Historical Firearms & Others

Belton Flintlock (Wiki)[1777]

"The Belton flintlock was a repeating flintlock design using superposed loads, conceived by Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, resident Joseph Belton some time prior to 1777. The musket design was offered by Belton to the newly formed Continental Congress in 1777. Belton wrote that the musket could fire eight rounds with one loading,[1] and that he could support his claims "by experimental proof."[2] Belton failed to sell the musket to Congress, and later was unable to sell the design to the British Army a year after the American Revolution.[1] There are no records that indicate that the gun was ever supplied, and it is uncertain if or how exactly the Belton improvement operated.[2]"

 

Wiki - Belton flintlock - Wikipedia

WikiSource - Correspondence between John Belton and the Continental Congress - Wikisource, the free online library

Girardoni Air Rifle (Wiki)[1780]

The rifle was 4 ft (1.2 m) long and weighed 10 lb (4.5 kg), about the same basic size and weight as infantry muskets of the time. It fired a .46[3] or .51[4] caliber ball and had a tubular, spring-fed[5] magazine with a capacity of 20 balls. Some of the weapons were also made using a gravity fed magazine. Unlike its contemporary, muzzle-loading muskets, which required the rifleman to stand up to reload with powder and ball, the shooter could reload a ball from the magazine by pulling a transverse chamber bar out of the breech which allowed a ball to be supplied to it and which then rebounded back to its original position with the aid of a spring, all while lying down.[5] Contemporary regulations of 1788 required that each rifleman, in addition to the rifle itself, be equipped with three compressed air reservoirs (two spare and one attached to the rifle), cleaning stick, hand pump, lead ladle, and 100 lead balls, 1 in the chamber, 19 in the magazine built into the rifle and the remaining 80 in four tin tubes. Equipment not carried attached to the rifle was held in a special leather knapsack. It was also necessary to keep the leather gaskets of the reservoir moist in order to maintain a good seal and prevent leakage.[6]

 

Wiki - Girardoni air rifle - Wikipedia

Pepper-box Revolver (Wiki)[1790]

Around 1790, pepperboxes were built on the basis of flintlock systems, notably by Nock in England and "Segallas" in Belgium. These weapons building on the success of the earlier two barrel turnover pistols, were fitted with three, four or seven barrels. These early pepperboxes were hand rotated.[2]

The invention of the percussion cap building on the percussion powder innovations of the Rev. Alexander Forsyth's patent of 1807 (which ran until 1821), and the industrial revolution allowed pepperbox revolvers to be mass-produced, making them more affordable than the early handmade guns previously only seen in the hands of the rich. Examples of these early weapons are the American three barrel Manhattan pistol, the English Budding (probably the first English percussion pepperbox) and the Swedish Engholm. Most percussion pepperboxes have a circular flange around the rear of the cylinder to prevent the capped nipples being accidentally fired if the gun were to be knocked while in a pocket, or dropped and to protect the eyes from cap fragments.

 

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Puckle Gun (Wiki)[1718]

The Puckle gun (also known as the defence gun) was a primitive crew-served, manually-operated flintlock[1] revolver patented in 1718 by James Puckle, (1667–1724) a British inventor, lawyer and writer. It was one of the earliest weapons to be referred to as a "machine gun", being called such in a 1722 shipping manifest,[2] though its operation does not match the modern use of the term. It was never used during any combat operation or war.[3][4] Production was highly limited and may have been as few as two guns.

At a later public trial held in 1722, a Puckle gun was able to fire 63 shots in seven minutes (approximately nine rounds per minute) in the midst of a driving rain storm.[1][8] A rate of 1 round in less than 7 seconds compared to musketeers of the period, who reload in between 12 and 30 seconds plus re-aiming; it was however inferior in fire rate to earlier repeating weapons such as the Kalthoff repeater which fired up to six times faster at about 1 per second plus re-aiming.

 

Wiki - Puckle gun - Wikipedia

Kalthoff Repeater (Wiki)[1690]

The Kalthoff repeater was a type of repeating firearm that was designed by members of the Kalthoff family around 1630,[1] and became the first repeating firearm to be brought into military service.[2] At least nineteen gunsmiths are known to have made weapons following the Kalthoff design.[2] Some early Kalthoff guns were wheellocks,[3][4] but the rest were flintlocks.[5] The capacity varied between 5 and 30 rounds, depending on the style of the magazines.[1] A single forward and back movement of the trigger guard, which could be done in 1–2 seconds, readied the weapon for firing.[6] The caliber of Kalthoff guns generally varied between 0.4 and 0.8 inches,[5] though .3 caliber examples also exist.[7]

 

Wiki - Kalthoff repeater - Wikipedia

Private Ship Authorized to Use Cannons [1812]

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James Madison 1812 Letters of Marque