Lesson 2 Firearms and Ammunition: TH TH

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LESSON 2

FIREARMS AND AMMUNITION

This module will focus on the nomenclature of firearms and ammunition.  As a form of
orientation, the first lesson will deal on the evolution of firearms.  Discussions about firearms
components and their respective functions are included in this module since this will remarkably
help in understanding the fundamental principles of forensic ballistics in relation to firearms
identification.  The last part of this module deals with the anatomy of standard cartridge and the
classification of ammunition for modern small arms.

LESSON 2.1
THE EVOLUTION OF FIREARMS

I. Concept:

The evolution of firearms is contributory to the development in ballistics. It needs to be


studied for better comprehension on the principles of forensic ballistics and firearms
identification.
The term “firearms” is very broad that it can cover virtually anything that uses
explosives to launch a projectile. However, for the purpose of this study, firearms refer only to
small arms. Small arms, based on its approved definition, are weapons that have a caliber of less
than 15.5 mm or 0.60 inch. (Hogg, 2003).

A. THE FIRST FIREARMS

The precise origin of firearms is unknown although they were in use by the early 14 th

century and were fairly common in Europe by mid-14 century. Most historians agree that
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firearms were invested because of the desire of a man to increase the range of his weapons.
It started when man devised various types of ‘catapults’ and ‘ballistae’ – large slings capable
of hurling stones, arrows, and other large objects to long range targets. Such effort led to
the discovery of gunpowder and then eventually firearms.
Perhaps, the earliest account about a weapon that used gunpowder as propellant
was the gun allegedly made by a German monk named Berthold Schawrz in1313.  These
weapons were called ‘pots de fer’ and ‘ vasl’ and they were manufactured in Ghent,
Belgium. (World Book, 2002)
The first specific, reference regarding the use if firearm is found in an English
manuscript of 1326, the ‘De Officils Regnum’ (On the Duties of Kings). In this manuscript,
there is an illustration of a small cannon being fired. (Hogg, 2003).
Another record about the beginnings of firearms was the use of ‘bombard’ (ancient
cannon) in 1346 by King Edward III of England during the battle of Crecy known in history as
the Hundred Year’s War. Bombards were initially made of wooden or iron staves bound
together with hoops. They were later strengthened with wrought iron and finally cast metal.
By mid 14 century, bombards were made of cast bronze. In 1387, the first cast bronze gun
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was made in Augsburg, Germany, (World Book, 2003)


It was not until the closing years of the century that technology improved allowing
the first ‘hand gonne’ to appear. Hand gonne was a development of the ‘ridaudequin’,
which appeared about 1830. Hand gonne consisted of a number of small caliber cannon
barrels mounted on a light cart. Since the barrels were fixed in carts, this weapon could not
deal with enemy who suddenly appeared on the flanks. The logical remedy for this was to
take one of the barrels and attach it to a wooden pole, which could then be carried by one
man. In this manner, the first portable hand gun was used in the battlefield.  (Hogg, 2003).
The first firearms that were developed were small arms in the form of miniature
artillery weapons and were at first called hand cannons. Ancient hand cannons were hand-
carried thus they are better examples of small arms rather than artillery weapons. These are
classified as firelocks, matchlocks, harquebus, wheel locks, snaphance, and flintlocks.
(Microsoft Encantra, 2003)

1. FIRELOCK: This weapon was developed in the first quarter of 14 century. Firelock
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was a simple, smooth-bore tube of iron. Closed at the breech end except for an
opening called a touchhole. It was set into a rounded piece of wood for holding
under the arm. The tube was loaded with shot and powder and then fired by
inserting a heated wire into the touchhole. Later models had flashpan, a saucer-like
depression in the barrel at the outer end of the touchhole. A small charge of powder
was placed in the flashpan and fired by applying a slow match. The slow match,
consisting of a piece of cord soaked in a solution of potassium nitrate and then
dried, smoldered without flaming or becoming extinguished. The common problems
with firelocks was that the charge of powder in the flashpan was difficult to ignite,
was frequently affected by moisture in the atmosphere, and required re-priming
just before use to ensure that misfire will not occur.

2. MATCHLOCK: This was introduced about the middle of 15 century as a type of musket. This
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weapon was essentially the same as the firelock, except that the slow match was clamped in the
top of a device called serpentine – an S-shaped piece of metal pivoted in the center. Pulling with
one finger on the bottom of the serpentine, like trigger, moved the top with the attached slow
match into the priming pan, which contained the firing charge of gunpowder. Because only one
finger was needed to fire the weapon, the matchlock left one hand free to hold and aim the
firearm. A refinement in the shape of its stock to permit firing from the shoulder produced the
harquebus (or arquebus), a primitive portable firearm used in the 15 and 16 centuries
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composed of barrel fitted in a long bent stock.

3. WHEEL-LOCK: The first firelock appeared about 1515. It has improved firing
mechanism compared to firelock and matchlock. The firing mechanism consisted of
a spring-driven wheel. When the wheel is released by a trigger mechanism, it
rotates and the hardened steel rim rubs a lump of iron pyrites. Sparks are produced
that ignite the black powder found in the priming pan and thus firing the weapon.
Wheel lock, however, was not generally accepted because of its complicated and
expensive mechanism. At approximately the same time as the wheel lock,
gunsmiths introduced rifled barrels.
4. SNAPHANCE: The snaphance was invented early in the 17 century. This type of firing
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mechanism consisted of a hammer powered by a trigger spring and bearing a piece of flint.
When the trigger was pulled, the hammer struck the flint against a serrated steel striker plate
located above the priming pan and thus produced a shower of sparks.

5. FLINTLOCK: the final development of the flint-ignition firearm was the flintlock. It resembled the
snaphance, except that the striker plate was L-shaped. The bottom limb of the L was used as a
cover for the priming pan, to protect the powder from moisture until the upper limb was struck
by the flint of the hammer. This action produced a shower of sparks when the powder in the pan
was uncovered.

The flintlock was the prevailing type of small-arms weapon for both shoulder guns
and handguns from the end of the 17 century to the middle of the 19 century.
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Smoothbore flintlock muskets were the primary military weapon for infantry in the
armies of the principal European powers. (ibid)

B.  THE BEGINNING OF MODERN FIREARMS AND AMMUNITION

In 1807, the Scottish clergyman named Alexander John Forsyth invented the
percussion-ignition system that led to the development of the first effective breech-loading
firearms. Breech-loading firearms are those loaded through the rear of the barrel rather
than through the muzzle.  The first 19 -century breech-loading guns used cartridge
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containing only black powder and a ball.  Such weapons was usually equipped with a nipple
holding a percussion cap that was fired by the impact of the hammer (or striker) when
released by the trigger. 
In the 1850’s, the self-contained center-fire cartridges came into use. Their
design, with one-piece case, is essentially identical to modern center-fire types.
In the early 1880’s, more powerful and cleaner-burning nitrocellulose-based
gunpowder were perfected thus replacing black powder as propellants for projectiles
fired from breech-loading firearms. Whereas black powder produced a large quantity of
solid material upon combustion, quickly fouling barrels and pouring out huge clouds of
smoke, nitrocellulose produced mostly gas and was therefore labeled ‘smokeless
powder’. Also, it produced three times the energy of black powder and burned at a
faster rate.  Such characteristics made possible a shift to longer and smaller-diameter
projectiles. Bore diameters were again reduced to calibers of about 0.30 inch (7.5 to 8
millimeters). Muzzles velocities ranged from 2,000 to 2,800 fps, and accurate range
extended to 1,000 yards and beyond. Because lead projectiles were too soft to be used
at such increased power and velocity, some inventors introduced the idea of using
harder metal as jacket of lead bullets. The first who perfected a full-length, copper-
jacketed bullet was a Swiss military officer named Eduard Alexander Rubin in 1881.
(Encyclopedia Britannica, 2000)
During the flintlock era, a number of heavy guns were developed that can fire
several bullets either serially or in volley.  But it was not until the mid-19 century, with
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the spread of center-fire cartridge ammunition and better manufacturing techniques,


that such weapons could be put to effective military use.  The best known were the
Gatling gun invented by the American Richard J. Gatling and the mitrailleuse produced
by the Belgian firm of Christophe & Montigny. (ibid)
During the early 20 century, before World War I, rifles were invented that used
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the forces of recoil or the pressure of the propellant gases to operate the reloading
mechanism.  Some of these improved weapons fed with continuous belts of cartridges
were called machine guns.   The first known true machinegun was the Maxim gun
developed by an American inventor named Hiram Stevens Maxim.  Other weapons
capable of rapid fire that are fed from large clips of cartridges or magazines were called
automatic rifles.  Automatic rifles continue firing until their magazines is exhausted as
long as the trigger is pressed.
The earlier versions of automatic rifles are called semiautomatic because they
reload and re-cock automatically after each shot, and require release and another pull
of the trigger to fire each succeeding shot.  One of the more popular semiautomatic
rifles that were used during the 2 World War was the caliber 30 M1 Garand rifle
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developed by John C. Garand.  This rifle was officially adopted by the US military in
January 9, 1936 as the first automatic rifle to be the standard infantry arm of a major
army.
It was during the 2 Word War that military troops such as artillerymen,
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engineers, and signalmen were armed with the M1 carbine.  The first known carbine
was developed by David Williams a.k.a Carbine.  M1 Carbine was considerably lighter
and has shorter range compared to rifle thus it is more suited to occasional use for
defense.
Late in World War II, the M1 Carbine was modified to permit full automatic as
well as semiautomatic fire.  The carbine operates by means of gas since a small port
near the muzzle passes sufficient gas to propel a rod that operates the breech
mechanism, ejecting the fired cartridge case and loading a fresh round from an 8-shot
magazine.  In 1957, the M14 rifle was adopted by the US Army to replace the M1
carbine.  The M16 rifle, which permits full- or semi-automatic fire, was introduced in
1966, during the Vietnam War.
Many other small arms have been developed, both as regular equipment and
for special services during the second half of the 20 century.  In the late 1980’s, the
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growing popularity and availability of the so-called assault rifles and semi-automatic
handguns significantly contributed to the rise of violent crimes.

C. HISTORY OF SHOULDER FIREARMS AND THEIR AMMUNITION


      Tracing the background of the shoulder firearms is imperative in understanding the
history of small arms.  The main reference in this historical data is the Encyclopedia
Britannica (2001).
1. THE SMOOTHBORE MUZZLE-LOADERS
Earlier than 17 century before the invention of percussion ignition, small arms
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were generally too heavy, unreliable, or expensive for general issue to infantry forces.  In
fact, the first matchlock called mosquetes fielded by Spanish infantry weighed as much as
25 pounds (10kgs) and usually required a forked staff as a rest to enable a man of normal
strength to fire them accurately from the shoulder.  Nevertheless, they were capable of
sending bullets through the best armor that could be worn by a moving soldier.  Because
of the production of muskets that fire bullets which can penetrate armor, fully armored
soldiers became impractical.  With armor-piercing power no longer necessary, muskets
could be made smaller, and shoulder weapons without rests became the norm.
By the 1600’s, European military authorities had begun moving toward greater
uniformity in order to eliminate mixed inventories of nonstandard weapons.  England took
the first steps toward creating a national system of small-arms manufacture.
In the United States, an Ordinance Office decree of 1722 led to a standard army
musket called Long Land, which had a 46-inch (1,168-millimeter) barrel and a caliber of .75
inch (19 millimeters).  The Long Land became popularly known in America as the first
model Brown Bess musket.  In 1768, the Short Land musket, with a 42-inch barrel, became
standard.  Known as the second model Brown Bess, the Short Land became one of the
basic weapons used during the American Revolution (1775-83).  It was succeeded in 1797
by the ‘India Pattern’, with a 39-inch barrel.  During the wars with Napoleon from 1804 to
1815, more than 1.6 million of these muskets were assembled in Birmingham, and nearly
2.7 million muskets of all types were delivered in London and at the Lewisham Royal
Armory Mills.
In France, standard-pattern did not exist prior to 1717 when the government
specified a weapon with a 47-inch barrel and a caliber of 0.69 inch.  After the Seven Years’
War, the French army introduced the Modèle 1763, with a stronger lock and shorter
barrel with a length 45 inches.  The Modèle 1777 musket represented a major step
forward because of improved production techniques, with the French creating a rigorious
system of patterns and gauges that yielded muskets with nearly interchangeable parts.
By 1794 in the United States, the government created national armories at
Springfield, Massachusetts and at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.  Both armories built an
Americanized version of the French Modèle 1777 musket (known as the Model 1795 in
the United States).  These armories and their private competitors later became important
centres of technological innovation.  With the adoption of the 0.69-inch Model 1842, the
US military introduced the large-scale assembly of weapons from uniform,
interchangeable parts.

2.  THE RIFLED MUZZLE-LOADERS


Smoothbore infantry muskets were relatively inefficient as military guns.  Their
heavy, round lead balls delivered bone-crushing and tissue-destroying blows when they
hit a human body.  But beyond 76 yards, even trained infantrymen found it difficult to hit
a single soldier.  Volley fire against a crowd of troops delivered effective projectiles out of
200 yards, but at least 300 yards ball from muzzle-loaders lost most of their lethality. 
Also, while well-trained soldiers could load and hoot their muskets five times per minute,
volley fires led to a collective rate of only two to three shots per minute.
These ballistics shortcomings were a product of the requirement that the
projectile, in order to be quickly rammed from muzzle to breech, had to fit loosely in the
barrel.  When discharged, it wobbled down the barrel, contributing to erratic flight after it
left the muzzle.  Rifled barrels were known to improve accuracy by imparting a gyroscopic
spin to the projectile, but reloading rifled weapons was slowed because the lead ball had
to be driven into the barrel’s rifling.  Greased cloth or leather patches eased the problem,
but the rate of fire of rifles was still much lower than that of smoothbore muskets.
One possible solution was the creation of mechanism that allowed the bullet to be
loaded at the breech instead of the muzzle.  Many such ideas were tested during the 18 th

century, but given the craftsman-based manufacture of the day none was suited to large-
scale production.  Special army units in Europe and America used rifled muzzle-loaders,
such as the flintlock British Baker rifle to harass the enemy at long ranges while most
infantrymen continued to carry muzzle-loading smoothbores.   For this reason, inventors
concentrated on adapting rifled barrels to muzzle-loaders. 
In 1826, Henri-Gustave Delvigne of France researched a means of expanding the
projectile without making it difficult to ram home.  He created a narrow powder chamber
at the breech end of the barrel against which a loosely fitting lead ball came to rest. 
Ramrod blows expanded the soft lead at the mouth of the chamber so that when fired,
the bullet fit the rifling tightly.  In 1844, another French officer named Louis-Étlenne de
Thouvenin introduced a better method for expanding bullets.  His ‘carbine à tige’
embodied a post (tige) at the breech against which the bullet was expanded.

3.  THE MINIÉ RIFLES


Minie rifles worked better than earlier types of rifles, but their deformed balls
flew with reduced accuracy.  Inspired by Delvigne’s work with cylindrical bullets, Captain
Claude-Étienne Minié designed longer and smaller-diameter projectiles with the same
weight as larger round balls but possessed greater cross-sectional density and therefore
retained better their velocity.  Moreover, while the flat base of Minié’s projectile was
deformed against the pillar, the rest of the bullet maintained its shape and accuracy.   The
French army combined these ideas in the Carabine Modèle 1864 à tige and the Fusil
d’infanterie Modèle 1848 à tige.
In order to remedy the tendency of muzzle-loading rifles to become difficult to
load as gunpowder residue collected in the barrel, Minié suggested a major simplification.
He introduced the idea of eliminating the pillar and employing in its place a hollow-based
bullet with an iron expander plug that caused the projectile to engage the rifling when the
weapon was fired.  This new projectile could be loaded into dirty rifles with ease, and it
had greater accuracy because it was not deformed while loading.
Officials in several countries, notably Britain and the United States, saw the
significance of Minié’s invention.   In 1851, the Royal Small Arms Factory in Enfield began
producing the 0.702-inch Pattern 1851 Minié rifle.  During the Crimean War (1854-56),
Russian troops armed with smoothbore muskets were no match for Britons shooting P/51
rifles.  Massed formations were easy targets, as were cavalry and artillery units.
Swiss experiments demonstrated that a expander plug was not necessary when a
bullet’s side walls were thin enough, and the British designed a smaller-caliber rifle using
this type of Minié bullet.  The result was a 0.577-inch weapon firing ‘cylindro-conoldal’
projectiles.  These are bullets with a lead cylinder with a conical nose.  ‘Enfield’ as a
weapon name was first generally applied to these Pattern 1853 (P/53) rifles.  Subsequent
tests indicated that rifles with 33-inch barrels could provide accuracy equal to the 39-inch
P/53 barrels.  When the resulting P/53 Short Rifles were issued, it began a century-long
trend in making shorter weapons.
In the United States, experiments undertaken in the late 1840’s led to the
adoption of a 0.58-inch Minié-type bullet and a family of arms designed to use it.   The
model 1855 rifled musket, with a 40-inch barrel, produced a muzzle velocity of 950 feet
(290 meters) per second.  All Model 1855 weapons used mechanically operated tape
priming, intended to eliminate the manual placement of percussion caps on the nipple,
but this system proved too fragile and was eliminated with the introduction of a simplified
Model 1861 rifled musket.  During the American Civil War (1861-65), the Union
government purchased both Model 1861 and Model 1863 rifle muskets as its basic
infantry weapon.

4. THE BREECHLOADERS
For more than a century, soldiers carrying muzzle-loaders had been issued paper
cartridges containing the musket ball and an appropriate powder charge.  To use one of
these cartridges, they simply bit off the end of the paper tube, poured a little powder into
the pan of a flintlock, dumped the rest down the barrel, and then rammed the ball and
paper down on top.  Some early breechloaders used slightly improved cartridges of
nitrate-soaked paper or linen that contained the powder and ball and were inserted into
the opened breech as a unit.  The powder was set off when sparks from the flashpan
ignited either the flammable case itself or exposed powder at the end of the cartridge. 
Other breechloaders used metal cartridges that were pierced with holes or made with
ends of flammable paper so that the powder could be ignited by a percussion cap.   But all
of these systems that relied upon externally mounted flintlock or percussion ignition
mechanism were prone to misfiring.  These firing systems did little to prevent the leakage
of gas and flame for which breechloaders were notorious.  Breech-loading rifles became
practical only with the design of cartridges that housed the primer as well as the
propellant in a single case and that provided an effective seal when the weapon was fired.
The first modern cartridge to be successfully used in war was the rim-fire type. 
Rim-fire cartridge has a ring of detonating fulminate deposited in a hollow rim around the
base of a thin copper case.  An external hammer crushed the rim in one spot, firing the
round.  Unfortunately, some fulminate compounds detonated unpredictably, leading to
both misfires and premature explosions.  Also, a cartridge case that was soft enough to be
crushed by a striker could not stand up to the heavy propellant charge necessary for a full-
power infantry rifle.  For this reason, rim-fire cartridges were used most effectively in
pistols or small carbines.
In Europe, a milestone in the development of breech-loading infantry weapons
was achieved by a Prussian gun-maker named Johann Nikolaus Dreyse.  His
‘Zundnadegewehr’ needle-fire gun) which was introduced in 1838, used a paper cartridge
with a priming pellet located at the base of a solid egg-shaped bullet.   A long, needle-
shaped firing pin, shot forward by a spring, pierced the cartridge and powder charge to
detonate the primer.  This needle was housed in a steel cylinder called the bolt, which slid
forward in the frame of the receiver until it was locked firmly against the base of the
cartridge in the chamber.  Once the weapon was fired, the user released a latch with his
thumb, grasped a knob at the end of a handle projecting from the bolt, turned it until
locking lugs on the bolt were disengaged from slots in the receiver, and slid the bolt back
to open the chamber for reloading.  This bolt action, simple in concept and yet requiring
precise workmanship, constituted a revolution in small-arms design.
The first Dreyse rifles were adopted by the Prussian army in 1843 and were used
in campaigns in 1849 and 1864.  In 1866 , notably at the Battle of Königgrätz during the
Seven Weeks’ War, Prussian soldiers lying prone were able to fire six shots from their
15.43-millimeter (.607-inch) Zundnadelgewehr Modell 1862 for every one discharged
from the muzzle-loading rifles of their Austrian enemies.
Needle rifles offered a faster rate of fire, but their paper cartridges provided a
poor seal at the breech, and their long firing pins warped or broke under heavy use.   One
solution was the metallic center-fire cartridge with a percussion cap centered in the base
of a hard brass pr copper case.  A shorter, sturdier firing pin was sufficient to detonate the
primer, and a metallic case that was strong enough to withstand a powerful propellant
charge also provided effective closure of the breech.  Adopting center-fire cartridges,
France transformed its Chassepots into the 11-millimeter Modele 1866/67 and 1874 rifles,
which were named after their designer in the name of BAsile Gras.  Germany went to rifles
designed by Peter Paul Mauser, first the 11-millimeter Modell 1871 Gewehr and then the
Modell 1871/84 Infantrie-Repetier-Gewehr.  The latter was a10-shot repeater that ejected
the spent case as the bolt was pulled back and fed a fresh cartridge into the chamber from
a tubular magazine beneath the barrel as the bolt was pushed forward.
All other European countries soon adopted cartridge breech-loading rifles, usually
by converting existing muxxle-loaders and then by purchasing purpose-built
breechloaders.  Many did not feature bolt action.  For example, beginning in 1866, Britain
converted its P/53 Enfields simply by hinging the top of the breech so that it could be
opened sideways, the spent case extracted, and a fresh cartridge inserted.
In 1871, the British adopted the new Martini-Henry breechloaders of 0.45-inch
caliber.  In these rifles, pushing down a lever attached to the trigger guard lowered the
entire breechblock exposing the chamber and raised the breechblock back to firing
position when it was pulled back.   Russia adopted two new 10-millimeter breechloaders:
the Model 1868 Berdan No. 1 and then the bolt-action model 1870 Berdan No. 2.   Both of
these were largely the work of  American Civil War officer Hiram Berdan.  The US-made
Remington Rolling Block Rifle, in which the breechblock was cocked back on a hinge like
the hammer, was bought by a number of countries around the world.
The United States adopted a series of single-shot rifles employing a hinged-breech
‘trap-door’ mechanism, developed by Erskine S. Allin at the Springfield Armory, in which
the top of the breech was flipped forward along the top of the barrel.   The first Model
1866 was a converted .58-inch musket, the second Model 1866 was a new rifle in .50-inch
caliber, and subsequent versions were built in .45-inch caliber.  These weapons continued
to use components introduced with the Model 1855 muzzle-loaders.

5. THE MAGAZINE REPEATERS


France was the first country to issue a small-bore, high-velocity repeating rifle. 
This was the Modele 1886 Lebel, which fired an 8-millimeter, smokeless powder round. 
However, the tubular magazine of this rifle soon became obsolete.
In 1885, Ferdinand Mannlicher of Austria had introduced a boxlike magazine
fitted into the bottom of the rifle in front of the trigger guard.  This magazine was easily
loaded by a device called a clip, a light metal openwork box that held five cartridge s and
fed them up into the chamber through the action of a spring as each spent case was
ejected.  Other magazine rifles, such as the Mauser, used different loading device called a
charges.  This was simply a flat strip of metal with its edges curled to hook over the rims or
grooves of a row of cartridges (also usually five).  To load his rifle, a soldier drew back the
bolt then slipped the charges into position above the opened receiver, and finally, pushed
the cartridges down into the magazine where they were held in tension against a spring.
The efficiency of the box magazine was quickly recognized because of its special
compatibility with the bolt action.  In effect, all European states made the conversion.  For
example, Germany adopted the 8-millimeter Model 1888 Commission rifle, Belgium the
7.65-millimeter Model 1889 Mauser, Turkey the Model 1890 Mauser, and Russia the 7.62-
millimeter Model 1891 Mosin-NAgant.  In 1892, Britain abandoned movable-block action
and adopted the 0.303-inch, bolt-action Lee-Metford.  The United States began to
purchase the 0.30-inch Model 1892 Krag-Jorgensen, a Danish design.  In 1906, Japan
adopted the 6.5-millimter Year 38 Arisaka rifle.
By World War I (1914-18), all major powers adopted smokeless-powder, bolt-
action, magazine-fed repeating rifles, and some had shifted to a second generation.  For
durability, safety, and efficiency, the 1898 Mauser was probably the epitome of bolt-
action military rifles.  It was sold and copied around the world.  In the United States, the
Mauser was only slightly altered and issued as the 0.30-inch M1903 Springfield.
Also following Germany’s lead in the design of ammunition, all armies replaced
their blunt-nosed projectiles with aerodynamically superior pointed bullets called
‘Spitzgeschossen’ in German.  Barrel lengths continued to decrease partlyin response to
more efficient propellants and partly to make rifles easier to use in the field.  The
British .303-inch Short, Magazine, Lee-Enfield rifle, known as the SMLE, had a 25-inch
barrel, while the M1903 Springfield’s barrel measured just over 23.75 inches.
During the Great War, huge quantities of rifles were built.  British factories made
more than 3.9 million rifles.  German sources produced about 5 million.  Russian factories
built more than 9 million.  Still, most armies suffered from shortages.  Factories in the
United States made 1.24 million rifles for the British and 280,000 for the Russians.  The US
government produced 2.4 million between May 1917 and December 1918 for their
military forces.

6. THE AUTOMATIC WEAPON


The self-loading rifle Magazine-fed rifles provided a radical increase in rate of fire. 
Indeed, by 1914 many British riflemen could fire 15 aimed shots per minute, and some
very skillful individuals could exceed 30 shots per minute.  Nevertheless, in order to
transcend the limits imposed by manual operation, gun designers such as Manniicher and
Hiram Maxim came up with experimental self-loading (or semiautomatic) rifles, which
used the energy generated by a fired round to load a fresh round into the chamber. 
However, only a handful of these weapons were adopted in very small numbers by the
major armies, whose interest in automatic fire from the 1880s through World War I was
directed primarily toward heavier infantry-support weapons.
After the war, all nations having an arms industry sought to produce a
semiautomatic rifle.  However, only the United States was successful in developing and
manufacturing a battle-worthy weapon.  Adopted in 1936, the US Rifle)..30 M1 Garand,
designed by John Garand, was a technological ‘tour de force’.  A small hole or gas port on
the underside of its barrel near the muzzle directed part of the propellant gases into a
small cylinder holding a piston that was connected to the bolt.  As gas pressure forced
back the piston and bolt, the empty cartridge case was ejected and the hammer was
cocked.  A spring then forced the bolt forward.  As it moved forward, the bolt stripped the
top cartridge from an eight-round, clip-loaded magazine within the receiver and seated it
in the chamber, ready to fire.  Gas pressure thus performed automatically the reloading
task formerly done by hand.   As the only semiautomatic rifle to become a standard-issue
infantry weapon, the M1 was extremely durable and reliable in combat.  Between 1937
and 1945, the Springfield Armory and the Winchester Repeating Arms Company produced
4.04 million of these rifles.  Still, the infantry units of most other belligerents during World
War II (1939-45) were armed with bolt-action rifles of the World War I er as their standard
weapons.
7. THE SUBMACHINE GUN
The ballistic performance of infantry rifles was tailored to the long-range
requirements of a bygone era when foot soldiers demanded weapons that could stop the
dreaded cavalry charge.  Beginning early in World War I, however, battlefields became no-
man’s-lands pockmarked by shell craters and crisscrossed by miles of barbed-wire
entanglements.  Machine guns dominated the 1,000 or more yards between trench lines. 
While rifles were shot at those extreme ranges, they could not equal the destructive
power of artillery and machine guns, and they were too cumbersome and powerful for
offensive assaults on enemy trenches.  A generation later, in World War II, the greater
mobility of troops accompanying armored vehicles reinforced the need for lighter, more
portable weapons of improved effectiveness at close quarters.
Such changing conditions let to experiments with automatic weapons firing
rounds of lower velocity or lighter weight.  One result, which saw its first use in World War
I, was a new weapon called the machine carbine or submachine gun.  Derived from the
semiautomatic pistol and firing pistol-caliber ammunition with muzzle velocities of only
about 1,000fps, submachine guns were fitted with shoulder stocks (and sometimes
forward hand grips).  Such weapons offered easier handling than rifles while providing
greater accuracy and more rapid fire than most handguns.
The first successful weapon of this type was the Maschinen Pistole 1918
Bergmann (MP18) designed by Hugo Schmelsser and employed by the Germans during the
last few months of the war.  The barrel of the MP18  was less than eight inches long, and it
was chambered for nine-millimeter rounds introduced in 1908 for Parabellum, or Luger,
pistols.  It operated under a principle called blowback, in which the spent cartridge case,
blown backward out of the chamber by the gases generated by the firing of the round,
forced the bolt back against   a spring and tripped the mechanism that ejected the case
from the gun.  The spring then forced the bolt forward as a fresh cartridge was fed into
the chamber.  If the trigger was kept depressed, the new round would be fired
automatically, and the cycle would continue until the trigger was released or the
ammunition was exhausted.  In blowback actions, the bolt had to be quite heavy, or it had
to be subjected to various devices that retarded its backward motion, in order to keep the
mechanism from operating faster than was desired.  In the MP18, a heavy bolt and spring
limited the weapon’s rate of fire to about 400 rounds per minute.
After the war, Vasily Degtyarev of the Soviet Union incorporated Schmeisser’s
principles into his own designs, finally developing the Pistolet Pulemyot Degtyarova  (PPD)
of 1940.  The PPD was fed by a drum-shaped magazine containing seventy one (71) 7.62
mm cartridges, and it fired a rate of 900 rounds per minute – far too fast for accuracy.   In
the United States, John T. Thompson’s submachine gun, chambered for the .45-inch Colt
pistol cartridge, was adopted by the army in 1928.  Popularly called the ‘Tommy gun’, the
M1928 was effective, but its blowback operation was modified by a complex retarding
mechanism that was deleted from later versions when its large drum magazine was also
replaced by a box magazine.
Under the pressures of World War II, the major powers used millions of
submachine guns.  These included a second generation of simplified weapons that, being
fabricated partly from sheet-metal stampings, could be produced in quantity almost
anywhere and at little expense.  The Germans led the way with the MP38 and MP40. 
Known to the Allies as ‘burp guns’, these weapons operated at 450 to 550 rounds per
minute, the optimal rate for controlled fire.  Also, they were fed by a box magazine, which
did not jam as often as a drum, and had a wire shoulder stock that could be folded against
the receiver.  Meanwhile, the Soviets issued en masse the PPSh of 1941 and the PPS of
1943.  The latter closely resembled the new German guns, as did the United States’ M3,
called the ‘grease gun’ for its resemblance to a mechanic’s grease dispenser.  The British
Sten gun, extremely simple and inexpensive yet very effective, was issued to paratroops
and commandos beginning in 1941 and was also smuggled to partisans in Europe.
After the war, almost all new submachine guns, such as the British Sterling and
West German MP5, were chambered for nine-millimeter cartridges.  As a class of weapon,
they received a new lease on life with the telescoping bolt, pioneered by Vaclav Holek in
the Czechoslovak Model 23 of 1948.  This involved a hollowed-out bolt that slid partially
over the barrel when a round was chambered, resulting in a much shorter weapon.  A
prominent example of this type was the Israeli Uzi, designed by Uziel Gal, which was only
25 inches long with its shoulder stock extended.  Yhe Uzi was adopted around the world as
a police and counter-terrorist weapon.  The submachine gun partially lost its importance
as a military weapon.  With an effective range limited to about 200 yards because it could
not fill the board gap between the low-power pistol cartridge and the full-power rifle
cartridge.  This gap, which constituted the ground upon which modern infantrymen found
themselves fighting, had to be filled by another new weapon, which would fire a cartridge
of intermediate power.

8. THE HISTORY OF ASSAULT RIFLE


The assault rifle is a military firearm that is chambered for ammunition of reduced
size or propellant charge and that has the capacity to switch between semiautomatic and
fully automatic fire.  Because they are light and portable yet still able to deliver a high
volume of fire with reasonable accuracy at modern combat ranges of 300-500 m (1,000-
1,600 feet), assault rifles have replaced the high-powered bolt-action and semiautomatic
rifles of the World War II era as the standard infantry weapon of modern armies.  Their
ease of handling makes them ideal for mobile assault troops crowded into personnel
carriers or helicopters, as well as for guerrilla fighters engaged in jungle or urban warfare.  
Widely used assault rifles are the United States’ M16, the Soviet Kalashnikov (the AK-47
and modernized versions), the Belgian FAL and FNC, and German G3.
Assault rifles operate by using either propellant gases or blowback forces
generated by a fired round to force back the bolt, eject the spent cartridge case, and cock
the firing mechanism.  A spring then pushes the bolt forward as a fresh cartridge is fed
into the chamber, and the gun is fired again.  Cartridges are fed into the guns from
magazines holding as many as 30 rounds.  Many assault rifles have attachments for
grenade launchers, snipers-copes, and bayonets.
A hint at this new weapon had been given during World War I, when Vladimir
Grigorevich Fyodorov, father of Russian automatic weapons, adopted the 6.5-millimeter
cartridge of the Japanese Arisaka rifle to an automatic rifle.  In 1916 he unveiled his new
weapon, the Avtomat Fyodorova.  Owing to the turmoil of the Russian Revolution of 1917,
only about 3,200 of Fyodorov’s weapons were delivered.  Nevertheless, they pointed the
way to future infantry weapon design.
During World War II, Hugo Schmeisser designed a light rifle to fire the Germans’
7.92-millimeter Kurz (Short) cartridge, which was of the same caliber as the Mauser rifle
cartridge but was lighter and shorter and was therefore of a less potent, intermediate
power.  The weapon, known variously as the MP43, MP44, or Sturmgewehr (assault rifle)
44, was loaded by a curved box magazine holding 30 rounds and was designed for most
effective fire at about 300 yards.  Only 425,000 to 440,000 of these rifles were built but
they were based on a concept that dominated infantry weapons for the rest of the
century.
Late in the war, the Soviets also began search for a rifle to shoot their 7.62 mm
intermediate cartridge, which produced a muzzle velocity of 2,330 feet per second. 
Historical evidence suggests that they were influenced by the Strumgewehr, but to what
extent remains uncertain.  In 1947, they adopted a weapon designed by Mikhail
Timofeyevich Kalashnikov, naming it the Avtomat kalashnikova.  Like the German
weapon, the AK-47 was operated by diverting some of the propellant gases into a cylinder
above the barrel, this drove a piston that forced the bolt back against its spring and
cocked the hammer for the next round.  At the turn of a selector switch, the action could
be changed from semiautomatic to fully automatic, firing at a rate of 600 rounds per
minute.  The AK-47 was made of forged and milled steel, giving it a weight of 10.6 pounds
(4.8kilograms) with a loaded 30-round magazine.  The receiver of the AKM version,
introduced in 1959, was made of lighter sheet metal, reducing the weight to 8.3 pounds,
and the AK-74 version, following later trends in the West, switched to a 5.45-millimeter
cartridge.
The development of Western small arms proceeded more slowly, mainly because
the United States insisted upon maintaining a power level comparable to the M1,  As a
result, in 1953 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) reluctantly agreed to
standardize on a 7.62mm cartridge that was a half-inch shorter than the M1 cartridge but
of the same caliber and power.  To fire this new round, the United States produced an
improved version of the M1 rifle, featuring a 20-round detachable magazine and being
capable of selective fire.  Called the US Rifle 7.62mm M14, it replaced the M1 Garand
beginning in 1957.  As a self-loading rifle the M14 performed well, but it was too heavy as
a close-quarters weapon, and the extreme recoil generated by the NATO round caused it
to be totally unmanageable as an automatic rifle.  Other NATO armies adopted more
satisfactory 7.62mm rifles, although even these were employed as advanced self-loaders
rather than automatics.  Most commonly, they were either the gas-operared Fusil
Automatique Leger (FAL), introduced by the Belgian Fabrique Nationale d’Armes de
Guerre in 1957, or the blowback-operated Gewehr 3 (G3) produced in West Germany by
the firm Heckler & Koch, beginning in 1959.  Millions of these weapons were sold to many
countries.
After the Korean War (1950-53), US military researches dissatisfied with rifle-
power ammunition began to test a .022-inch (5.56mm) cartridge that propelled a caliber,
high-velocity round, in 1958 they chose the AR-15 rifle, designed by Eugene M. Stoner for
the ArmaLite Division of Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation.  The AR-15 was gas-
operated, but it eliminated the piston in favor of a tube that directed propellant gases
directly into an expansion chamber between the bolt and bolt carrier.  By reducing the
number of working parts and chambering the rifle for a smaller cartridge, Stoner had
come up with a lightweight weapon that, even on automatic fire, produced a manageable
recoil and yet was capable of inflicting fatal wounds at 300 yards and beyond.   In 1961 the
air force purchased the AR-15, renaming it the M16.  Six years later, with units in Vietnam
finding the weapon very effective under the close conditions of jungle warfare, the army
adopted it as the M16A1.
After US troops in Europe were issued the M16, a series of trials ensued that
ended with the decision, in 1980, to adopt a standard 5.56mm NATO cartridge.  This fired
a brass-jacketed projectile that, having a heavier lead core and steel nose, was lethal at
longer ranges than the original AR-15 bullet.  The M16A2 was rifled to fire this round, and
other NATO armies switched over.   West Germany introduced the G41, a 5.56mm version
of the G3, and Belgium replaced the FAL with the FNC.  The British and French armies
developed new assault rifles with compact ‘bullpup’ designs, in which the bolt, receiver,
and magazine were behind the handgrip and trigger and much of the shoulder stock was
occupied by the operating mechanism.  This permitted a much shorter weapon than
orthodox designs, in which the magazine and receiver were ahead of the trigger.  As a
result, the French FAMAS and British L85A1 were only some 30 to 31 inches long –
compared with the M16, which was 39 inches overall.  Many of the newer models were
built with lightweight plastic shoulder stocks and magazines, as well as receivers made of
aluminum.

LESSON 2.2
NOMENCLATURE OF FIREARMS

I. CONCEPT
The invention of the first firearm eventually led to a never-ending race to develop a
perfect weapon.  Even before World War I, continuous innovation in gun and ammunition
industry resulted to the production of variety of military weapons.  With regard to small arms,
volumes of handguns, rifles and machineguns of different models and design are available today
from legitimate and illegitimate sources.  This makes the business of firearms investigation and
identification very tasking.  After knowing the historical background of firearms, the next logical
step in firearms forensics is to analyze the nomenclature of small arms.

A.  MAIN TYPE OF FIREARMS


According to the caliber of projectiles propelled, the two main types of firearms are
artillery and small arms.
1.  Artillery: these are firearms that propel projectiles with diameter of more than one
inch.  Artillery guns are large-caliber guns such as mortars, bazookas and howitzers,
including cannons.  However, there are cannons classified as artillery weapons while
there are others that are classified as small arms.  Some cannons have caliber
greater than 0.8in. (20mm) but not more than 1 inch. (Groller Interactive, 2001)
      The artillery gun with the biggest caliber that was ever used in combat is the
Gustav gun made by the Krupp Company in 1941.  The Gustav gun has 80cm (31.5
inch) bore diameter and capable of launching a 10,500-pound HE projectile or a
16,500-pound concrete piercing projectile.  The 10,500-pound HE projectile can
create a 30 feet wide and 30 feet deep crater.  The 16,500-pound concrete
projectile can penetrate a 264-fit reinforced concrete.  The typical powder charge
was about 3,000 pounds.  The range was 23 to 29 miles and the muzzle velocity was
bout 2,700 fps.  The gun weighed 1,344 tons and required a crew of 500 men.  It
was actually used by the German during the siege at Sevastopol in April 1942.
(Dalilis, 2003)
2. Small arms:  The portable weapons that developed from artillery and cannons are
called small arms.  Since the dividing line between small arms and artillery weapons
is so vague, various national military services have set arbitrary maximums on the
caliber of the weapons regarded as small arms.  These limits have been changed
from time to time.  Small arms are not subject to precise definition, but the term
usually includes rifle, carbines, muskets, shotguns, revolvers, pistols, and
submachine guns.  Machine guns using the same ammunition as military rifles are
classified as small arms. (Microsoft Encarta, 2003)
     Small arms are usually distinguished by caliber (the distance two opposite lands
in the gun barrel).  Weapons up to 0.60 caliber (0.6-in/15.24-mm bore) and all
gauges of shotgun are classified as small arms.  Thus, it is safe to say that small arms
are firearms that propel projectiles with diameter less than one inch and they can
be handled or operated by one man.
     Another way to classify firearms is according to gun barrel internal construction. 
Basing on interior construction of the barrel, the two general types of firearms are:
1. Smooth-bore firearms (or simply smoothbores)
2. Rifled-bore guns (or simply rifled guns/firearms)
Smoothbores are those that do not have rifling inside their barrels.  The interior
surface of their bore is smooth from end to end.  On the other hand, rifled guns
are those that have spiral lands and grooves at the bore (interior surface of their
barrel).  Almost all modern pistols, revolvers, and rifles have rifling while most
muskets and shotguns do not have.

B. TYPES OF SMALL ARMS


Small arms maybe classified according to barrel length.   Small arms could either have
long or short barrels.  Long-barreled weapons are designed for long-range shooting while
short-barreled guns are accurate only at relatively short ranges.  All shoulder firearms and
high-caliber machineguns fall under long-barreled weapons.  On the other hand, pistols,
revolvers and submachine guns are classified as short-barreled weapons.
Small arms can be categorized also according to general use and design.  Based on
this, small arms can be classified as handguns, shoulder firearms, machine guns, and sub-
machine guns.  Discussions on these types of firearms are provided in the next sections of
this lesson.
Another basis is classifying small arms is the mechanical construction of the loading
and firing mechanism.  The types of firearms according to mechanical construction are as
follows:
1. Single-shot arms:  these are guns designed to fire only one shot for every
loading.
2. Bolt-action type: Firearms of this type are usually classified also as single-shot
types.  Reloading is done by manual manipulation of the bolt.  The bolt of the
gun is directly pulled to the rear by using the bolt handle (also called charging
handle).  This action opens the breech and expose the chamber for feeding with
a round of ammunition.
3.  Repeating firearms: These are weapons that are capable of firing several shots
in one loading since they are equipped with semi-automatic firing mechanism.
4. Automatic-loading type: These are rapid-fire weapons since they are equipped
with full-automatic firing mechanism.  After the first shot, the chamber is
automatically fed with new cartridge.  Automatic guns are capable of continuous
firing in one squeeze of the trigger provided that it is constantly pressed and the
gun is loaded with a magazine of ammunition.
5. Slide-action type: Firearms of this type are capable of feeding the chamber by
the backward-forward manipulator of the gun’s fore-end.
6. Lever-type: the loading takes place by applying lever action gun’s stock.  This
group of firearms is also called break-type.  The name comes from the manner of
manipulating the stock and/or the barrel.  Loading is done by applying lever
action to open the breech and expose the chamber.

C. HANDGUNS
Handguns are small short-range firearms that are intended to be fired with one
hand.  The first gun operated with one hand was the matchlock gun, which appeared in the
1400’s.  It was fired by attaching a burning cord or match to an S-shaped holder called a
serpentine.  Later on in the early 1500’s, another handgun was invented.  This was the wheel-
lock with a metal gear that sparked when it revolved against a piece of pyrite.  The next
handguns came out during the mid-1500’s.  these were snaphance pistols, which were easier
to operate than the wheel lock.  In the 1600’s and 1700’s, many kinds of gunlocks were
developed, including the flintlock.
After Alexander Forsyth introduced the percussion system in 1807, percussion-
system pistols began to be introduced.  These were loaded from the muzzle, with a sliding
can of priming powder on the breech. Small handguns called derringers are descended from
percussion-system pistols, but are breech loaded.  They are named for Henry Deringer, Jr. a
US pistol maker of the 1800s.
From the very start, handguns were designed as compact weapons for self-defense. 
Until today, there are handguns specifically for target competition or hunting.  However,
most are still designed with defense in mind.  Thus, of the legal definition of handguns since
they are considered concealable and therefore deemed dangerous.  (Klatt 2004)
     There are two general groups of handguns
1. Revolvers
2. Pistols
Pistols refer to small portable firearms that can be held, aimed, and fired with one
hand.  They have a short barrel (no longer than one foot) with a lock-and-load firing
mechanism at the breech area.
In early firearm history, all handguns were generally called pistols.  There were three
early classes of pistols:
1.  Single-shot pistols:  Handguns of this type are operated by pressing a lever
causing the barrel to be unlatched and tipped upward.  While the breech of the
barrel is exposed, the cartridge is inserted to the chamber and locked.  Its
hammer is pulled back and cocked, ready to be fired.
2. Semi-automatic pistols: These are handguns that are popular today.  The semi-
automatic pistol is a more recent development that the revolver, originating in
the 19 century, mostly through the efforts of John Browning who is regarded as
th

the wizard of modern firearms.  According to Klatt (2004). Almost every semi-
automatic handgun available today is a copy of the two most famous designs of
Browning:
     The Colt model 1911A .45 government issue and the Browning Hi-power 9mm.
3. Revolvers:  These are handguns that have rotating cylinder containing chambers designed to
position a cartridge ready for firing.  Revolvers have rifled barrel and capable of carrying up to 8
rounds in its cylinder in one loading.  The revolving cylinder presents each cartridge to the
striker for every pull of the trigger.

           According to mechanical construction for loading and unloading, there are 3


classes of revolvers:
1. Ejection-rod type: this is the oldest type of revolver.  This type is loaded by
pulling a rod under the barrel that will allow the cylinder to be removed at the
left side and expose the chambers.  Once the chambers are exposed, fresh
cartridges are loaded one at a time while rotating the cylinder.
2. Swing-out type: This was more popularly produced in the United States.  Also
known as solid-frame revolver, this type is loaded by pressing the ejector that
unlocks the cylinder from the frame and eventually swings to the left side.
3. Break-top type: This was more popularly produced in United Kingdom.  This
type of revolver has barrel and cylinder hinged with a latch holding the barrel in
place while in firing position.  Loading is done by swinging down the barrel to
expose the chambers.

      Another way to classify revolver is according to mechanical firing action. Such as:
1. Single-action type: Single-action revolvers need manual cocking of the hammer
before squeezing the trigger.  This kind of revolvers remains popular for its
historical appeal, reliable design, and uncanny balance.  For some reasons, a
single-action colt .45 revolver is easier to shoot from the hip than a modern
revolver, and is used almost exclusively in trick shooting.
2. Double-action type: Double-action revolvers are those that do not need manual
cocking.  Pressing the trigger both cocks and releases the hammer causing a
more rapid manner of firing.

D. SHOULDER WEAPONS
Small arms under this category are those normally fired at shoulder level using both
hands.  This group of firearms included the following:
1. Muskets
2. Rifles
3. Carbines
4. Shotguns

Muskets are ancient muzzle loading shoulder weapons designed to fire single round
lead ball for every loading.  Muskets have long barrel with smooth bore.
Rifles are weapons designed or intended to be operated from the shoulder using
energy of explosive contained in a metallic cartridge to fire only a single projectile through a
rifled bore for each pull of trigger (US Federal Firearms Act).  Rifles are originally designed for
targets at a longer distance in single shot manner.  They differ from handguns as to length of
the barrel (more than 22 inches in length) and the presence of butt stock.   They are harder to
carry and more difficult to conceal but they are much more accurate and shoot more
powerful cartridges than handguns.  The two basic types of this group of small arms are
single-shot rifles and repeating rifles.
Repeating rifles are loaded with several cartridges at one time since they are stored
in an ammunition clip or magazine.  They have a loading mechanism that carries the cartridge
automatically into the chamber ready to be fired.  There are three types of repeating rifles:
a. Bolt-action type
b. Lever-action type
c. Slide-action type

Carbines are classified as light, short-barreled weapons originally designed for the
convenient use of cavalrymen.  Carbines are more versatile than rifles because of their short
barrel.  They fire a single projectile through a rifled bore either in semi-automatic or full-
automatic for every press of the trigger.  The maker of the first known carbine was David
Williams a.k.a. Carbine.
The carbine is essentially the same as the rifle, but has a shorter barrel (not longer
than 22 inches), a generally smaller caliber, and a more limited range.  The carbine was
formerly carried only by mounted cavalry troops, but during World War II the M2 carbine
was substituted for the .45-cliber handgun as the personal weapon of artillery personnel
and service troops.  Carbines were also modified for semiautomatic firing, but they were
replaced officially by the M14 rifle in the early 1960s.
Shotguns are smoothbore and breech-loading shoulder weapons designed to fire a
number of pellets or shots in one charge.  Shotgun barrels usually have 25-30 inches in
length.  The common types of shotguns based on their mechanical design are as follows:
a. Slide or pump type
b. Break type bolt type 
c. lever type 
d. auto-loading type
e. Single-barrel type
f. Double-barrel type
Shotguns are primarily intended for firing multiple small-round projectiles, buck shots
(larger pellets), pumpkin balls (single round ball), and slugs.  Although most shotguns are
designed with smoothbore, some shotguns have rifling to give better accuracy with slugs or
greater pattern spread to birdshots.  The paradox gun is a special type of shotgun that has
rifling at the last few inches in its barrel.  The unique barrel design provides a spin to a slug
that is specially designed for this type of shotgun.

E. MACHINE GUNS
The search for greater firepower has not been limited to shoulder firearms.  In
addition to rifles, machine guns have been originally developed as infantry-defense weapons.
During the flintlock era a number of heavy guns were developed that could fire
several bullets either serially or in volley, but it was not until the mid-19 century, with the
th

spread of center-fire cartridge ammunition and better manufacturing techniques, that such
weapons could be put to effective military use.  The best known were the Gatling gun
invented by Richard J. Gatling, and the mitrailleuse produced by the Christophe & Montigny
in Belgium.
The Gatling gun was the first repeating gun capable of sustained and accurate firing. 
Although it was the first genuinely effective rapid-fire weapon, the Gatling gun was not a true
machine gun.  It has several barrels arranged in a circle about a central axis.  Richard Gatling
invented and produced it in the last half of the 19 century.  The first models has six barrels
th

that used .58-caliber and later .50-caliber ammunition.  A hand crank rotated the barrels to
operate the gun.  Ammunition dropped from above the gun into each barrel as the barrels
rotated.  After firing, the empty cartridge would fall out of the bottom of the gun as the
barrels continued to rotate.  The Gatling gun was used late in the American Civil War and was
used in several other wars in the last half of the 19 century.  The mechanically operated gun
th

could fire at a rate of approximately 1,000 rounds per minute.  Gatling later developed an
electric motor for the gun that produced a firing rate of 3,000 rounds per minute. (Microsoft
Encarta, 2003)
The world’s first true machine gun was the automatic machine gun that bears the
name of Hiram Stevens Maxim.  The Maxim machine gun was a single-barrel recoil-operated
gun.  Maxim invented the belt feed to continually feed ammunition to his gun.  He also
developed a water cooling system to allow his gun to fire continuously without overheating. 
Maxim guns were built in many sizes and were used extensively during World War I. (ibid)
Machine guns are one type of heavy military weapon that fire ammunition
continuously.  Machine guns are known as full-automatic weapons because they
automatically eject spent rounds of ammunition and reload fresh rounds.  The user of a
machine gun can fire a constant and rapid stream of ammunition merely by dressing and
holding the trigger.  Almost all machine guns use the energy released from the ammunition
as it is fired to expel, reload, and fire ammunition.  Some types of large machine guns, such as
those used on fighter aircraft, are powered by motors.
     According to firing operation, machineguns can be grouped in four ways:
1. Blow-back type
2. Recoil type
3. Gas type
Blowback-operated machine guns use the pressure created from the fired round to
push a bolt, located directly behind the round, back and forth against a spring.  The pressure
from the fired round pushes the bolt backward against the spring and also ejects the spent
round from the gun.  A new round enters the weapon, and as the compressed spring pushes
the bolt forward, the bolt rams the round into the breech.  A pin on the end of the bolt
strikes the round and fires it, beginning the cycle again.  Blowback weapons are simple and
reliable, but they do not form a complete seal at the breach when firing.  This is a
disadvantage, and blowback-operated weapons can be used only with ammunition that
requires low to moderate firing pressure.
Recoil-operated machine guns push the barrel and the breech backwards as a unit,
along with the bolt.  The ejection and reloading cycles are completed during this recoil, and
the breech remains sealed during firing.  Recoil-operated weapons are extremely reliable, but
are heavy and have more moving parts than blowback-operated weapons. As a result, they
have relatively low rates of fire.
Gas-operated weapons were devised as a means to increase the rate of fire of
machine guns while at the same time reducing their weight.  Gas from the fired round
expands in the barrel and is diverted through a port in the barrel to a piston near the front of
the gun.  The piston pushes back against a mechanism and a spring, unlocking the breech,
extracting the spent round and powering the reloading of a fresh round.   Gas-operated
weapons are lighter than recoil-operated weapons, but they are often not as durable or
reliable.
     
F. SUBMACHINE GUNS
According to Ivan Hogg (2003), the submachine gun is the youngest class of small
arms having been invented within living memory.
The submachine gun is a light, hand-held automatic weapon firing pistol
ammunition.  Today, there are weapons classed as submachine guns that fire assault rifle
cartridges.  However, the use of pistol ammunition distinguishes submachine guns from
these weapons better known as assault weapons.  Most submachine guns have a shoulder
stock than can be folded for better concealability.
There are two basic types of submachine guns according to bolt mechanism: the
open bolt-operated and the closed-bolt type.  The open-bolt type has a bolt operated by a
trigger sear causing the cartridge to be fired in open bolt.

G. OTHER TYPES OF SMALL ARMS


1. AIR GUNS: These are firearms which use pneumatic pressure to fire a projectile.  
One group of air gun is generally known as BB guns.  These are usually operated
in this manner: first, air is pumped into a pressure chamber reservoir and
released by trigger pull.  Next, a spring compression system is used to drive a
piston to compress air (most ‘toys’ are of this variety).  And finally, a pressurized,
carbon dioxide filled cartridge is attached.

2. HOMEMADE FIRERMS: Even though cheap guns are readily available, youths and youth gang
members may attempt to build their own firearms.  Typically, homemade guns are crude, and
adapted to fire available ammunition.  In one study, homemade guns caused unusual muzzle
imprints, intensive soot deposits at the entrance wound and on the hands, intensive CO-effects,
burns, and in one case a skin laceration of the hand holding the weapon.  The bullets showed a
reduced penetration depth, and characteristic firing marks were missing.

3. SAWED-OFF RIFLES:  this is a new group of handguns for hunting big game and long range target
competition.  Firearms of this kind are nothing but single shot rifles with shortened barrels and
no stock.  These shooting rifles are loaded with hybrid rifle cartridges and deliver rifle energies.

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