Rifle
a gun of high power, long shooting range, and finding its classification among weapons, chiefly in respect to the construction of its barrel. The term rifle means a gun with a grooved barrel. tion among weapons, chiefly in respect to for the two-fold purpose of accommodating the excess carbonization from the discharge of the black powder cartridge and for the two-fold purpose of accommodatby contracting the internal area of the barrel. It was discovered, after long experimentation, that the most effective grooving which induced the twisting or combination of these two qualities was spinning motion in the discharging bulattained by boring the barrel with a spiral let, thereby greatly increasing its directional accuracy and diminishing or flatspinning motion in the discharging bulcorresponding increase in the effectivelet, thereby greatly increasing its direcdevelopment in the perfection of the rifle and military practice. The progress of both as a weapon for sport and an instrument of military accomplishment has RIFLE known three stages. The first stage might be said to have continued from the discovery of the principle of rifling up to the period of the successful production of the breech-loading rifle. In this stage, the muzzle-loading type of rifle reached German Mauser RIFLE was discovered and the area of modern rifle construction was issued in with the two great contributory aids of high tension steel and smokeless powder. The superior quality and dependability of steel which offered varieties to every me- French Lebel Belgian Mauser RIFLES its highest perfection and led to the advance from the ball form of cartridge to the sugar-loaf or elongated ball cartridge.
In America this period extended to the time of the American Civil War. The Civil War and the impetus of western settlement and colonization pushed the rifle into high development and produced COCKING PIECE BOLT chanical requirement of the delicately adjusted machinery of the modern leveraction, bolt-action, and auto-action weapons, combined with the powerful advantages of smokeless powder which made possible the lightening of the barrel together with more accurate and careful rifling, led to the production of our mod- STRIKER SPRING BACK SIGHT MAGAZINE TRIGGER BRITISH LEE-ENFIELD RIFLE the Henry, Sharp, and Spencer rifles, all breech-loading weapons, and one, the Henry type, a lever-action gun, the ancestor of the modern repeating rifle. The problem of the breech-loading rifle was the development of a mechanism sufficiently strong and relatively small to withstand the terrific concussion of blackpowder cartridges. The third stage in rifle development was reached when the solution of the breech-loading weakness ern hunting and military weapons. Two aspects of importance have appeared in this third and present state in the development of the rifle; the emphasis upon the mechanics of repeating shots which has resulted in several types of magazine rifles and culminated in the automatic weapons which have combined speed of action with high shell capacity; and the several spheres of shell development which have produced the high-power, long range RIFLE-BIRD possessing the same characteristics. Be- tainment and the similar military rifle tween these types of rifle and the rifle of possessing the same characteristics. Between these types of rifle and the rifle of shorter range or greater shocking power, PIECE COCKING PIECE RIGGS of the order; and several old guild houses and Hanseatic halls. It is the seat of an archbishop of the Greek Church. Prior to the World War its industries were rapidly growing; they turned out cottons, BOLT BOLT BARREL HAND GUARD MAGAZINE CARTRIDGE STOCK SPRINGFIELD MAGAZINE RIFLE the variation in mechanism and rifling, with all the consequent alterations in construction, have been made to depend upon the type of shell used and upon whether the weapon has been designed to employ the steel, soft-nosed or pure lead bullet in its shooting. often spoken of as one of the "Birds of ing to