Breechloader

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

122 mm M1910 howitzer
, modified and combined with 105mm H37 howitzer barrel
An animation showing the loading cycle for a large naval breech-loader. A series of interlocking doors closes and opens the path from the gunhouse to prevent a flash from traveling down the path to the magazine.

A breechloader

muzzle) end of the barrel
.

The vast majority of modern firearms are generally breech-loaders, while firearms made before the mid-19th century were mostly smoothbore muzzle-loaders. Only a few muzzleloading weapons, such as

combination guns, and volley guns
.

Breech-loading provides the advantage of reduced reloading time because it is far quicker to load the projectile and propellant into the chamber of a gun or cannon than to reach all the way over to the front end to load ammunition and then push them back down a long tube – especially when the projectile fits tightly and the tube has spiral ridges from rifling. In field artillery, the advantages were similar – crews no longer had to get in front of the gun and pack ammunition in the barrel with a ramrod, and the shot could now tightly fit the bore, greatly increasing its power, range, and accuracy. It also made it easier to load a previously fired weapon with a fouled barrel. Gun turrets and emplacements for breechloaders can be smaller since crews don't need to retract the gun for loading into the muzzle end. Unloading a breechloader is much easier as well, as the ammunition can be unloaded from the breech end and is often doable by hand; unloading muzzle loaders requires drilling into the projectile to drag it out through the whole length of the barrel, and in some cases the guns are simply fired to facilitate unloading process.

After breech-loading became common, it also became common practice to fit counter-recoil systems, such as the

hydro-pneumatic recoil mechanism on the Canon de 75 modèle 1897, onto field guns and howitzers
to prevent the recoil from rolling the carriage back and forth with every shot and ruining the aim. This provided faster rates of fire, but this is not directly related to whether the gun is breech-loading or not. Now that guns were able to fire without the entire carriage recoiling, the crew was able to remain grouped closely around the gun, ready to load and put final touches on the aim, prior to firing the next shot. That led to the development of an armored shield fitted to the carriage of the gun, to help shield the crew from long-range area or sniper fire from the new, high-velocity, long-range rifles, or even machine guns.

History

Henry VIII of England
, 1540–1543.
Early types of breech-loaders from the 15th and 16th century on display at the Army Museum in Stockholm.

Although breech-loading firearms were developed as far back as the early 14th century in Burgundy and various other parts of Europe,[3][4] breech-loading became more successful with improvements in precision engineering and machining in the 19th century.

The main challenge for developers of breech-loading firearms was sealing the breech. This was eventually solved for smaller firearms by the development of the self-contained metallic cartridge in the mid-19th century. For firearms too large to use cartridges, the problem was solved by the development of the interrupted screw.

Swivel guns

Main article: Breech-loading swivel gun

anti-personnel
roles.

Firearms

Henry VIII's breech-loading hunting gun, 16th century. The breech block rotates on the left on hinges, and is loaded with a reloadable iron cartridge. Thought to have been used as a hunting gun to shoot birds. The original wheellock
mechanism is missing.
miquelet
system.
Mechanism of Philip V's breech-loading firearm (detail)
breech mechanism of the Ferguson rifle

Breech-loading firearms are known from the 16th century.

Henry VIII possessed one, which he apparently used as a hunting gun to shoot birds.[5] Meanwhile, in China, an early form of breech-loading musket, known as the Che Dian Chong, was known to have been created in the second half of the 16th century for the Ming dynasty's arsenals.[6] Like all early breech-loading fireams, gas leakage was a limitation and danger present in the weapon's mechanism.[7]

More breech-loading firearms were made in the early 18th century. One such gun known to have belonged to Philip V of Spain, and was manufactured circa 1715, probably in Madrid. It came with a ready-to load reusable cartridge.[8]

Patrick Ferguson, a British Army officer, developed in 1772 the Ferguson rifle, a breech-loading flintlock firearm. Roughly two hundred of the rifles were manufactured and used in the Battle of Brandywine, during the American Revolutionary War, but shortly after they were retired and replaced with the standard Brown Bess musket. In turn the American army, after getting some experience with muzzle-loaded rifles in the late 18th century, adopted the second standard breech-loading firearm in the world, M1819 Hall rifle, and in larger numbers than the Ferguson rifle.

About the same time and later on into the mid-19th century, there were attempts in Europe at an effective breech-loader. There were concentrated attempts at improved cartridges and methods of ignition.

In Paris in 1808, in association with French gunsmith

mercury fulminate primer powder (the major innovation of Pauly), a round bullet and either brass or paper casing.[10][11] The cartridge was loaded through the breech and fired with a needle. The needle-activated central-fire breech-loading gun would become a major feature of firearms thereafter.[12] The corresponding firearm was also developed by Pauly.[9] Pauly made an improved version, which was protected by a patent on 29 September 1812.[9]

The Pauly cartridge was further improved by the French gunsmith Casimir Lefaucheux in 1828, by adding a pinfire primer, but Lefaucheux did not register his patent until 1835: a pinfire cartridge containing powder in a cardboard shell.

In 1845, another Frenchman Louis-Nicolas Flobert invented, for indoor shooting, the first rimfire metallic cartridge, constituted by a bullet fit in a percussion cap.[13][14] Usually derived in the 6 mm and 9 mm calibres, it is since then called the Flobert cartridge but it does not contain any powder; the only propellant substance contained in the cartridge is the percussion cap itself.[15] In English-speaking countries the Flobert cartridge corresponds to the .22 BB and .22 CB ammunitions.

In 1846, yet another Frenchman, Benjamin Houllier, patented the first fully metallic cartridge containing powder in a metallic shell.[16] Houllier commercialised his weapons in association with the gunsmiths Blanchard or Charles Robert.[17][18] But the subsequent Houllier and Lefaucheux cartridges, even if they were the first full-metal shells, were still pinfire cartridges, like those used in the LeMat (1856) and Lefaucheux (1858) revolvers, although the LeMat also evolved in a revolver using rimfire cartridges.

The first centrefire cartridge was introduced in 1855 by Pottet, with both Berdan and Boxer priming.[19]

In 1842, the Norwegian Armed Forces adopted the breech-loading caplock, the Kammerlader, one of the first instances in which a modern army widely adopted a breech-loading rifle as its main infantry firearm.

The Dreyse Zündnadelgewehr (

Franco-Prussian war
of 1870–71, eventually caused much interest in Europe for breech-loaders and the Prussian military system in general.

In 1860, the New Zealand government petitioned the Colonial Office for more soldiers to defend Auckland.[20] The bid was unsuccessful and the government began instead making inquiries to Britain to obtain modern weapons. In 1861 they placed orders for the Calisher and Terry carbine, which used a breech-loading system using a bullet consisting of a standard Minié lead bullet in .54 calibre backed by a charge and tallowed wad, wrapped in nitrated paper to keep it waterproof. The carbine had been issued in small numbers to English cavalry (Hussars) from 1857. About 3–4,000 carbines were brought into New Zealand a few years later. The carbine was used extensively by the Forest Rangers, an irregular force led by Gustavus von Tempsky that specialized in bush warfare and reconnaissance. Von Tempsky liked the short carbine, which could be loaded while lying down. The waterproofed cartridge was easier to keep dry in the New Zealand bush. Museums in New Zealand hold a small number of these carbines in good condition.[21][22]

de Bange breech

During the

General Burnside invented a breech-loading rifle before the war, the Burnside carbine
.

The French adopted the new

Martini-Henry
with trap-door loading in 1871.

Wahrendorff breech

Single-shot breech-loaders would be used throughout the latter half of the 19th Century, but were slowly replaced by various designs for repeating rifles, first used in the American Civil War. Manual breech-loaders gave way to manual magazine feed and then to self-loading rifles.

Breech-loading is still commonly used in shotguns and

hunting rifles
.

Artillery

Main article: Rifled breech loader

The first modern breech-loading rifled gun is a breech-loader invented by Martin von Wahrendorff with a cylindrical breech plug secured by a horizontal wedge in 1837. In the 1850s and 1860s, Whitworth and Armstrong invented improved breech-loading artillery.

The M1867 naval guns produced in Imperial Russia[24] at the Obukhov State Plant used Krupp technology.

Breech mechanism

A breech action is the loading sequence of a breech loading

falling block (or sliding block) action to reload. And then later on came the Dreyse needle gun that used a moving seal (bolt) to seal and expose the breech. Later on, however, the Mauser M71/84 rifle used self-contained metallic cartridges
and used a rotating bolt to open and close the breech.

See also

References

  1. ISBN 978-1-4474-8414-1
    .
  2. ISBN 978-1-4733-8374-6
    .
  3. ISBN 051724666X
    .
  4. ^ "Gunpowder Weapons of the Late Fifteenth Century".
  5. ^ Tower of London exhibit.
  6. ^ Zhao Shi-zhen(趙士禎).Shén qì pu (神器譜). 1598.
  7. ^ Breech-loading arquebuses of the Ming Dynasty, 12 November 2014, retrieved 11 February 2018
  8. Musée de l'Armée
    exhibit, Paris.
  9. ^ a b c Wallace, James Smyth. Chemical Analysis of Firearms, Ammunition, and Gunshot Residue, p. 24.
  10. ^ [1]. Archived 19 November 2015 at the Wayback Machine
  11. ISBN 9780313327964
    – via Google Books.
  12. ISBN 9780486433905
    – via Google Books.
  13. ^ History of firearms. Archived 22 December 2015 at the Wayback Machine fireadvantages.com.
  14. ^ How guns work. Archived 22 December 2015 at the Wayback Machine fireadvantages.com.
  15. ^ Shooting section (la section de tir) Archived 10 November 2013 at the Wayback Machine of the official website (in French) of a modern indoor shooting association in Belgium, Les Arquebusier de Visé.
  16. ^ Simili, Maître (Spring 1990). Les Lefaucheux. Archived 8 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine (In French.)
  17. ^ "An example of a Benjamin Houllier gun manufactured in association with the gunsmith Blanchard". littlegun.info.
  18. ^ "An example of a Benjamin Houllier gun manufactured in association with the gunsmiths Blanchard and Charles Robert". littlegun.info.
  19. ISBN 978-1-85109-401-1
    .
  20. ISBN 0-14-027504-5
    .
  21. ^ Te Awamutu Museum, Te Awamutu, Waikato, New Zealand. Research notes and a C and T carbine
  22. ^ "Terry Carbines", Te Papa
  23. ^ American Breech-loading Small Arms: A Description of Late Inventions, Including the Gatling Gun, and a Chapter on Cartridges. 1 January 1872, p. 14.
  24. ^ "The History of Russian Artillery since the mid-19th century up to 1917". Archived from the original on 11 July 2009.

Further reading

External links
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