Muzzle-loading rifle

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It has been suggested that Rifled muzzle loader be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

A muzzle-loading rifle is one in which the projectile and propelling charge is loaded through the muzzle, in contrast to a breach loading rifle. The phrase can be applied to both hand held rifles and to artillery. Hand held rifles were well-developed by the 1740s, and in use by all world militaries. The most recognizable form of the "muzzleloader" is the Kentucky rifle, which was actually developed in Pennsylvania. Evolving from the German "Jaeger" rifle, the American Longrifle tamed the American Continent.

1 Small arms
2 Artillery
- 2.1 Rifled Muzzle Loaders
3 See also
4 Footnotes

[edit] Small arms

Further information: rifle

[edit] Artillery

The muzzle-loading rifle was introduced into service in ships of the Royal Navy, after some experimentation with alternative armament systems, after the failure of the Armstrong 100-pounder breech-loaders which were installed in 1860.

Until the middle of the nineteenth century Royal Navy warships had been armed with progressively larger smoothbore muzzle loading cannon. These had by then approached their limit in terms of armour penetration, range and destructive power. It was known that rifled ordnance provided more accuracy, a greater range and more penetrative power, which was the rationale behind the development and on-board shipping of the breech-loading cannon developed by the company owned by Sir William Armstrong. These weapons, however, were found to be dangerously prone to failure, frequently explosively, and an alternative type of armament became urgently necessary.

An initial attempt at an alternative was the 100-pounder smoothbore Somerset cannon, which, while it was an improvement over previous smoothbore guns of lesser calibre, could not penetrate armour of thicknesses currently being shipped by British or foreign battleships.

The type of gun finally adopted was a muzzle-loading weapon which fired projectiles with external studs which engaged with the rifling. This system was named the "Woolwich" system; while it was possible with this system to fire shells at a higher muzzle velocity, and therefore with greater penetrative power, than before, the studs tended to shear, there was excessive wear of the gun liner, and the shells tended to wobble in flight. Furthermore, the muzzle velocity obtainable in these guns was no more than half of that obtained in interrupted screw breeched guns of the following century. There were several reasons for this: the shell could not be made to fit too closely into the bore of the gun, as it would not have been possible to ram it home; the velocity of a shell depends, among other factors, on the length of the gun barrel, and the need to load through the muzzle necessitated a short barrel so as to make the muzzle accessible to the loaders; later types of explosive were superior; and metallugical techniques improved to allow a higher initial pressure in the breech of the gun.

[edit] Rifled Muzzle Loaders

In the British military, many smaller 64-pounder smoothbore guns were converted to rifled weapons, with the converted guns called Rifled Muzzle Loaders (or RML) whilst weapons manufactured with rifling were termed Muzzle Loading Rifles (or MLR).^[1], but that distinction did not survive with the larger calibres, which were generally all called RMLs.

Many artillery pieces were converted from older smooth bore weapons once technical problems in strengthening the original cast iron body had been overcome. The widely adopted solution, invented in 1863 by William Palliser, consisted of enlarging the bore to accept a wrought iron tube (called the A tube) into which the rifling had been cut. The A tube was closed at the breech end by a wrought iron cup screwed into it. Iron was removed from the outside of the original gun barrel near to the muzzle so that a cast iron collar could be screwed over it and provide a shoulder at the muzzle to hold the A tube in place. The A tube was also held by a plug screwed into the gun underneath its trunions. The outside of the breech portion was turned on a lathe so that another wrought iron tube, called the B tube, could be slid over it to strengthen it.