With the invention of gunpowder
in the mid-13th century, mechanisms to
harness this power soon arose with the first
canons introduced in the late 1200s.It
wasn’t long after the invention of canons that
people began to try to harness the power of this
explosive in a hand held device with the
introduction of the first hand canons known as
“hand gonnes” in the early 1300s. These weapons
however were cumbersome as it required you to hold
the canon in one hand, aim and then stick an
ignited wick held in the other hand into a small
touch hole to ignite the powder in the barrel, all
while staying on target. As you can imagine this
was quite cumbersome and not highly effective. The
first actual handheld firearm was the Matchlock
Musket, first introduced in the early 1400s.
Originally
designed for use on the battlefield, the Matchlock
Musket soon became popularized among hunters
looking to harvest game. This new weapon became
associated with the Pilgrims. This musket lowered
aa burning cord into the firing chamber to ignite
the powder that was then charged when the trigger
was compressed as shown in the figure below. This
was the musket that came over on the Mayflower
with the Pilgrims and was likely used to harvest
the game for the first Thanksgiving.
Matchlock Musket
The second famous hunting rifle
used in American colonization was the Kentucky
Long Rifle. As the 17th century dawned
a new ignition system sparked known as the
flintlock. The mechanism in the flintlock relied
on the potential energy of a spring transferred to
kinetic energy and then transferred into thermal
energy as a flint connected to a hammer, colliding
with a steal to create a spark that would ignite
the charge of powder in the barrel and fire the
gun.
PEspring
-> KEspring –> ETh spring
Flintlock
Kentucky
Long Rifle
The Kentucky Long Rifle was a long slender rifle
that utilized the new idea of rifling. Unlike the
common mass produced smoothbore muskets of the day
the Kentucky Long Rife contained long spiral
grooves cut into the inside of the barrel that
created a rotational velocity that helped to
stabilize the bullet in flight and aided in
accuracy.
L=IW
where L= angular momentum and I = the moment of
inertia and W= the angular velocity
Image
of Rifling
Today almost all firearms with
the exception of shotguns contain rifling.This
rifling is what allows detectives to trace
firearms on a crime because each rifling contains
a unique signature specific to the gun.
Today the most common hunting
rifle is the bolt a rifle with the iconic
Remington 700 being toward the top selection.
Other models include the Winchester Model 70,
Tikka T3, Ruger American, Savage Axis, Mossberg
Patriot. Other popular rifle actions include the
lever action, pump action, and semi-automatic.
