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Jan 1, 1260
The Discovery of gunpodwer
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Jan 1, 1300
The Cannon
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The first firearm ever created that propelled a large ball of metal used damage fortifications like towering city walls. These behemoths where usually made with a large metal tube and a breach to load and light the fuse. Due to the nature of these weapons they were not very mobile because of size and weight. -
Jan 1, 1350
Hand cannons
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Jan 1, 1400
The Matchlock Rifle
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The matchlock musket was the first system to combine the stock, lock, and barrel. The stock served as a piece for the user to hold on to and shoulder to aim. The lock was the mechanism that held the burning rope to the breach. Last but not least was the barrel which was used to aim the bullet and with the force of the propellant moving the bullet forward. -
Jan 1, 1560
The flintlock rifle
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The flintlock expanded upon the early matchlock rifle by striking a flint against steel. The hammer was a spring held mechanism that was manually cocked back and when released struck against the steel sheet on the rifle. Resulting in a shower of sparks lighting the gunpowder and hopefully sending an extremely inaccurate ball of lead downrange. This basically made the weapon more reliable. -
The American Long Rifle
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The American long rifle was the relied much more on accuracy than earlier firearms because of a rifled barrel. The rifling caused a dramatic increase in accuracy because of the tighter bore and spiraling which kept the fast moving bullet from spinning which causes it to slow down dramatically. -
The Breechloading rifle
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The Breechloader came to be when the need for a faster and easier to load rifle came into demand. The breechloader fixed the issue of spent gunpowder gunking up the barrel causing a dramatic increase to load times. The loading speed also was fixed because it was much easier to load because of there was little resistance and while prone the shooter could load the rifle without getting standing. -
The revolver
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The first revolver concept was created by Samuel Colt, which consisted of a revolving cylinder with chambers that held a bullet, gunpowder and had an opening where the hammer would fall and strike the percussion cap igniting the gunpowder, thus propelling the bullet. Every time the trigger was pulled it would move the cylinder to the next chamber that held a fresh load of ammunition. -
The bolt action
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The bolt action rifle was widely used for European militaries for the 1860-1900 period. This evolution of the bolt action rifle started with crude single shot rifles. Later repeating magazine fed bolt actions used a tubular magazine similar to American lever action repeaters. However they later became internally magazine fed in as early as 1885. -
Auto-loading pistols
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With the introduction of smokeless powder the first auto loading pistols came into existence which never saw acceptance because of how unreliable and new they were. It wasn’t until the Luger made model 1896 came along that auto loading pistols started to gain some traction, Because of the improvements in quality and reliablility.
