cleaning kit, stored in a compartment in the stock. The barrel. bolt and chamber were also chromed to resist corrosion. In 1970, the magazine was changed from 20 round capacity to a 30 round capacity, as can be seen in the image above.

After its initial reliability problems were solved, the M16A1 variant became adopted by the US Army and the Marines, as well as other military forces around the world, such as Argentina, Australia, Thailand etc. It is still used by some military forces.

M16A2: This is a very influential version of the M16 family and has a number of differences from the M16A1. Most of the changes were added because of the US Marines. The Marines found that in the Vietnam war, many inexperienced men would put the rifle into fully automatic mode and end up emptying their magazines into the bushes without hitting a single enemy. Hence, they asked for the automatic firing mode to be removed and a three-round burst mode to be added instead. This makes the M16A2 variant capable of firing in single-shot and three round bursts only. Also, NATO forces wanted to use a more powerful version of the 5.56x45 mm. cartridge (the SS109 cartridge). However, the newer cartridge needed the rifling twist of the barrel to be changed, in order to maintain bullet stability in the air. Hence, the M16A2 features a barrel with a twist rate of 1 turn in 7 inches (compared to 1 turn in 12 inches for the earlier models) to work with NATO standard cartridges. The barrel thickness was also increased as the US Marines wanted a stronger barrel to resist bending in the field and not overheat as quickly.

The M16A2 rifle. Click on image to enlarge. Public domain image.

There are also many other major changes. For instance, the material of the buttstock plastic is different and 10 times stronger than the original. The shape of the forward hand guards is round instead of triangular and the two handguard pieces are symmetrical (meaning that either half can fit as the left or right side hand guard). This enables the rifle to be held more easily by smaller hands and the symmetrical hand guards make production easier, as there is no longer a need to manufacture separate left-side and right-side hand guards. The shape of the pistol grip is also different - this version has a notch added to support the middle finger and it has more texture to enhance the grip. Because this rifle is designed to fire the NATO SS109 cartridge, the rear sights are also changed to match this new cartridge's ballistics. Also, the flash suppressor is modified and closed at the bottom, so that it will not kick up dust or snow when fired from the prone position.

This variant was initially adopted by the US Marines and then by the US Army, followed by the other branches of the US military and other military forces around the world. It is still being used by many military forces around the world.

M16A3: This is a variant of the M16A2 model that came out at around the same time as the M16A2. It was produced in small quantities and designed for US Navy SEALS and the Seabee units. The main difference is that while the M16A2 can only fire in single-shot and three-round bursts, the M16A3 can fire in single-shot and fully automatic modes. Special forces are trained to not waste ammunition and hence, this variant allows fully automatic fire.

In the next post, we will study some more variants of the M16 family.

In our last post, we looked at some members of the M16 family. We also mentioned that the M16A2 model is a very influential model in the M16 family and is still in use in various military forces. We will continue to look at other members of the M16 family in this post.

M16A4: This rifle is the fourth generation rifle in the M16 series. One of the main differences between this model and the models we've have already studied so far is that the carrying handle on this model is detachable. What the designers did was put picatinny rails on the rifle and also on the hand guards. The carrying handle is attached to the picatinny rail on top and can be removed and replaced with other accessories, such as a reflex sight, night vision device etc. In addition, other accessories may also be attached to the other rail mounts, such as a laser, vertical grip, flash light etc.

The M16A4 rifle. Click on image to enlarge. Public Domain Image.

In the above image, note that the carrying handle has been replaced by a telescopic sight called an ACOG (Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight) and the rifle has an additional vertical grip attached to the hand guard in front. The M16A4 has the same firing modes as the M16A2 (i.e. single shot and 3 round burst) and also retains a bunch of other features from it.

The US Marines were the first to adopt this rifle model and are in the process of phasing out their existing M16A2 rifles with the M16A4. It is also used by some other countries' military forces around the world, such as Thailand, Turkey etc.

M4 Carbine: During the Vietnam war, Colt developed a carbine version of the M16A1, called the CAR-15. Around 1988, there came a need for another carbine design and Colt based it off the influential M16A2 design. The M4 carbine features a shorter 14.5 inch barrel and a telescoping stock. Therefore, it is more compact than the M16A2. It also borrows from the M16A4, by incorporating the rails and the detachable carrying handle, therefore allowing it to accept a wide variety of accessories.

US Soldier carrying a M4 with accessories attached. Click on image to enlarge. Public domain image

Due to its shortened barrel, the ballistic performance of the bullets is slightly worse than the M16A2. However, the smaller length makes it more suitable for close quarter battle. The M4 carbine was first selected for use in 1994, by the US Army, initially to replace the M9 pistol and the M31 submachine gun. Later on, they began to replace the M16A2 rifles as well and the US Marines also adopted it for use by officers. Other branches of the military started using it as well and it is also used by other countries around the world.

One variant of the M4 is the M4A1 carbine, which is used by US Special Operations units, such as the Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces, Marines Force Recon, USAF Para-rescue etc. The difference is that while the M4 is capable of single shot and three round burst firing modes, the M4A1 is capable of single shot and fully automatic firing modes.

AR-15: The original prototype of the first M16 model was called the AR-15 (after the company Armalite, which was the original designer of this rifle family). However, after Colt bought the design, they called their model the M16 and made a civilian model of the design in 1963, which they named the AR-15. In this discussion, we will only talk about the civilian models released by Colt and other manufacturers, as few examples of the original Armalite design exist. The AR-15 was designed for civilian sales and while it does have a resemblance to other members of the M16 family, there are some very significant differences. The first major difference is that the AR-15 only has one firing mode (semiautomatic mode, which means you have to pull the trigger each time to shoot a new cartridge). Therefore, it is NOT an assault rifle, since it is incapable of switching firing modes. While the external appearance of an AR-15 is almost identical to a fully automatic M16 family model, the internals are very different. The hammer and trigger are of a different design and the bolt carrier and lower receiver are differently shaped that they cannot be interchanged with a M16 mechanism. This is done to satisfy United States firearm laws that semi-automatic weapons cannot be easily converted to fully-automatic weapons.

Colt AR-15 A3 Carbine Model. Click on image to enlarge.

There are multiple models of AR-15, resembling various other variants of the M16 family. While Colt officially holds the trademark to the term "AR-15", clones are made by many other manufacturers and they are unofficially all referred to as "AR-15". Many of these clones are designed to fire other calibers of ammunition, ranging from small pistol cartridges, to many different rifle calibers and even shotgun shells/ .

These are only some of the popular variants of the M16 family. There are other international variants that we will study in our next post.

In our last post about the M16 family, there was an interesting comment by a long time reader of this blog, Mr. Wojciech Imbierowicz. He questioned the ballistic performance of bullets on the M4 rifle, as compared to the M16A2. That will be the subject of today's post.

The first thing we will discuss is the relationship of bullet velocity to barrel length. When a cartridge is fired, the pressure of the expanding gases in the barrel is responsible for accelerating the bullet. As soon as the bullet leaves the front end of the barrel, the gases stop acting upon it. Therefore, the maximum velocity of the bullet is at the tip of the barrel and it starts to decelerate after it leaves the barrel. Obviously, if we have a shorter barrel, then the gases will not have a chance to accelerate the bullet much, before it exits the barrel. If we have a longer barrel, then the expanding gases will act on the bullet for a longer time and be able to accelerate it to higher velocities. Of course, there is a certain point in the barrel length, beyond which, increasing the length produces diminishing gains in the velocity of the bullet. Also, if a barrel is too short, the propellant may not entirely burn inside the barrel, which also reduces the force that is acting upon the bullet. On a longer barrel, the entire propellant may burn inside the barrel.

Depending on the type of cartridge, the optimum barrel length for maximum velocity may vary. The following table shows us some numbers for two common cartridges used by the M16 family, the M193 (the original cartridge that was used with the M16A1) where the bullet weighs 55 grains, and the SS109 (the NATO standard cartridge), where the bullet weighs 62 grains.

Barrel Length (in inches)	Velocity (M193) (Feet per second)	Velocity (SS109) (Feet per second)
10	2739	2627
11.5	2872	2738
14.5	3064	2907
16	3132	2989
20	3259	3095
24	3315	3158
26	3391	3231

As we can see from the above chart, barrels that are between 16 and 20 inches in length seems to be the sweet spot, after which, the increase in barrel length doesn't increase the velocity of the bullet by that much.

Now on to one more feature of the bullets used by the M16 family. The 5.56x45 mm. bullet is pretty small, but it has an interesting property that if it is travelling above a certain velocity when it hits a target, it tends to fragment and produce a wound much larger than the size of the bullet. Below this velocity, the bullet does not fragment reliably and produces a much smaller wound. For the M193 cartridge, this threshold is approximately 2700 feet/sec and for the SS109, it is approximately 2500 feet/sec. Of course, the material of the bullet and its construction also have a lot to do with how much velocity they need to fragment reliably. For the purposes of this discussion, we will only consider the two above-mentioned cartridges.

Now, from the table above, we see that if the barrel is 10 inches long, the velocity of the M193 bullet (2739 feet/sec) is just barely above its the fragmentation velocity (2700 feet/sec). The same is true for the SS109 bullet as well. Therefore, for both these cartridges, the bullet's velocity will fall below the fragmentation velocity pretty quickly beyond about 20 meters or so. For the record, the 10 inch barrel is used by some civilian and police forces AR-15 models.

With the 14.5 inch barrels (such as those used by the military's M4 carbine), we see that the velocities are somewhat higher (3064 feet/sec for M193 and 2907 feet/sec for SS109). This means that the bullets will travel about 100 meters before their velocities fall below the fragmentation threshold velocity.

Now, with the 20 inch barrels (such as those commonly used by AR-15s, M16A2 etc.), the velocities are a bit higher and therefore, the bullets can travel about 150-200 meters before they will stop fragmenting reliably. Therefore, between 100 to 200 meter distances, they generally have better wounding performance than bullets fired out of a M4 carbine, which only has a 14.5 inch long barrel.

To improve the performance, the US military has come up with some newer bullet designs that have lower fragmentation velocity thresholds. The newer M855A1 and the Mk 318 cartridges were specifically designed to handle some of the shortcomings of the previous cartridges.

A couple of posts ago, we looked at various members of the M16 family. All of the models we have looked at so far, have been developed for the needs of the American military. In today's post, we will look at some more members of the M16 family that were developed by other countries.

In 1984, Canada decided to equip their military with a new rifle and wanted to go with the NATO standard cartridge 5.56x45 mm. In order to save development time and money, they decided to purchase the license to manufacture M16s of their own. A little while earlier, the US Marines were working towards improving the M16A1 model to the M16A2. A Canadian military liaison officer was also present while the Marines were working on improvements and he communicated some of these design changes back to Canada. As a result of this, the Canadian C7 rifle was developed with some features of the M16A1 and some of the M16A2. A Canadian company, Diemaco, was put in charge of manufacturing the new rifle.

C7 (top) and C7A1 (bottom) rifles

The C7 rifle has the stronger and longer stock, barrel with 1 turn in 7 inches twist rate, pistol grip and handguards of the M16A2, but retains the older rear sights of the M16A1, as well as the same firing modes of the M16A1 (single shot and fully automatic). One more major difference, which is not obvious, is that the C7 barrel is manufactured by the hammer-forging process.

The C7A1 incorporated some improvements to the C7, the main one being the replacement of the carrying handle, with a rail that allows the user to attach other devices here, such as iron sights or optics. This is similar to the M16A4 model, however the C7A1 preceded the adoption of the Picatinny rail by the US military, therefore the rail on the C7A1 is of slightly different dimensions than the now standard picatinny rails.

The C7 and C7A1 models are now being replaced by the C7A2 model in the Canadian military. The C7A2 has picatinny rails, in order to be standards compatible with all the accessories that are made to fit on a picatinny rail. It also has rails in front to attach laser pointers or lights. Unlike the previous models, it has a telescoping stock. One more major difference is that the C7A2 rifle furniture is green in color, instead of black. Other changes include ambidextrous magazine release and ambidextrous safety selector levers.

The C7A2 model rifle

The C7 family also comes with corresponding carbine variants, the C8, C8A1 and C8A2. The C7 and C8 families are used by the military forces of Canada, Netherlands, Denmark, United Kingdom (Special Forces mostly), Norway (Special Forces), Canadian Police etc. In 2005, Diemaco (the company that made the rifles in Canada) was bought out by Colt and is now known as Colt Canada.

Another manufacturer of M16 clones is Singapore's ST Kinetics, which produces the M16S1 for Singapore's military. The M16S1 is simply a M16A1 made under a license by ST Kinetics.

Another clone of the M16 family is the Chinese made Norinco CQ. Unlike the C7 family, the Norinco CQ is an unlicensed clone of the M16. While it uses the same 5.56x45 mm. cartridges of the M16, the Norinco CQ was never adopted by the Chinese military. However, they make two models for export, one capable of selecting between single shot and fully automatic fire for military sales and a semi-automatic only version for civilian markets.

Public domain image of a Norinco CQ rifle. Click on the image to enlarge.

It is pretty easy to tell a Norinco CQ apart from other members of the M16 family. First, notice the shape of the stock is completely different from the M16A1, M16A2, C7, C7A1 etc. Second, the handguards in front are also differently shaped than the other members of the M16 family. Thirdly, the pistol grip is curved on the Norinco CQ. Fourthly, the front sight on a Norinco CQ is of the hooded sight type, instead of a sight post.

The barrel of a Norinco CQ has a 1 turn in 12 inches twist rate. Because of this twist rate, it will fire the M193 cartridge designed for the M16A1 properly, but cannot accurately fire the NATO standard SS109 or the newer US M855 cartridge beyond about 100 meters or so (because these require a twist rate of 1:7 for stability in the air).

While the military version of the Norinco CQ was never used by the Chinese military, it is used by military forces of some other countries, such as Cambodia, Syria, Libya, Iran (which makes their own copies of the Norinco CQ), Sudan etc.

In today's post, we will look into the topic of revolvers and firearms safety and also study the concept of cylinder gaps.

If the reader looks at a revolver, chances are that the reader may observed that, at the area where one of cylinder's chambers aligns with the barrel, there is a small gap between the front of the chamber and the barrel, about the thickness of a business card. This space is called the cylinder gap.

This gap exists in all revolvers, because there needs to be a bit of space between the cylinder and the barrel, in order to allow the cylinder to rotate. In some revolver designs (e.g. the Belgian Nagant 1895 model), this gap is sealed when the weapon is cocked (we will look at this design in a future discussion), but in most revolver designs, this gap is left open at all times.

When a revolver is fired, high pressure gases are generated in the chamber and expand into the barrel, pushing the bullet out. While most of these gases expand into the barrel, a small amount of hot gas comes out of the sides of the cylinder, due to the cylinder gap. If the chamber does not precisely align with the barrel, some metal particles may come out of the side as well. These hot gases and particles come out with a surprising amount of energy, even on a small revolver, and may cause some serious injury. Therefore, it is unwise to place a hand ahead of the cylinder, or even stand close to the side of the person firing the revolver.

Correct ways to hold a revolver

In the above images, we see the correct ways to hold a revolver. Notice that in both cases, the person ensures that the hands are placed well behind the cylinder gap. Now we will look at the incorrect way to hold a revolver.

Incorrect way to hold a revolver. Never do this!

In the above image, we see an incorrect way to hold the revolver. Notice that the user has some fingers placed in front of the cylinder. This is a very bad idea and could result in serious injury, if the revolver is fired. People who are new to revolvers may accidentally do this, because they find it easier to support a heavy revolver, or because they see people doing it with pistols, and they cause injury to themselves.

The above video demonstrates pretty well, how much gas can come out of the sides of the cylinder and why it is a bad idea to put any body parts close to the cylinder gap. In fact, people standing close to the sides of the revolver may feel the hot gases as well, which is why it is best to stand behind the shooter, or some distance away to the side.

The reader may wonder, why is it that gases don't come out of the back of the cylinder? Well, that is because when the revolver is fired, the heat of the explosion causes the sides and back of the cartridge to expand slightly and the rim seals off the back of the cylinder and prevents most of the gas from leaking out of the back.

Due to the leakage of gases through the cylinder gap, the velocity of the bullet coming out of the revolver is slightly reduced. There are designs that attempt to close this gap when firing, so that the entire energy of the expanding gases acts upon the bullet. We will study these designs in a future post.

In our last post, we talked about the concept of "cylinder gap". Briefly, revolvers have a gap between the cylinder and the rear of the barrel, in order to allow the cylinder to rotate freely. However, when a revolver is fired, some of the hot gases will escape through this gap, possibly flushing some metal particles as well, which is why it is dangerous to have body parts close to the front of the cylinder. We discussed all of this in our last post (please read it, if you haven't already done so). We also pointed out that due to some of the gases leaking out of the cylinder gap, this decreases the velocity of the bullet coming out of the revolver. In today's post, we will look at a revolver that attempted to solve this problem. We are talking about the Nagant M1895 revolver, which will be the subject of today's post.

The Nagant M1895 was a revolver designed in 1895 by Leon Nagant, for the Russian empire. The Nagant Brothers company was Belgian, but they were well known to the Russian military, because they were involved in an earlier competition to design a new rifle for the Russian military previously (the result of the earlier competition was the Mosin-Nagant M1891 rifle, although Nagant's contributions to the final design was very minimal).

The Nagant revolver design attempted to minimize the velocity loss, by making the revolver gas-tight as possible. We will discuss how this was achieved here.

Mosin-Nagant M1895 Pistol. Click on image to enlarge.

Image licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Luxembourg license by user Mascemon @ wikipedia

At first glance, the revolver appears to have a pretty large cylinder gap, as can be seen by the image above. However, the revolver is built with a special mechanism, so that when the hammer is cocked, the cylinder not only rotates to the next chamber (just as any other revolver), but it is also pushed forwards toward the barrel, thereby closing the cylinder gap and creating a seal with the forcing cone at the back of the barrel.

Now, the cylinder is just one part of the gas-tight seal. Let's take a look at the unusual cartridge for this revolver. Here's a closer look at it:

From left to right, Nagant 7.62 mm., .32 S&W Long and .22 Long Rifle (.22 LR) cartridges.

Picture courtesy of Commander Zulu at Wikipedia.

The cartridge on the left is the one for the Nagant revolver. Compared to the other two cartridges, a few differences are clearly visible. Unlike the other cartridges, the Nagant cartridge fully encloses the bullet inside the cartridge case. Note that the neck case of the cartridge is crimped to a smaller diameter and the bullet does not protrude out of the end. This is part of the design. When the cylinder is moved forward into the forcing cone, the cartridge's unusual neck is forced between any gap left between the cylinder and the forcing cone. When fired, the neck expands into the forcing cone and fills any remaining gaps, making it even more gas tight. As a result of this, the Nagant M1895 does not leak much gas through the cylinder gap when it is fired, and the bullet comes out about 50-150 feet/sec (15-45 meters/sec) faster when it is fired.

As we saw in an earlier post, temperature has an effect on ammunition performance. By making the gas seal tight as possible, this revolver could perform better than other models, even in the middle of very cold Russian winters and with the types of propellants that were available in 1895. A couple of other side-effects are a result of this gas seal design as well. For one, it reduces the chances of injury to body parts in front of the cylinder, because the hot gases and particles don't come out of the side as much. Also because of the gas seal, the noise generated comes out of the barrel, which means that unlike other revolver models, this one can be fitted with a suppressor to reduce the noise.

The video above shows the unusual mechanism and cartridges in very good detail.

This revolver was used a lot by the Russian Empire and then, the Soviet Union, and is used even today by present-day Russian police, despite being out of production for about 60 years. It is regarded very highly in Russia for its toughness.

However, there are a few disadvantages of this revolver as well. The first is that it is much slower to load this revolver than other models. Because of its design, the cylinder cannot flip out of the side to load the cartridges simultaneously. Instead, the user must load and unload each chamber one at a time, via a loading gate on the side. Also, this ammunition does not have great stopping power compared to more modern cartridges. At one time, it was difficult for American users to purchase ammunition for this revolver, even though the revolver is pretty cheap to purchase (typically costs about $100). The trigger is also pretty heavy to use and accuracy suffers as a result.

Before we end this discussion, here's another video done by the same user above (hickok45), demonstrating the effectiveness of the unique gas seal of this weapon.

Enjoy.

In the 19th century, the British Empire spanned a large portion of the globe. This was a time when rich English sportsmen would undertake expeditions to remote parts of the world to hunt exotic birds and animals. To hunt small targets that could be approached at closer ranges (e.g. birds, rabbits etc.), the best weapon that hunters could use were shotguns and to hunt larger furry animals that needed to be shot at longer ranges (e.g. deer, buffalo, tigers etc.), hunters would use rifles.

However, this meant that sportsmen would need to carry two different kinds of firearms for their expeditions: shotguns and rifles. Bear in mind that rapid reloading technologies were not yet fully developed at that time and the standard method of hunting in these expeditions was for the hunter to carry one loaded firearm and have a few assistants (called "gun bearers") standing next to him, each carrying another loaded firearm or two. After the hunter had fired his weapon, one assistant would exchange his loaded firearm with the hunter, so that the hunter could continue firing at targets, while the assistant reloaded the other firearm. Also, because there was a chance of parts breaking in the field, a hunter would typically pack several rifles and shotguns for an expedition, so that he would not have to return early, if one firearm broke.

Sportsmen of that era, expected to hunt both birds and animals on a long expedition and hence, they would pack both shotguns and rifles for their journeys. This made their baggage heavier, since these are two different firearm types. This was the situation until 1885, when a British colonel named George Vincent Fosbery, invented a firearm that could be used as both a shotgun and a rifle. His invention consisted of a large shotgun with a mostly smooth barrel, but the last few inches of the barrel near the muzzle were rifled with a special "ratchet" style. The famous British firearm manufacturer, Holland & Holland, immediately bought the patent rights for this firearm and began to market it as the Paradox gun in 1886.

Patent document from 1885 showing the design of the Paradox gun's special barrel.

Click on image to enlarge. Public domain image.

Muzzle of a 12 bore Paradox gun showing the special rifling.

Click on image to enlarge. Image licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license by user "Lord Mountbatten" at wikipedia.

19th century advertisement for the Paradox Gun.

Click on image to enlarge. Public domain image.

The word "paradox" means a statement that apparently contradicts itself. The reason that Holland & Holland chose to market this firearm with this name was because the defining nature of a shotgun of that era was its smooth barrel, but this was a shotgun with rifling in the barrel, hence it was a paradox!

The hunter could now carry one gun and two different types of cartridges and load the appropriate cartridge type, depending upon the target. Holland & Holland built about 1500 Paradox guns of various sizes between 1886 and 1930. They were built for a variety of bores: 8, 10, 12, 16 and 20 gauge.

While Holland & Holland owned the trademark "Paradox gun", they were not the only manufacturer of this type of dual-use firearm. Other British manufacturers made them for sale under their own names or for other companies to sell under their brand names (e.g.) Westley Richards and G & S Holloway. Westley Richards started manufacturing these guns in 1905 and sold them under the trademarks "Explora" (for larger bore 12-gauge gun models) and "Fauneta" (for smaller bore 20 and 28 gauge gun models). Some of G & S Holloway's products were resold in India by P. Orr & Sons, a high end jeweler and watch dealer in Madras (now Chennai), India, so their products are marked with both G&S Holloway and P. Orr markings. Some of these firearms occasionally show up in firearm auctions. P. Orr & Sons are still in business, although they have stopped selling firearms since around 1970 and only sell clocks and watches now.

Vintage advertisement by Westley Richards for their Explora model gun. Click on image to enlarge

In 2006, Holland & Holland announced that they would start manufacturing Paradox guns again, after a break of over 70 years and they are currently selling new models.

In our last post, we studied the Paradox gun, which could be used either as a shotgun, or as a rifle. The Paradox gun is one of the examples of a class of dual-purpose firearms. We will study another member of this family in today's post: the Cape Gun.

A cape gun is a long side-by-side double-barreled firearm, where one barrel is rifled and the other one is smooth. The user can use the rifled barrel to fire long range accurate shots against large game and use the smooth barrel to shoot shotgun shells at smaller animals. The gun has two triggers and allows the user to pull either one as needed. Cape guns were once very popular in South Africa, especially in the Eastern Cape province, but the guns themselves were mostly made in Europe. Cape guns made in Germany and Austria usually have the rifled barrel on the right side, whereas British made cape guns tend to have the rifled barrel on the left side.

Click on image to enlarge.

In the above image, we see a cape gun from the breech end. Note that the barrel on the left side has rifling visible and the barrel on the right side is smooth. This particular model is loaded from the breech, but there were many muzzle-loading models made as well. Hunters often used these in South Africa, where a wide variety of game could be expected.

Vintage advertisement for a Cape Gun by T. Bland and Sons

The author W.W. Greener, in his book, The Gun and its Development, mentions that these guns were much esteemed by South African sportsmen and that it was useful in countries, where the kind of game that may be encountered cannot be determined beforehand. It was also found useful by poorer emigrants, who could not afford two different kinds of firearms. On the other hand, he mentions that it also has some drawbacks: A cape gun is pretty heavy compared to ordinary shotguns and the balance is also somewhat affected, making wing shots more difficult. As a rifle, it is light compared to ordinary rifles and has a larger recoil, when used with heavy-load cartridges. Therefore he recommends getting a separate rifle and a double-barreled shotgun instead, if it is practical to do so. It must be mentioned though, that Greener also manufactured combination guns and choke-bored rifles, which we will study in the near future.

Cape guns were made by a large number of manufacturers and are still found in auctions today. In the next post, we will study some more types of combined rifles and shotguns.

In the last two posts, we looked at some examples of firearms that could be used as both rifles and shotguns. In today's post, we will look at another firearm of this ball and shot gun category, the "Colindian gun".

The Colindian gun was produced by Charles Lancaster, a famous British gunmaker in the 1800s. Mr. Lancaster was not only interested in small arms, but also larger cannons as well. In 1850, he came up with the idea of an oval shaped bore. The bore would be slightly oval shaped and would rotate throughout the length of the barrel and therefore, a tightly fitting projectile would come out spinning, just like a rifle bullet. Unlike a true rifle though, there are no grooves and therefore, no sharp rifling edges, which makes the bore easier to clean.

The above image shows the cross-sectional profile of an oval bore barrel. The image has the details slightly exaggerated though. In reality, the oval diameter was only slightly away from being perfectly round and imperceptible to the eye.

To prove that his idea could work, he constructed a 68-pounder cannon (which was the same as the largest cannon then in British military service), which he successfully demonstrated to the British government in 1851. In 1852, he decided to use the same principle in rifles and produced a few carbines bored with his special oval boring, which he submitted for evaluation by the British military. This carbine design was accepted by the Royal Engineers in 1855 and used until 1867. The Lancaster cannon design was also used in the British military, especially during the Crimean war.

In 1870, he took on an apprentice named Henry Thorn and when he passed away in 1878, Mr. Thorn continued to produce firearms under the Charles Lancaster name.

The Colindian gun was produced in the late 1800s for hunters in the British empire, using the same oval-bore principle. The name is an abbreviation of the words ,"Colonies" and "India". These could be loaded with either a shotshell loaded with buckshot, or a shell with a single .65 bore slug. In emergencies, it could also be loaded with a heavy 750 grain hardened conical bullet, to take on elephants and rhinoceros. The sights were of the folding type and could be adjusted for 50 or 100 yard ranges, or folded down so that it could be used as a short-ranged shotgun. The Colindian guns were rated to use both black powder and the newer cordite propellants.

Vintage advertisement for the Colindian gun. Click on image to enlarge. Public domain image.

Click on image to enlarge. Public domain image.

These guns were made in several bores and with multiple barrels as well.

Four-barreled Charles Lancaster gun. Click on image to enlarge.

The above magnificent gun is a four-barreled hammerless breech-loading rifle that was once owned by the Maharaja of Rewa in India. The four barrels are all oval-bore. The rear trigger is actually a cocking lever. Pulling the cocking lever for the first time makes the upper right barrel ready for firing. Each pull of the trigger and cocking lever fires each of the barrels in turn. The oval nature of the barrels is almost impossible to see, as the oval is only 0.006 inches out of round.

The Charles Lancaster company continued to produce oval bore rifles from the late 1800s to the early 1920s or so.

In the last few posts, we have studied several firearms that could be used both as shotguns and rifles. We will study another member of this family today, the Combination Gun.

In an earlier post, we had studied a particular type of firearm called the "Cape Gun". Basically, a cape gun is a double-barreled firearm with the two barrels attached side by side and one barrel is rifled, while the other one is smooth. This gun was popular with hunters in Southern Africa's Eastern Cape province.

The Combination gun is very similar in concept to the Cape gun, however the main difference is that the barrels of a combination gun are mounted one on top of the other. Like the Cape guns, these were first made for hunters in the latter part of the 19th century, for the same reasons -- this way, a hunter who expected to meet various types of game on the hunt, could be prepared to use either the rifle or the shotgun as needed. Also, poorer emigrants didn't need to buy two different guns (a shotgun and a rifle) separately, because a combination gun could perform both roles.

A Remington SPR94 combination gun

The above image is of a Remington SPR94 shotgun/rifle combination gun. It was manufactured by Baikal in Russia for Remington and this model was manufactured from 2005 to 2008.

Savage Arms model M24

The Savage M24 is one of the more popular combination gun models in the world and was made between 1949 and 1970. This particular model has one barrel rifled for .22 long rifle and the other is a .410 bore shotgun barrel.

Unlike some of the other types we have studied previously, combination guns are still being made today, e.g. Savage Arms Model 42.

In our last few posts, we have studied several examples of guns designed to be used as shotguns and rifles simultaneously. In our last post, we studied Combination guns, which are over-and-under type firearms with one barrel rifled and another one smooth. In today's post, we will study another class of gun that is also designed to be used either as a shotgun or a rifle, the so-called Drilling gun.

In the case of combination guns, cape guns and paradox guns that we studied earlier, these are all double-barreled firearms. A drilling gun, on the other hand, has three barrels. Generally, two of these barrels are smooth and designed to be used with shotgun cartridges and the third barrel is rifled. However, some other combinations are possible as well, as we will see below soon.

The word "drilling" is actually a corruption of the German word "dreiling", which means "triplet" ("drei" means "three" in German). Several of the early guns of this class were made in German-speaking areas of Europe, for hunting purposes.

The reasons for developing a firearm like this were the same as for all the other firearms we have studied in the previous four posts (viz.) the hunter doesn't need to carry a separate shotgun and rifle, the hunter can be prepared for a wide variety of game, poorer hunters can purchase one weapon that can be used both as a rifle and a shotgun, instead of purchasing a separate rifle and a shotgun etc.

The most common variety of drilling gun has three barrels arranged in an inverted-triangle manner, with the upper two barrels being shotgun barrels of identical bore and the bottom barrel is rifled.

In the above two images, we see two guns where the upper two barrels are smooth and the lower barrel is rifled. This arrangement is called "common drilling" in English ("Normaldreiling" in German). Incidentally, we have already studied a firearm of this type on this blog many months ago, when we studied the TP-82 Russian space pistol.

Another fairly common variant has the barrels arranged as a triangle, where the bottom two barrels are shotgun barrels and the top barrel is rifled. In this configuration, the rifled barrel is generally pretty small caliber (something like .22 Long Rifle or .22 Hornet). This variant is called "Schienendrilling" in German.

A rarer variant is a gun that has two rifled barrels and one shotgun barrel. These are harder to construct because the rifle barrels must be carefully aligned during manufacturing, so that they shoot at the same point of aim at some given distance. This is the same process that is done to double-barreled shotguns as well, but shotguns have much short ranges and wider shot patterns, so a small misalignment are not so obvious with shotgun barrels. Due to the precision manufacturing processes required to make the rifled barrels, these firearms usually cost about twice as much as common-drilling firearms.

In the above image, we have a drilling gun where the top two barrels are rifled and the bottom barrel is a shotgun barrel. This arrangement is called "Dopplebuchs dreiling" in German (which means "double rifle drilling"). Note that the two rifled barrels in the above image are the same caliber. Some of the guns of this type can fit large rifle cartridges, such as .375 Magnum, .470 Nitro Express etc. and can be used to hunt dangerous game such as lions and elephants.

However, this is not the only possible arrangement, as some hunters prefer two different rifle calibers in their guns. In this case, the shotgun and one rifled barrel are placed in an over and under arrangement and a smaller-caliber rifle barrel is placed on one side:

In the above image, we see a firearm with three different barrel calibers. The two rifled barrels are designed to fire 8x57 JR and .22 Long and the shotgun barrel is 16 gauge. This variant of firearm is sometimes called "Bock Drilling". Firearms of this type generally cost more than twice that of the common-drilling type.

Another very less common variant has two shotgun barrels of the same caliber in an over-and-under arrangement, with a rifled barrel on one side.

This variant is referred to as "Bock-Doppelflinte mit seitlichem Kleinkaliberlauf" in German.

There is also a drilling arrangement where all three barrels are all arranged vertically. In this variant, the top barrel is a shotgun and the bottom two barrels are rifles of different calibers.

The above image shows an example of this type. This is a very rare configuration that is seldom encountered.

There are also variants that have three shotgun or three rifled barrels, but we won't talk about those here because they are not designed to be used as shotguns and rifles simultaneously.

Finally, we have a variant called "Vierling" in German, which is a four barreled weapon. The name comes from "Vier", the German word for "four". Firearms of this type have four barrels in a diamond shaped configuration:

Vierling barrels

The rifled barrels may be of the same caliber or different calibers, depending on the customer's requirements.

Drilling guns were usually made by smaller manufacturers and each maker generally picks whichever barrel configurations they like. Some of them will adjust the barrel configurations based on customer requirements. Many of the well known manufacturers of this class of firearms are German, and they were mostly originally located around the city of Suhl in Germany before World War II. After World War II, the city of Suhl went to East Germany and some of these companies were forced to move to other cities in West Germany and others were forced to close their doors. A large number of drilling hunting rifles were also confiscated and destroyed by Allied forces after World War II, as part of disarming the German population. Hence, some types of drilling guns are very rare now and command a high price among collectors. Some of the well-known manufacturers are Krieghoff, J.P. Sauer & Sohn, Eduard Kettner, Christoph Funk, Heym etc. and all of these, except for Christoph Funk, are still in business currently and manufacturing fine quality drilling guns even today.

In the AK family of firearms, there are a huge number of different models. The Chinese type 56 rifle is one of these common variants. So how does a person tell that this is a Chinese made AK variant or some other model. This post aims to explain that.

First, many Chinese made AKs have markings in Chinese, so if a person is close enough to examine the markings, then this might be a good indication of where it was made. One place to look is near the fire selector lever, which selects the rifle's firing mode.

Click on image to enlarge.

The two Chinese characters are 连 (pronounced as "Lian" and translates as "chain" or "join" or "link successively") and 单 (pronounced as "Dan" and translates as "single" or "only"). These are the equivalents of "automatic" and "single-shot" modes.

In some Chinese made AKs, the letters are transliterated into English as 'L' and 'D' instead (L for Lian and D for Dan)

In the above image, you can see the letters 'L' and 'D' stamped in into the metal.

In some Chinese made AKs, there may be other markings in Chinese, or even say "Made in China" in English letters, especially in some imported models.

Even without getting close to the firearm, there are other ways to distinguish Chinese made AKs from a distance.

One of the distinctive features of Chinese AKs is that the front sight is a fully hooded type:

The front sight is inside a complete circle. This feature is distinct for Chinese made AKs and no other AK models have this type of sight (assuming that the original front sight hasn't been replaced, of course. It is possible for a non-Chinese AK to have a hooded sight if the owner decided to replace it. Conversely, the owner of a Chinese AK might have replaced the hooded sight with another one.)

By the way, the rifle in the image above shows an earlier model type 56 and the receiver is milled, rather than being stamped. Note the deep horizontal groove in the receiver on top of the magazine. In later models of the type 56, the receiver was manufactured by using stampings and rivets, in order to speed up production. For example, we have:

As you can see, the hooded front sight is common to all these models. There is also one more common feature that is seen with later model type 56 variants. In all the above images, look at the three rivets in front of the magazine. For example:

As you can see in the image above, the three rivets form a triangular shape. You can see this triangular arrangement in most type-56 models, except some of the early models which had milled receivers. This is also something that is unique to Chinese made AKs only and rifles that are made elsewhere don't have this rivet pattern.

In today's post, we will study a multi-barrel firearm known as the Nock gun.

Henry Nock was originally a British locksmith, but in 1775, he invented a firearm lock and received a patent for it. During this period, the London Gunmakers guild (The Worshipful Company of Gunmakers) had influenced lawmakers in England to pass laws that made it impossible for non-guild members to manufacture or trade in firearms. As Henry Nock was not yet a member of the Gunmakers guild, he could not legally form a firearm company under his own name. Hence, he took on a couple of partners: William Jover and John Green. The new company was named Nock, Jover & Co. and William Jover was already a Master of the Gunmakers Company guild, thereby allowing the company to legally trade in firearms. The American Revolution caused Nock's company to receive a large amount of business and his company began to grow. The French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars were also profitable for this company, as it received several orders from the British Army and Navy.

What we know as the Nock gun was not invented by Henry Nock. It was actually invented by a British engineer named James Wilson in 1779, but since James Wilson could not himself manufacture the firearm, he came to Nock's company to manufacture the prototypes for him. In 1780, the Royal Navy commissioned Nock to produce 500 of these guns for use on their ships and the firearm was popularly referred to as the Nock gun instead of the Wilson gun.

Click on image to enlarge. Public domain image

The Nock gun is a 7-barrel fiream using a flintlock firing mechanism. Six of the barrels are arranged in a hexagonal arrangement around the seventh central barrel. The central barrel has small vents that link to the other six barrels. The firing pan connects to the central barrel and when the charge in the central barrel ignites, the flame spreads through the small vents to the other six barrels and discharges all seven barrels almost simultaneously (at least in theory. In practice, not all the barrels would always discharge). The first three firearms delivered to the Royal Navy had rifled barrels, but since they took too long to load, all the later models came with smoothbore barrels.

Click on image to enlarge. Image licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license by jim.rocco at wikipedia.

The British Navy had decided that since shipboard battles generally involved sailors and marines packed together in tight masses, what was needed was a weapon that could shoot a large volume of shot. This firearm was intended to be carried onto a ship's rigging and to fire at the deck below, in the event that the ship was boarded by the enemy.

In theory, this weapon could inflict heavy damage to an incoming group of enemy soldiers. In actual practice, this weapon was actually much more hazardous to its user. Due to the simultaneous discharge of seven barrels, the recoil was pretty large and often ended up bruising or breaking the shoulder of the person operating it. The recoil also made the firearm hard to control and accuracy suffered as a result. Hence, many sailors didn't want to use this weapon at all. On top of that, firing the weapon would often cause a large number of sparks to fly out of the side of the firing pan. Hence, the naval officers were reluctant to use these firearms near their ships rigging, because they feared that they could start fires and burn through the rigging and sails. The Nock company tried producing a smaller and lighter version, but the recoil was still too much for an average sailor to operate and the British Navy ended up phasing these out of service by 1804.

Meanwhile, Henry Nock was officially accepted as a Freeman of the Gunmakers Company guild in 1784 and as a Master of the Gunmakers Company guild in 1802. His company became well known for their quality double barreled hunting rifles and duelling pistols. After his death in 1804, his company was continued by his son-in-law James Wilkinson, who later brought his son, Henry, into the business and renamed the company to Wilkinson & Son around 1818. The company diversified into making firearms as well as swords and was later renamed to Wilkinson Sword in 1864. In 1903, when British firearm laws were modified to make it harder to sell firearms to the public, the company started to diversify into several other products, such as automobiles, ceremonial swords, typewriters, gardening tools, scissors and even razor blades (in 1965). In fact, the company continued to make ceremonial swords for British officers until 2005 and the company is still known for its razors and razor blades (they are one of the few manufacturers that still make the old-fashioned double edged safety razor blades)

While the Nock gun was only used in service for a few years, one showed up in the iconic 1960 movie, The Alamo, starring Richard Widmark as Jim Bowie.

In the early days of firearms, when most of them were muzzleloaders, reloading a firearm after it was shot took some time to accomplish. Today, we will study a firearm that attempted to solve this issue, the Kalthoff Repeater.

First, we should go into the origin of the name: This repeater was actually invented by an unknown inventor in the 17th century, but many of them were later manufactured by the Kalthoff family of gunsmiths and hence, they are now commonly referred to as Kalthoff repeaters.

The first known member of this gunsmithing family was Herman Kolthoff (1540-1610), who came from the town of Kultenhof in the Westphalia region of Germany (back in Herman Kolthoff's times, this area was part of the Danish duchy of Schleswig). He was a well known and rich person, famous for his iron manufacturing factories. He had several sons, who served as gunsmiths for various royal families across Europe: Peter Kalthoff (1600-1672), who served Fredrick III of Denmark as Head of Armory; Matthias Kalthoff, another Danish gunmaker; Caspar Kalthoff the Elder (1606-1664), who served under Charles I in England; Henric Kalthoff (1610-1661) who founded several ironworking foundries in Sweden and Norway etc. Some of their other descendants were also gunsmiths, e.g. Caspar Kalthoff the Younger, son of Caspar Kalthoff the Elder, who served as gunsmith for both Charles II of England and Tsar Alexis I of Russia.

The Kalthoff repeater is a smoothbore musket with two magazines. The first magazine is located in the forearm section of the musket and contains round bullet balls. A second magazine is located within the stock of the firearm and stores gunpowder.

A Kalthoff repeater. Click on image to enlarge.

Much like the lever-action rifle which was invented two centuries later, the trigger guard is actually a lever that helps operate this weapon. Upon pushing and pulling the trigger guard, the mechanism puts a charge of gunpowder and a ball into the breech of the weapon and then cocks the weapon. A small carrier device carries the powder from the magazine to the breech, to prevent the danger of the flame reaching the powder magazine. The user only has to manipulate the trigger guard lever, add some priming powder to the firing pan and the weapon is ready to fire. In some models, there is no need for the user to add priming powder to the pan manually, as there is a third magazine to feed the priming powder automatically.

Firing mechanism on some early models were wheel-locks and later models were flintlocks. Early models held six or seven shots, later there were some twelve shot models made and even one that claims to hold thirty shots. Typical reload time was one or two seconds, which gave this weapon a huge advantage over any other weapon in the 17th century. In fact, it wasn't until the middle of the 19th century that any other weapon came close to matching the rate of fire of a Kalthoff repeater.

However, this type of weapon was mostly used by rich people only. The mechanism was complicated and needed a specialized gunsmith to assemble and repair it. Also, wet powder and powder fouling could jam the mechanism easily. Therefore, this made it unsuitable for general military use and only rich people and elite military units used it. One example of military use was about 100 of these guns used by the Danish Royal Foot Guards in the Scanian war.

Some fine examples of this type of weapon exist in museums today:

Seven shot Kalthoff repeater

The above fine hunting gun is a seven-shot model that was made in London in 1658 and is now in the Moscow Kremlin museum. Inscriptions on it say that it was made by Caspar Kalthoff the Elder and Harman Barne (otherwise known as Haerman Barnevelt). This weapon was presented to Tsar Fyodor Alexeevich of Russia in 1664, by the British ambassador Prince Charles Howard. A similar gun with the inscription, C. Kalthoff, from around 1660, is in the Royal collection in Windsor Castle.

The gun has a seven bullet magazine in the fore-end and a powder magazine in the lock part of the wooden stock. In the safety catch is a transporter that holds a little more gunpowder than is necessary for firing. To reload, the user points the gun upwards and then moves the trigger guard 180 degrees forward and back. This has the effect of moving the sliding blocks to load a bullet and gunpowder into the breech and cocks the weapon. The remaining gun powder that is left in the transporter is then tipped out on to the priming pan and the gun is ready to fire.

The gun is made of steel, copper alloy and high quality walnut wood. A hunting scene featuring dogs and a deer are engraved on the lock plate, a dragon is engraved on the cocking piece and there are other decorative engravings, carvings and gold inlays on the weapon as well.

The Kalthoff family were not the only people that made this type of firearm though:

Five shot repeater

The above example can also be found in the Moscow Kremlin museum. It is a five-shot repeater and was made in London around 1660, by the above mentioned Harman Barne (Haerman Barnevelt). Harman Barne was a Dutch gunmaker, who moved to London and became a Gunmaker to King Charles I and Charles II, as well as Prince Rupert of England. This fine weapon is also made of steel and walnut wood with fine engravings, carvings and gold inlays. Unlike the previous example, this weapon has a rifled barrel with 8 grooves in it.

In our last post, we looked at an early weapon that was capable of rapid reloading, the Kalthoff repeater. In today's post, we will look at another weapon's system from that era that attempted to solve the same problem, the Lorenzoni repeater.

As was mentioned in our previous post, the main issue with early firearms was that, after shooting a shot, the user would have to spend some time reloading the weapon, before he could fire again. Before the invention of technologies such as cartridges and breech-loading weapons, reloading was a process that took a minute or two. Since a firearm is useless unless it is loaded, gunsmiths were trying to reduce the reloading time as much as possible. One of these inventions was the Lorenzoni repeater.

The Lorenzoni repeating system was invented by a gunsmith named Michele Lorenzoni from Florence, Italy around 1660 or so. He used it for both muskets as well as pistols.

Click on images to enlarge.

It consists of a firearm which has two magazines located above the trigger. The top one holds bullets and the bottom one holds the gunpowder. There is a long lever located on the left side, which can be used to move a revolving breech drum. The drum has two chambers within it.

To reload this firearm, the user points the gun downwards and rotates the long lever forward and back. On the forward motion, a measured amount of gunpowder and a single ball fall from their respective magazines into their separate chambers in the revolving breech drum. As the lever is pushed to its forward most point, it also cocks the flintlock and closes the frizzen cover. Then as the lever is pushed back, the ball and gunpowder that were loaded into the revolving breech chambers earlier, fall into the firearm breech. A little extra gunpowder falls into the firing pan and the gun is now ready to fire.

A pistol using the Lorenzoni system. Click on image to enlarge.

The revolving breech block is very precisely made, so that it seals off the powder magazine when the long lever is moved back into position. This is so that when the weapon is fired, the flame does not travel backward into the powder magazine and ignite it. A typical weapon of this type holds about 6-10 shots and it only takes a few seconds to reload between shots. Therefore, this weapon gave its user an immense advantage over other firearms of that era.

Here's a video demonstrating how the system works:

As with the Kalthoff system, a firearm using this system needed very skilled machinists to manufacture and repair it. Therefore, this was not used for mass produced firearms. Also, because black powder burns dirty, powder fouling becomes a problem after a few shots. Firearms using this system were of high quality and usually purchased by wealthy people.

Michele Lorenzoni is known to have made a few of these weapons using this system, but they are very rare today. His family continued to make weapons using this system, well into the 18th century. His invention was also used by other people. It is recorded that an English gunmaker named Abraham Hill appropriated and patented the Lorenzoni system in London on 3rd March 1664. The very next day, the famous English diarist, naval administrator and member of parliament, Samuel Pepys, recorded in his diary that "There were several people by trying a new-fashion gun brought my Lord this morning, to shoot off often, one after another, without trouble or danger, very pretty".

The Lorenzoni system also saw use in America, in the form of the Cookson gun, which we will study in the next post.

In our last post, we studied the Lorenzoni Repeater, which was invented by Michele Lorenzoni of Florence, Italy. While Mr. Lorenzoni was the inventor of this repeating system, he is known to have made only a few guns (albeit, of very high quality) in his lifetime. While his family continued producing guns using his system until the 1800s, there were other people who produced many more guns using the system that he pioneered. One of these guns was called the Cookson Repeater and we will study it in this post.

John Cookson was a British gunsmith from London, who made several repeating guns using the Lorenzoni system.

Side view and top view of a Cookson repeater. Click on image to enlarge. Public domain image.

The above weapon is an example of the Cookson repeater, found at the National Museum in Washington DC. It dates from about 1686 and has the inscription "John Cookson Fecit" (Latin for "Made by John Cookson") on the top barrel. The long lever that operates the Lorenzoni repeating system can clearly be seen in the above image. It is hard to tell if the barrel is of the laminated type or the twist type. The front side is an upside down crescent and practically all of the metal on this gun is engraved with flags, drums, cannon balls, cannon being fired, muskets, pikes etc.. On the lock is a scroll bearing the maker's name and held up on the left side by the figure of an angel and on the right side by a female figure (presumably Queen Elizabeth I).

The gun has a smoothbore barrel, uses a flintlock firing mechanism and fires spherical balls weighing about 260 grains, with about 125 grains of powder. The bullet magazine has the capacity to hold ten bullets and the powder magazine holds enough powder for ten shots.

In the above diagram, we see the workings of the Cookson repeater. The bullets and powder can be loaded via a flap on the left side into the two compartments A and B. Compartment A holds the bullets and B holds the powder. The round piece C is the revolving breech block and it has two cavities D and E within it, to hold the powder and the bullet ball. When the breech block C is revolved, a ball drops into the first cavity D and the powder falls into the second cavity E. Note that the front of the cavity E has a diaphragm G in front, which divides the cavity in half. This diaphragm is there to prevents a bullet from falling into cavity E, as the width of the entrance to the cavity is too small for the bullet to fit. As the breech block is revolved all the way around, the ball and powder drop into the rear end of the bore at F. Some of the powder also dribbles into the firing pan. Moving the lever further also cocks the flintlock and closes the pan's cover (the frizzen) and the weapon is now ready to fire. The whole process of reloading a new shot only takes two or three seconds, giving its user a huge advantage over other firearms of that era.

The stock is made of a type of wood that is not found in North America. This gun appears to have made its way to Maryland, probably brought by one of the early British colonists to America.

Two images of a Cookson Repeater in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, England. Click on images to enlarge.

The above two images show a fine Cookson repeater dating from about 1690, which is currently at the Victoria & Albert museum in London, England (British Galleries, room 56d, case 5). John Cookson is known to have made several repeaters and one of his guns is even marked "Fecit Londoni" (Latin for "Made in London"), suggesting that he was a London-based gun maker and he's known to have been active in the last quarter of the 17th century.

Incidentally, there is a record of another John Cookson, a gunmaker in America. This John Cookson is also known for making repeaters and is known to have lived in the city of Boston between 1701 and 1762. Some authorities say that this John Cookson was related to John Cookson from London and others say that he was the same man and had merely moved from London to Boston. Regardless, in 1756, he published an ad in the local newspaper, Boston Gazette, advertising his nine-shot repeaters. He is also known to have made some seven-shot repeaters as well.

The video below shows a Cookson-type twelve shot repeater in the National Firearms Museum.

The above repeater was made around 1750 by John Shaw, who lived in London and Boston. He is reported to have died in Boston under rather strange circumstances. Apparently, he was attempting to demonstrate the waterproof nature of one of his repeaters in the middle of a thunderstorm, when he was struck by lightning!

Since John Cookson made so many examples of repeating guns, people in Britain and America tend to know his name better than Michele Lorenzoni, who actually pioneered the system behind the Cookson repeaters.

In our last post, we looked at the Cookson Repeater. In today's post, we will look at another repeating rifle, but this one has a number of very unusual features of interest. Today's study will be about the Girandoni Repeating Air Rifle.

The Girandoni Air Rifle was developed by an Italian gunsmith and watchmaker named Bartholomaus Girandoni around 1778 or 1779 in the Tyrol region of Italy. In 1780, it was adopted for use in the Austrian army, where it was called a Windbuchse (literally meaning "wind rifle" in German). The rifle was in use by the Austrian military until around 1815 and was used against in battles against the Turks. Japan and France were also other users of this type of weapon.

An unusual feature of the Girandoni rifle was that it did not use any gunpowder. Instead, the method of propulsion was compressed air. The rifle was about 4 feet (1.2 meters) long, weighed about 10 lbs (4.5 kg.) and fired a .46 caliber ball at velocities of around 750-900 feet/sec (about 225 - 275 meters/sec), which is about the same velocity as a .45 ACP bullet coming out of a modern Colt 1911 pistol. Although, air rifles had been in existence before Bartholomaus Girandoni invented his rifle, previous models were all single shot rifles, whereas this was the first example of a repeating air rifle.

It looks similar to other flintlock muzzle loaders of that era, but there are some interesting differences. For instance, there is a tubular magazine on the side, where the user can load about 20 spherical bullets. In fact, this was one of the first firearms in history to feature a tubular magazine. There is no flint, frizzen or firing pan, since this weapon doesn't use gunpowder. The stock is a hollow air reservoir that is covered in leather and screws on to the back of the rifle

A leather gasket is placed between the rifle and the air reservoir, to maintain a tight seal. In the field, the leather gasket often needed to be wetted to make sure that the seal was good. There is a thumb slide lever on the left side of the rifle that is pushed to load this weapon.

When this rifle was adopted by the Austrian army, each soldier was equipped with three air reservoirs (one attached to the rifle and two spares carried in a leather bag), 100 lead bullets in tubes, spare leather gaskets and an air pump to refill the reservoirs. In addition, each soldier also had a cleaning kit and a bullet mold to cast extra bullets.

Replica of Austrian soldier's kit carried with the Girandoni Rifle. Click on image to enlarge. Public domain image.

To use this rifle, the soldier would point the rifle's muzzle to the sky and push the thumb slide button on the left side of the rifle to open the breech block. Due to gravity, a bullet from the tubular magazine would fall into the breech. The soldier would then cock the rifle and the rifle was ready to fire. One of the nice things about this rifle was that the soldier could load it from behind cover, in a prone position. The soldier would fire his rifle, then roll on his back, point the rifle to the sky and push the lever, then roll back on his stomach and cock the rifle and be ready to fire again. All this would only take a couple of seconds and this was a huge advantage over other muzzle loaders of the era.

The air-reservoir was pressurized to about 800 pounds per square inch (about 5515 kilo-pascals (kPa) for metric speakers). By comparison, a modern automobile tire is typically pressurized to about 35-40 pounds per square inch (or about 240-275 kPa). To achieve this kind of pressure, the user would have to pump it with approximately 1500 strokes using the hand-pump. Since this could take some time, that's why the user was supplied with two extra air reservoirs. A full air reservoir was good for shooting about 30-40 shots, before the pressure would fall below a useful amount and the user would then replace it with another reservoir. The first 10 shots would be lethal to about 150 yards, the next 10-15 shots would be lethal to about 100 yards and the remaining 10-15 shots would be lethal to about 75 yards.

Since the rifle uses no gunpowder, it does not produce much noise, which makes it good for ambushes. There is no smoke produced either. The user also doesn't need to worry about keeping gunpowder dry in rainy weather. However, the weapon has some disadvantages as well. When the weapon was first manufactured, production technology was not as good as it is today and the screw threads around the neck of the reservoir were rather weak. The leather gaskets needed to be constantly kept wet to avoid air leaks. The reservoirs were also not very sturdy and often broke in the field, rendering the weapon useless as a rifle. The reservoirs were also difficult to make with the manufacturing technology available during that time. Filling the reservoirs by hand took about 1500 strokes of the hand-pump to fill each one and this took some time. The Austrian army attempted to fix this by providing larger, more efficient pumps mounted on wagons, but this meant the wagons needed to follow the soldiers around the battle field, thereby limiting their mobility. These are some of the reasons why the Austrian army stopped using it in 1815.

However, this type of rifle has a very important place in American history. A version of the Girandoni air rifle was made in Philadelphia by one Isiah Lukens, who was also a watchmaker and gunsmith like Bartholomaus Girandoni. The Lukens version of the rifle had a capacity of 23 bullets, instead of 20 bullets that the original rifle had. One of these rifles was custom-made by Isiah Lukens for Meriweather Lewis, who carried it with him on the famous Lewis and Clark expedition from 1804 to 1806 (for non-American readers, the Lewis and Clark expedition was a famous scientific and exploration expedition that discovered a land route from the city of St. Louis, Missouri to the west coast of the United States.) Meriweather Lewis is recorded to have used this rifle to impress several Native American tribes, who were all amazed by its repeating capability and the fact that it made less noise than a conventional firearm.

The video below shows the curator of the NRA museum explaining the features and operation of this rifle:

The Girandoni rifle had quite a few innovations. It was one of the first rifles to feature a tubular magazine, well before the Spencer rifle and the Henry repeating rifles, which were invented around 80 years later. It was the first repeating rifle in the world, that was used in military service. The mechanism it used was also quite advanced for its time. An air rifle even finds mention in the Sherlock Holmes mystery, The Adventure of the Empty House, where Colonel Moran attempts to assassinate Sherlock Holmes, using an unique air rifle made by a blind German mechanic named Von Herder.

In our last post, we studied a very unusual firearm, the Girandoni Repeating Rifle, which did not use any gunpowder, but was entirely powered by air pressure. In today's post, we will study a very unusual revolver design, the Enouy Revolver. One look at it is sufficient for the reader to judge how unusual this is:

The Enouy Revolver. Click on image to enlarge.

The Enouy revolver was a design patented by Joseph Enouy of Middlesex, England, who received British patent #1359 in 1855. The basic revolver was based on a transitional revolver design made by Charles Osborne in 1845. The innovative part of Enouy's design was the compound magazine design. According to the notes for his patent application:

Patent 1359. Joseph Enouy, of 31, Denbigh-place, Pimlico, St. George's, Hanover Square, Middlesex, for The means of removal of every rotary or revolving barrel or cylinder containing chambers from all revolver pistols, guns, and fire-arms, and the substitution in their place by another and other barrels or cylinders in succession.

Two or more revolving breech-pieces are connected in a frame attached to the stock in such a manner that when the charges in the chambers of one breech-piece have all been fired, the breech-piece may then be removed and others ready charged by successively substituted in its place.
- Dated June 14, 1855. Sealed December 11, 1855.

In this particular example, each revolver cylinder is capable of holding 6 shots and there are 8 different revolver cylinders attached to the compound magazine wheel, thereby giving this weapon a capacity of 48 shots. Here's another view of the same firearm:

Enouy Revolver. Click on image to enlarge.

The magazine wheel rotates around a rod, which is fastened to the revolver butt on one end and to a bracket that is attached to the underside of the revolver on the other end.

As you may have guessed, this weapon is very heavy, unbalanced and unwieldy at the same time. Due to the magazine wheel in front, the user can't carry this revolver is his pocket or in a holster either. This firearm design was not a success and Joseph Enouy didn't seem to manufacture many of them either. In fact, most of the pictures of this firearm available on the web are from one particular revolver made by Enouy, which was once owned by a Mr. Vokes. As there are no records of this revolver being manufactured and sold commercially, it is possible that the above example is literally the only one that was ever made. It is fortunate that we have a record of Mr. Enouy's patent application available.

Four years ago, in the early days of this blog, we had studied a method of manufacturing a rifled barrel, called Cut Rifling, or more accurately, Single Point Cut Rifling. Since then, that series of posts has been referenced by other websites which wish to explain how these technologies work. However, mere descriptions of the processes involved is not always enough. Hence, the next series of posts will present movies of the various processes.

If you don't know how cut rifling works, you should click on the links above and read up on the processes. Then, watch the following movie to see it in action:

The sine bar rifling machine in this video was manufactured by Diamond Machine Corp. of Rhode Island. This company was originally founded by Mr. R.I. Costain and Mr. Nicholas B. Hadley in 1869 and known as Hadley & Costain, manufacturers of the Diamond Emery Wheel. In 1881, they shortened their name to Diamond Emery Wheel & Machine Corp., and around 1889 or 1890, they became known as Diamond Machine Corp and they seem to have been in business till at least 1926.

The uploader of this video notes that this machine had been owned by multiple people, including the uploader's grandfather and has been restored to working condition and is cutting its first barrel in 40 years.

As was mentioned in the original cut rifling thread referenced above, these machines are not being manufactured in quantity, as they were before World War II. Therefore, it is hard to find a machine for sale these days and hence, some people manufacture their own versions, usually by converting a lathe.

The above video shows a person cutting rifling using a small lathe and a home-made cutting tool, which produces a fairly good product.

The next video shows a person cutting rifling using a more manual method:

It just goes to show that when the technology is not available, people can still get their work done, using a little ingenuity.

In the next post, we will look at a video about broach rifling. Until then, happy viewing.

In our last post, we looked at some videos about cut rifling, a process we'd studied many months ago. In today's post, we will study another method of cutting rifling which we'd also studied back in May 2010. Today, we will look at a video that demonstrates broach rifling. The purpose of this series of posts is to add movies to the description of the processes, so that the reader can get an idea of how things work.

If you've not already read the description of the process of broach rifling, here's a link to that article again: Rifling: Manufacturing: Broach Rifling.

Now that you've read about the process, let's look at a movie demonstrating the process in action:

This video comes to us from a company called Miles Broaching, a manufacturer of broaching tools for several applications. In the above video, they demonstrate using a broaching tool to produce rifling for a handgun barrel. As you can see, the process happens pretty quickly, much faster than the cut rifling process we studied in the previous post.

The M16 Family - I

The M16 Family - II

Performance considerations for the M16 Family

The M16 Family III - The Clones

What is a "Cylinder Gap"?

The M1895 Nagant Revolver

Is it a shotgun or a rifle? The Paradox gun

The Cape Gun

Oval Bores and the Colindian

Combination Guns

Drilling Guns

Identifying a Type 56

The Nock Gun

The Kalthoff Repeater

The Lorenzoni Repeater

The Cookson Repeater

The Girandoni Repeating Air Rifle

The Enouy Revolver

Videos: Cut Rifling

Videos: Broach Rifling