The History of Shooting Sports… in 5-Bullets 23
Firearms have been around since 1260, but were nothing more than a barrel, charged with a measure of black powder. The first firearms where weapons of war, but once the technology could be refined into smaller, more accurate devices, they were primarily used for hunting.
One of the biggest problems with firearm precision had to do with the construction of the barrel and the shape of the round blasting from the muzzle.
• It Took 600 Years for Shooting Sports to Immerge
It wasn’t until firearm manufacturers began to implement ‘rifling’ in mass production, rather than the conventional ‘smooth bore,’ that these devices were considered precision instruments. The US Civil War (1861-65) was the first instance of large-scale implementation of the supremely accurate ‘gain twist’ rifling for military applications. Also before then, the round itself acted more like an unpredictable knuckleball, because it was nothing more than a lead sphere. The musket ball design had to change to the more aerodynamic ‘bullet’ shape that we know today. Read the rest of this entry →
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