The Basics of Firearms and Ammunition
There are 5 General categories of small arms
1. Handguns 2. Rifles 3. Shotguns 4. Sub-machine guns 5. Machine guns There are 4 Basic Types of Handguns
1. Single shot pistols 2. Derringers 3. Revolvers 4. Auto-loading pistols
Great American Firearms Inventor
1. John Moses Browning - He was born on January 23, 1855 in Ogden,Utah U.S. where his father settled after the Mormon exodus of 1847.It was in his fathers shop that he learned the art and secrets of gunsmithing.He passed away in Liege,Belgium in 1926 due to heart failure.He is famous for designing many firearms but the most famous of his design is the colt's 45 ACP M1911 government model and FN Browning high power model P-35 in 9mm parabellum.He is a person who invented more firearms than any other gun maker in the history of the world. 2. Richard Jordan Gatling - He is the inventor of the Gatling gun.He was born on September 12, 1818 at Maney's Neck,NC.He died in New York city on February 26, 1903.He has a medical degree in Ohio medical college.He conceived the idea of the rapid fire machine gun which is associated with his name.He succeeded in perfecting the Gatling gun in 1862 capable of discharging 350 shots per minute. 3. Samuel Colt - He was born at Hartford,Connecticut in 1814 and died there in 1862.After leaving school,he worked at his father's textile mill.He spent his spare time disassembling and reassembling his father's guns.In 1829,he became a sailor.In 1835,he patented his five shot revolver that transformed firearm into a multi-shot device. 4. John Cantius Garand - He was born on January 1, 1888 in Saint Remi, Quebec in a french Canadian family.He died On February 16, 1974 in Springfield,Massachusetts.He was 11 years old when he came to America speaking little English but fluent in French.He quit school and went to work at a textile mill and later became a machinist at a precision tool company.He took Correspondence course in engineering.He is best known for creating the first successful semi-automatic rifle,the M1 Garand,to be widely used in active military service. 5. Horace Smith - He was born in Cheshire,Massachusetts on October 28,1808 and died on January 15, 1893.He was a gunsmith,inventor, and Businessman.He moved to Springfield at age four.He joined his father working in the U.S. armory as an apprentice.He worked his own gun manufacturing business.He patented an improvement of the breech-loading rifle in 1851 a year before he met Wesson through their work at Allen,Brown,and Luther barrel manufacturers.He together with Daniel Wesson patented a pistol that used a cartridge with powder and lubricant and had a new repeating action which became the basis for the famous Winchester rifle. 6. Daniel Baird Wesson - He was born on May 18, 1825 in Worcester, MA and died on August 4, 1906 at Springfield, MA due to heart failure.He apprenticed as a gunsmith under his elder brother Rufus and later worked with another gunsmith brother,Frank before partnering with Horace Smith in establishing the Smith and Wesson arms company in 1852.He developed a lever-action pistol with a repeating action and the first practical self-primed metallic cartridge.The pistol was powerful enough that it was quickly nicknamed volcanic followed by the more famous volcanic rifle. 7. David Marshall Williams - He was born on November 13, 1900 in Cumberland County,North Carolina and he died on January 8, 1975 in Raleigh,North Carolina.He built his first pistol with a reed barrel when he was 10 years old.He was imprisoned in Halifax County.After 8 years,he was pardoned.When World War II broke out,he was working for Winchester Repeating Arms Company in Connecticut.He was famous for designing a rifle with a short stroke gas piston which he had worked in prison.He is best remembered for the gun that gave him his nickname,the M1 carbine. 8. John Taliaferro Thompson - He was born on December 31, 1860 in Newport,Kentucky and he died on June 21, 1940.He was a soldier and a United States Military Academy graduate.He graduated in 1882.He invented and developed the Thompson sub-machine gun.After his death in 1940,the Thompson sub-machine gun began to be used for its creator's original intended purpose as highly effective and easily carried weapon in trench warfare. 9. Earle Harvey - He designed the T25 rifle while working at Springfield armory.The T25 was later renamed T47.Later on T44 was created as an alternative to T47.In 1957,U.S. formally adopted the T44 as the U.S. infantry service rifle,designated M14.He is also known as the father of the 7.62 mm NATO cartridge. 10.Eugene Morrison Stoner - He was born on November 22, 1922 in Gosport,Indiana.He died on April 24, 1997 due to cancer.He is the man most associated with the design of the AR15 rifle,adopted by the U.S. military as M16. 11.Christian Sharps - He was born on January 2, 1810 in Washington,New Jersey.He died on March 12, 1874 at his home in Vernon,Depot due to tuberculosis.He was the inventor of the first commercially successful breech-loading rifle.At the onset of the American Civil War,Sharp's rifle was produced in large quantities. 12.Arthur William Savage - He was born on May 13, 1857 in Kingston,Jamaica, British West Indies and he died on September 22, 1938.He committed suicide.He is the inventor of the Savage model 99 lever-action rifle. 13.William Batterman Ruger - He was born on June 21, 1916 in Brooklyn, New york and he died on July 6, 2002 in Prescott,Arizona.In 1938,he came up with a design for what eventually became a light machine gun for the United States army. 14.Eliphalet Remington - He was born on October 28, 1793 in Suffield, Connecticut and he died on August 12, 1861 in Ilion,New York due to heart failure.He was a blacksmith.He can not afford to purchase a rifle which he need so he made his own from scrap iron in his smithing shop and soon hired by neighbors as rifle maker and by 1820,Remington's rifle were sold throughout New England.He introduced America's first gun barrel made from solid steel,the popular beal revolver,and the breech-loading gun that superseded the conventional muzzle-loading rifle. 15.Robert Parker parrot - He was born on October 5, 1804 in Lee,New Hampshire and he died on December 24, 1877 in Cold Spring,New York.He is a product of the U.S. Military Academy class of 1824.During 1860, he produced the Parrot rifle gun,an innovative rifled cannon which was manufactured in several sizes the largest, the 300 pounder version weighed 26000 lbs. and its projectile weighed 300 lbs.Parrot guns was extensively used during the American Civil War by Union and Confederate armies. 16.Hiram Maxim - He was born on February 5, 1840 in Sangerville, Maine and he died on November 24, 1916 in London.He was the inventor of the Maxim gun, the first portable fully automatic machine gun. 17.John marlin - He was born in 1836 in Connecticut and he died in 1901. He apprenticed as a tool and die maker. During the civil war, he worked at the Colt plant in Hartford and in 1870, manufactured his own line of revolvers and derringers. He was able, together with outstanding team of inventors,enduring firearms models known today as models 39 and 336, they are the oldest shoulder arm designs in the world still being produced. 18.Benjamin Tyler Henry - Born in 1821 and he died in 1898. He was a gunsmith and inventor of the Henry rifle, the first reliable lever-action repeating rifle. |
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