The date and circumstances of the introduction of portable firearms are involved in obscurity. No doubt many attempts were made and failed previously, but gunpowder does not appear to have come into practical use as a rival to the crossbow for the propulsion of bolts or bullets till the reign of Edward III.; in 1375 mention is made of men armed with “gonnes” at an attack made on a Yorkshire manor-house. The arquebuse à mèche, was employed in Germany in 1378, and it is therefore probable that some rough weapon was introduced much earlier. The hand-gun (fig. 1) was used by both infantry and cavalry; it consisted of a simple iron or brass tube with touch-hole at the top, fixed on a straight stock of wood; when used on foot, the soldier held it firmly by passing the stock under the arm; when used on horseback the stock was shortened to butt against the breast, the barrel resting on a fork secured to the saddle bow. About the beginning of the reign of Henry VII. the hand-gun was improved by the addition of a cock, which was brought down by a trigger to a pan at the side of the barrel; this cock held a match which ignited a priming in the pan, the priming communicating with the charge by a small hole. The next alteration consisted in the introduction of the wheel-lock, in which a steel wheel, rasped at the edge, protruded into the priming pan. Into the cock was fitted a piece of sulphuret of iron (pyrites) instead of a match; this was kept down to the priming pan by a spring; another spring, when wound up, acted on the wheel, which, when released by the trigger, spun round, rubbing against the pyrites and causing sparks, which set fire to the priming. The wheel-lock was, however, found to be complicated, expensive, and uncertain, so that the match-lock remained in use till the middle of the 17th century, when it was displaced by the flint-lock, the earliest form of which, the “snaphaunce,” seem3 to have been invented about the end of the 16th century in Germany. Tn this lock the priming pan was provided with a steel cover and the cock held a flint; on pulling the trigger the cock fell, the flint struck the steel cover, forcing it back from the pan, evolving at the same time sparks, which fired the priming. During these developments of the lock the shape of the barrel was gradually changed; in 1621 the length of that of the musket was 4 feet, and the size of the bore such that twelve bullets weighed 1 lb. Soon after this the infantry soldier was supplied with a dagger.

which fitted into the muzzle and served as a pike. This was improved at Bayonne into the bayonet, and during the latter part of the 17th century was still farther improved by the addition of a socket, so that the musket could be fired while the bayonet was fixed ready for use. Little change in firearms took place in the 18th century, but in 1807 a Scotch clergyman named Forsyth obtained a patent for priming with fulminating powder, an invention which, though it slumbered till 1834, was destined to cause a complete revolution in the mechanism of firearms. Early in the present reign its value was fully recognized; the magazine of detonatiug composition and the priming pan used by Mr Forsyth were improved into the cap and nipple, and the flint-lock was entirely superseded. At this point, the progress of invention renders it necessary for us to treat separately the two branches of the subject, and to divide sporting from military arms.

For sporting purposes smooth-bored shot-guns and grooved rifles are employed. Both are nearly always double-barrelled, and of late years the old muzzle-loaders have been almost entirely supplanted by the many breech-loading systems recently invented, which enable the sportsman to reload with greatly increased rapidity and uniformity, the latter quality being specially important in rifle shooting. The chief parts composing the arm are the barrel, the lock, and the stock. Barrels for sporting arms are made of four different kinds of material—Damascus twist, laminated steel, stub iron, and mild cast-steel; besides these, common material is worked up into cheap barrels for exportation. Damascus twist consists of alternate rods of iron and steel placed one upon another; usually six of each kind are thus arranged; they are then forged and thoroughly welded together into a solid bar, which is afterwards rolled into rods, having a section about ∣ inch square. The rod thus formed is raised to a brightish red heat, and one end of it is placed in a revolving chuck, while the other remains fixed; the turning of the chuck subjects the rod to a severe twisting throughout its whole length, so that at last-it acquires the appearance of a screw having a very fine thread. Three of these rods are then placed together, the twist of one being in a contrary direction to that of the other two. They are then welded together into a bar, and rolled into a strip about f inch in width. The thickness of this strip depends on the part of the barrel it is intended to form; if for the breech end it is made ∣ inch thick, if for the centre 1 3 0 - inch, if for the muzzle -θ-inch. These strips are now ready for coiling, which is performed by raising the strip to a bright red heat, fixing one end of it to a hook projecting from a taper mandril, which is placed in a machine and provided with a handle. On turning the handle the strip is wound round the mandril into a coil about 10 inches in length. The coil is then welded by about 3 inches at a time till the spirals unite to form a hollow cylinder; it is then hammered on a small mandril till the welding is complete. Three coils welded together end to end form a barrel, to which the three different thicknesses of metal above m entioned give a slightly conical form, approximating to the ultimate shape. About three-fourths of the material is cut away in the making; 16 δ> of iron are used in the first instance to make a pair of barrels, which weigh only 8 lb when the welding is finished, and only between 3 and 4 lb after boring and grinding, In the manufacture of laminated steel barrels the best quality of steel scrap, after thorough cleaning in a revolving drum, is mixed with a small proportion of charcoal iron. The mixture is heated in a furnace, and puddled into a ball, which is well worked up under a forge hammer. It is then drawn out under a tilt hammer, and rolled into strips of the required length and thickness, after which it is treated as above described. This material is much esteemed for its hardness and closeness of grain, but it does not possess the elegant marking and appearance of the Damascus twist. Stub iron for barrels was formerly made by putting a quantity of old horse-shoes or stubs into an iron ring, welding them into a solid mass, and then rolling them out to strips of the requisite dimensions. Now a mixture of best wrought scrap, and sometimes steel scrap with stubs, is preferred, as giving more hardness and durability to the barrels. A description of the manufacture of cast-steel barrels will be found below, in connexion with military rifles. A sham-twist barrel is apt to impose on the purchaser; plain iron is cheaper than twisted iron, and sometimes a thin coil of twist is rolled round a plain inner tube; the whole is then welded together, and has all the appearance of a genuine twisted barrel. Other cheap barrels are made by rolling up strips of iron plate, and welding them together so that each barrel has a weld running down its whole length. As the breech end is thicker than the muzzle end, these barrels are usually made in two lengths.

In the rough state just described the barrels are sent from the forge to the gunmaker, who bores them carefully out to nearly the finished size. He then turns them down at intervals, obtaining correct surfaces by means of inside and outside gauges. The barrels are then “stripped” —that is, turned down the whole length to correspond with the bore. For double guns two barrels are now brazed together, near the muzzle and near the middle. At the breech the barrels are separated by a “steel lump.” The axes of the barrels are not quite parallel to each other, but are usually adjusted to cross at about 40 yards from the gun. When packed together, a rib is soldered on down the entire length, and they are sent to be proved at the proof-house of the Company of Gun makers at Whitechapel or Birmingham. The scale of proof is fixed by Act of Parliament, according to the size of the bore; it is considerably more than double the ordinary shooting charge. For the provisional proof, muzzle-loaders have the breech screwed in before firing; breech-loading barrels are pressed against a false breech. The second or definitive proof is less severe, and is carried out at a later stage, when the action of the breech-loader, or the percussion fitting of the muzzle-loader, is completed.

The best stocks are made of English or Italian walnut, piecee of which reach the gunmaker roughly shaped. They are so cut that the grain shall run lengthways down the stock, and the wood is dried and seasoned to prevent warping. For expensive guns, much attention is paid to beauty of mottling and depth of colour. A considerable variety of tools is employed in shaping the stocks and cutting out the beds for locks, processes which, for sporting pieces, are performed by hand. All parts of the lock except the plate are of steel, and reach the gunmaker hammered into shape. The lock-plate is of wrought iron, case-hardened. The parts are worked to fit by hand with a number of special tools. Bar locks are those which have a forward action, arranged so that the main-spring fits under the bar below the breech end of the barrels; back-action locks have the spring reversed, so as to extend down the hand or grip of the stock. The remaining portions ot the gun are termed the furniture. They are the heelplate which covers the butt, the break-off into which the breeching hooks for muzzle-loaders, the trigger plate, the trigger guard, the hammers, the escutcheons, and bolt fastening the barrel to the stock, &c. For breechloaders the action is a most important part of the furniture. The ingenuity of gunmakers has devised an immense variety of actions, and every day sees progress made in strength and simplicity. M. Lefaucheux is entitled to the credit of inventing the modern sporting breechloader. He first hit on the combination of a pair of barrels open at the breech, playing on a hinge and abutting against a false breech (fig. 2), with a strong-based cartridge-case containing powder and shot ready for firing, and supplied with its own means of ignition. His early guns were found weak in the fastening of the barrels to the stock, while the mode of igniting the charge was far from perfect.

It consisted of a pin passing through the upper part of the cartridge case, the point resting just above a percussion cap placed at the centre of the base of the charge; the hammer fell on the head of the pin, driving the point into the cap, and exploding the detonating composition. The gas was found to escape through the pin hole, the extraction was sometimes difficult, and a fall on hard ground would occasionally explode the cartridge; for these reasons the pin system was superseded by the central-fire method (fig. 3), in which the base of the cartridge case was made to hold a small anvil, on to which the cap was driven by a needle or striker passing through the false breech, and receiving the blow of the hammer. Fig. 4 shows a centralfire gun, having the action considerably strengthened by the double grip. In this system the extraction is accomplished automatically, by a piece of steel fitting between the two-barrels, and so cut as to clip the rims of both cartridges. Tσ this extractor is attached a rod which runs down between the barrels through a hole in the steel lump as far as the hinge; on opening the joint the rod is driven backward, carrying with it the head and forcing the cartridge cases out of the barrels. Guns on the central-fire system afford no indication of being loaded; extraction and loading are, however, so rapid and easy that every sportsman should invariably withdraw the cartridges on laying down his gun, and reload on again taking the field. Hammers sometime»

catch in the brambles, or even in the clothes of the shooter; even the double grip has been known to yield under the effect of the heavy charges now used. The latest guns leave little room for improvement in respect to the action. Fig 5 shows one of the newest developments. The hammers are abolished altogether, the striker being a needle in the interior, which is driven against the cap of a central-fire cartridge by a spring when the trigger is pressed; a lever on the top is pushed aside by the thumb, liberating the catch which holds the barrels against the false breech; the barrels then drop from the hinge, and are open for loading. On raising the barrels, the action snaps to, and holds them fast; the dropping of the barrels causes an extractor to withdraw the empty cartridge cases. A key at the side regulates the cocking and safety of the lock and striker.

The sizes of barrels are designated according to the weight of the solid spherical lead ball which will just fit them, and hence their diameters vary inversely as the cube roots of their numbers. In the case of No 12 bore, the ball fitting it weighs 12 to the pound, and measures ’ 729 in. in diameter. Ounce bullets (No. 16) fit a bore of ∙662 in. in diameter.

Barrels were formerly bored cylindrically, but the experiments of gunmakers led them to suppose that better shooting could be obtained by boring to shapes departing in various ways from the simple cylinder. The first modification introduced consisted in enlarging the breech end slightly for about 10 inches; subsequently the last few inches at the muzzle were enlarged also, so that the barrel really consisted of two frusta of cones, having the smaller ends together,—the position of the narrowest part, like many other matters, was dependent on the fancy of the gunmaker. Of late an attempt has been made to reduce the interior form of the barrel to something like a system, and several kinds of “choke” boring have been introduced. The object to be attained with a shot-gun is to so arrange the charge that the pellets shall be uniformly and thickly distributed round the mean trajectory, and shall also occupy a small space longitudinally. In fig. 6 a side view of the charge as it passes through the air is given, ab being the mean trajectory. Exact experiments to determine the proportions of the cloud of shot fired from different guns do not exist, but, judging from observation, they will usually not depart greatly from those of the figure. In fig. 7 is seen the appearance of the target after being struck by the charge. The test of excellence is regularity of pattern, combined with penetration; that is, a circle of 30 inches diameter should be so pitted by the shot at 40 yards range that gaps of the size of a small bird should no where exist, while the individual pellets should retain force enough to penetrate a certain number of sheets of brown paper. As the shot pass along a barrel driven violently forward by the powder gas, it is probable that the edges of the charge are retarded by friction against the sides of the bore, so that the centre portion extricates itself rather sooner than the edges, and travels with a slightly higher velocity. Supposing the charge to retain an average velocity, on reaching the object fired at, of 300 feet per second, and the leading pellets to have gained 10 feet on the hindmost ones, so that the charge is distributed over a length of 10 feet, a period of time of ι⅛th θf a second will elapse between the blows of the first and last pellet. If the object be stationary, this interval will be almost, imperceptible, and the pattern made on the target by the impact of the shot will exhibit no trace of it. But if the object be a bird flying across at the rate of 60

feet per second (about 40 miles an hour), it will traverse a space of 2 feet in the interval, and so will not receive the charge at all in the manner shown on the target. Figs. 8, 9, 10 show some of the choke bores fancied by different makers.

The manufacture of sporting rifles does not greatly differ from that of shot-guns. Greater strength and weight of barrel are necessary to resist the pressure of the charge, withstand the wedging action of the bullet, and deaden the recoil. The breech-closing action also demands greater strength, but the general arrangements are not different in principle. Rifles for sporting purposes differ from military pieces in being double-barrelled, and in requiring accuracy and penetration at short ranges, instead of a flat trajectory at very considerable distances. Hence they generally resemble the shot-guns in their action, and fire more powder in proportion to the weight of the bullet than military rifles.

In fig. 11 the treble grip snap action is shown as specially devised for rifles firing heavy charges. In addition to the holding power thus provided, a piece is sometimes made to extend from the rib between the barrels, terminating in a projection which catches in a recess in the top of the false breech, when the barrels are closed; or the catch shown in fig. 5 may be adopted. Some makers, instead of using the hinge principle introduced by Lefaucheux, close the breech in other ways; thus in the Henry action the barrel does not move, but is closed at the breech end by a sliding vertical block, which is depressed for the admission of the cartridge by a lever underneath the trigger guard; the striker passes through the block, which on being lowered extracts the cartridge. The power of a modern rifle is limited only by the power of the shooter to withstand the effect of recoil and to use a heavy piece. The momentum of the bullet forwards up to the time of its leaving the muzzle is equal (neglecting the weight and motion of the gas generated by the powder charge) to that of the gun backwards at any instant. Supposing the gun to weigh 150 times as much as the bullet, it will acquire a velocity against the shoulder equal to the 150th part of that acquired by the bullet. Practically it is this velocity which measures the severity of the recoil, and the heavier the gun and the more powerful the shooter the more momentum can he afford to impart to his bullet. This momentum may be composed of high speed and low weight, or of low speed and high weight. A light bullet starting with a high velocity travels fast at first and drops but little at a short range; it speedily, however, suffers retardation by the resistance of the air, and would soon be beaten by a heavier bullet of the same diameter starting with the same momentum. The Express rifles carry out this principle with great completeness, employing heavy powder charges and imparting very high speed to a light bullet, so that a range of about 130 to 150 yards is traversed with a drop not exceeding 1 foot. Fig. 12 shows the nature of bullet generally used for these pieces; the hollow in the centre permits the lead to expand and flatten out on striking, inflicting a wound of great severity. Explosive bullets are also employed by some sportsmen. In fig. 13 are shown rifle cartridges loaded ready for use. The solid brass-drawn case...