Rifle

A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves ("rifling") cut into the barrel walls. more...

Home
Airsoft
Camping, Hiking, Backpacking
Cycling
Exercise & Fitness
Fishing
Golf
Hunting
Apparel
Books, Videos
Decoys
Game Calls
Gun Accessories
Gun Parts
Pistol
Barrels
Grips
Magazines
Other Parts
Slides
Small Parts
Rifle
Barrels
Bolts
Other Parts
Small Parts
Stocks
Shotgun
Barrels
Choke Tubes
Other Parts
Stocks
Gun Safety, Storage
Hunting Accessories
Hunting Trips, Leases
Knives
Other
Reloading Equipment
Scopes, Optics, Lasers
Skeet, Trap Shooting
Taxidermy, Mounts, Antlers
Vintage
Paintball
Skiing & Snowboarding

The raised areas of the rifling grooves are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile (for small arms usage, called a bullet), imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the orientation of the weapon. When the projectile leaves the barrel, the conservation of angular momentum improves accuracy and range, in the same way that a properly thrown American football or rugby ball behaves. The word "rifle" originally referred to the grooving, and a rifle was called a "rifled gun." Rifles are used in warfare, hunting and shooting sports.

Typically, a bullet is propelled by the contained deflagration of an explosive compound (originally black powder, later cordite, and now nitrocellulose), although other means such as compressed air are used in air rifles, which are popular for vermin control, hunting small game, and casual shooting ("plinking").

In many armed forces units it is thought wrong to use the word "gun" to mean a rifle. Furthermore, in many works of fiction a rifle refers to any weapon that has a stock and is shouldered before firing, even if this weapon is not rifled or doesn't fire solid projectiles.

Overview

Originally, rifles were sharpshooter weapons, while the regular infantry made use of the greater firepower of massed muskets, which fired round musket balls of calibers up to 19 mm (0.75 inch). Benjamin Robins, an English mathematician, realized that an elongated bullet would retain the mass and kinetic force of a musket ball, but would slice through the air with much greater ease. The innovative work of Robins and others would take until the end of the 18th century to gain acceptance.

By the mid-19th century, however, manufacturing had advanced sufficiently that the musket was replaced by a range of rifles—generally single-shot, breech-loading—designed for aimed, discretionary fire by individual soldiers. Then, as now, rifles had a stock, either fixed or folding, to be braced against the shoulder when firing. Early military rifles, such as the Baker rifle were shorter than the day's muskets, and usually the weapon of a marksman. Until the early 20th century rifles tended to be very long—an 1890 Martini-Henry was almost 2 m (6 feet) in length with a fixed bayonet. The demand for more compact weapons for cavalrymen led to the carbine, or shortened rifle.

History

Origins

Muskets were smoothbore, large caliber weapons using ball-shaped ammunition fired at relatively low velocity. Due to the high cost and great difficulty of precision manufacturing, and the need to load readily from the muzzle, the musket ball was a loose fit in the barrel. Consequently on firing the ball bounced off the sides of the barrel when fired and the final direction on leaving the muzzle was unpredictable.

Read more at Wikipedia.org