In Belgium the gun is a round bread roll. The origin of the word comes from Latin pistor meaning miller , which by semantic slip with the Middle Ages had suddenly indicated the baker . The diminutive gun is thus the product of the baker.

The gun is a Handgun.

History

The first guns appeared at the dawn of the history of the Firearms. With an imposing size and equipped with a single gun with loading by the mouth and with a fusing by wick, wheel then by flint, their handle was often equipped with a heavy pommel, the cap, out of metal which made it possible to make use of the gun as of a blunt weapon after having drawn the single blow. Multiple gun weapons were created but little produced.

At the 19th century, the appearance of the Revolver, barrel handgun, changed radically gives it because it made it possible to draw several blows without reloading successively. At the any end of the century first guns with automatic repetition, known as " semi-automatiques" , make their appearance, but it will be necessary to await the beginning of the 20th century to obtain the first reliable models. A semi-automatic weapon draws once at the time of each action on its Queue of relaxation.

During almost all the 20th century, Europe produced more guns than of Revolver S (most known of the models were Model 1892 of Saint-Etienne and its Spanish copies, Webley and British Enfield , then in years 1960-1970 the " Barracuda" Belgian FN and Manurhin MR73). The end of the 20th century saw considerable progresses as regards reliability of the guns, in particular thanks to better materials and with a more precise and regular machining. Various inventions also improved the reliability, all at the same time essential and difficult to ensure because it must prohibit the shooting not ordered, even if the weapon falls on the ground, but does not have to slow down the implementation. Nowadays, the guns take care especially by the cylinder head (handle): one inserts a charger contenent balls inside the cylinder head and one draws towards is even the superior part of the gun to make go the balls in a room or they ready with beings will be expelled of the weapon when one presses on the relaxation.

Evolutions

One of the main recent tendencies is the use of plastics (or Polymère S) lighter than metal, which do not corrode, and which by their elasticity limit the feeling of retreat. The first polymer gun was the HK VP70 which was a commercial failure in the years 1970, followed HK P7 and P9, also little sold. To the beginning of the year 1980, the Austrian company Glock, by the means of its inventor, Gaston Glock, launched a new polymer weapon, Glock 17, which knew one big hit and caused a small revolution in the world of the handguns. The presence of nonmetal matters made say to some which it was about a Arme being able to escape the detectors from metals (in particular those of the airports), completely false thing because good number of the parts of the weapon remain nevertheless out of metal and are perfectly recognizable by an operator of security system (80% of a Glock gun are out of metal, including the gun and the charger, very recognizable with x-rays). It would seem that this polemic was justified more by the will to protect the American interior market that for concern from safety. Thus, the majority of the new weapons now created are equipped with polymer carcasses without that making debate.

Another tendency is the addition of accessories, such as miniature torches or sights Laser (also called " désignateurs laser"). The modern weapons are more and more often equipped, at the request of the armed forces, of a standard rail under the gun which makes it possible to assemble this kind of equipment.

In certain countries, one sees flowering, especially in the hands of the criminals, the guns of attack. These weapons, often derived from light and not very expensive machine pistols, can often draw only in semi-automatic but introduce nevertheless a charger of great capacity (but a more important weight) which ensures a Firepower higher than that of a conventional handgun.

Rafaleurs

The guns " rafaleurs" allow the automatic shooting. These weapons, which often require the use of a charger of high capacity (their very high rate of shooting often exhausting it quickly), appear very difficult to use with precision without a constant drive, even if certain models allow the addition of a stick (Beretta 93R, H&K VP70 in automatic version…).

Certain models contain a unit called " speed reducer of cadence" , factor of improvement of docility, autonomy and reliability.

Certain rafaleurs are it by construction and much offer a selector shooting , kind of lever thanks to which it gunner decides operating process (semi-automatic or automatic), similar to that of a Fusil of attack.

Other rafaleurs are modified semi-automatic guns in an often dangerous way, for example by separating withdrawal of the part called which constrained the gunner to slacken then to actuate the tail of relaxation between two shootings.

Revolver and gun

Revolver and gun is both of the handguns. The gun has a Chambre integrated into the gun or permanently aligned with him (particular case of the gun the French ) whereas the Revolver has a revolving cylinder (" revolving"), called Barrel and containing Room S for loads or individual cartridges. The word revolver comes from the English verb to revolve which means to make turn.

Evolution of the setting has fire

From 1450 until about 1500

About the years 1450 - 1500, one will invent a mechanism (at the simple beginning) which will present the wick in the channel of firing. It is about a dog made up of two parts maintaining the wick. The dog is retained behind permanently by a spring. While pressing on a lever the dog swivels on its axis and comes to present the wick; by slackening the lever, the dog takes again its initial position.

The encountered main issue was the loss of the powder of starting; one thus will associate one covers small basin which the gunner will manually push back before drawing. Then this small basin covers will be mû by a simple mechanism which will be erased at the same time as the dog will advance. The pressure exerted on the wick often extinguished this one, the gunner thus lit the two ends of the wick to be able to relight the latter by contact easily.

Italy seems to have been the independent source of provisioning of weapon with wick. Henri VIII of England had a great number of it which was described in an inventory of 1547: 496 " are counted; italion peces" including 116 with room (i.e. taking care by the cylinder head) in Westminster and 206 others in Greenwich. It ordered in 1544 with Brescia 1  500 arquebuses of various kinds and the armours. It had to with this intention obtain the authorization of the Doge of Venice.

Louis XIII had “gun-revolvers” with wick (preserved at the museum of the army).

The mechanism with wheel will appear about the years 1500 without making disappear the mechanism with wick which will be almost exclusively reserved for the military weapons.

From 1500 until about 1820

During this long period the weapons developed with wheel, left toothed wheel re-installed with a key on which the iron pyrite (stone with lighter) came to rub to ensure the firing then with flint.

The first mention of the turntable with wheel is in the codex of Léonard de Vinci. One finds there on five layers of the sketches of mechanisms intended to produce the ignition. It is probable that these mechanisms were intended for lighters than with firearms. One can estimate that these layers were carried out between 1483 and 1505. If oldest platinizes with wheel known is German (towards 1515) and that the greatest quantity of weapons with wheel is same origin, the birth in Italy of this mechanism is a certainty.

The oldest weapons with wheel were combined weapons, (secondary element of a turntable with wick or additional element of another weapon: crossbow, sword, mass of weapon, chop, dagger). One was to perhaps miss confidence in the operation of the mechanism but it necessary a " had to be seen also there; to know faire" private individual who was often that of the clock and watch makers: it is in 1520 that the captain of cavalry Sebastien de Corbion (Corbion, Belgian village in the east of Bouillon, frontier with the France) develops a short gun weapon, drawing with only one hand which it named " pistollet" and which was the prototype of the weapons of frame of the cavalry and by extension of all the handguns. There existed until there the pétrinal which was a short weapon also and which one pressed on the chest to deaden the retreat.

It should be known that at 16th and until the beginning of the XVIIe century there did not exist arms manufacturer itself but assemblers of weapons or arquebusiers. The various parts of the weapon were produced separately: the guns, platinums, the sticks and engravings were carried out at each craftsman of which it was the speciality. The guns were the speciality of German especially for the rifled bores, platinums with wheel that of Italian.

It is Louis XIII which will develop the art of French arms manufacture. Henri IV by his ordinance of December 22nd, 1608, allocating free the parts of the ground floor of the large gallery of the Louvre to the various artists and craftsmen working for the Court, will make it possible to create true " armuriers" by exempting the various trade associations from the Parisian corporative payments (each one took care jealously on its prerogatives: it was up to that point interdict with a arquebusier to manufacture guns, this privilege being that of the blacksmith, the turntables that of the clock and watch maker, the sticks that of the crossier). The arms manufacturers accepted the right to grant certificates to their apprentices authorizing them to being recognized like " Master Arms manufacturer ". They were also exempted local taxes and service of the civil guard. The first to have profited from this privilege is " Sailor Bourgeois" known to have worked with the movement of the spheres and other mechanical inventions of which weapons. He is regarded as the inventor of the turntable with flint Frenchwoman. Originating in Lisieux, it was born in a family from metal worker-clock and watch makers, his Jean brother the Middle-class man was arquebusier.

It is also necessary to speak about the ancestor of the turntable with flint known as " with the française" and of " turntable with chenapan" (the principle of operation is identical to the turntable with flint but small basin covers it is separated from the battery) and of the turntable to the miquelet (Mediterranean version of the turntable with flint). These weapons were charged by the mouth: initially powder, then the ball (often wrapped in a leather or fabric end called cop or note-book, to ensure the sealing enters the gun and the ball), pushed using a metal stem which one fixes under the gun. A little fine powder (coal dust or pulvin) was laid out in a small basin, in which a channel drilled in the gun ended and communicating with the combustion chamber. The small basin was protected by a lid (called battery). At the time of the shooting, the dog, provided with its flint, struck the battery by producing a shower of sparks. Under the shock, the battery opened and the coal dust blazed up, communicating fire with the combustion chamber.

This principle of operation comprised many disadvantages: the constant risk that the powder of starter is not humidified, the brittleness of the stone with flint, the extreme gas gushing…

The first industrial revolution of the end of the 17^ème century with the invention of the steam engine will bring a certain standardization of the parts of armament at the end of the century.

From more or less 1820

At the beginning of the XIXe century, the searchs for Vauquelin and Berthollet aiming to the replacement of the salpetre of the powders by another substance will lead to discovered of highly explosive substances, like mercury or money fulminate, which will make it possible to eliminate the weak points from the turntable with flint. A Scottish hunter the clergyman Alexandre John Forsyth had the first the idea to apply detonating qualities of the powders fulminates to the firing. About 1805, it had developed a turntable special that it tested with hunting. It was invited in 1806 to present its invention to London with the general Master of the ordinance Lord Moira. This last extremely impressed by this invention made open a workshop with Forsyth in the tower of London. Unfortunately the count de Chatham successor of Moired did not see any interest in the work of Forsyth, and in April 1807 drove out it tower of London. Forsyth had taken the precaution to make patent its turntable and it created the " Obvious Gun Manufactory " he entrusted the direction to a certain James Purdey to promote his invention. Purdey will succeed so that its name became more famous than that of the inventor.

The principle was many times copied and the counterfeiters continued each time. Among these counterfeiters, a certain Joseph Manton who made patent in 1816 a system known as " platinum with pastille ". In 1818, Manton deposited a new patent for a " platinize with tube" , patent which was still disputed successfully by Forsyth. But its patent expired and platinizes it with tube was soon manufactured in quantity by all the arms manufacturers.

The invention of the separate capsule was claimed by Joseph Egg, London arms manufacturer, and by Prélat, French arms manufacturer. But it is thought that it is necessary to return in Manton the bay-trees of this invention, since colonel Peter Hawker pays to have received from Joe Manton a marvellous separate capsule rifle of which it says to have made modify the shape of the copper capsule.

The starting of the powder will be done then by the shock of a dog in the shape of hammer, on a brass small capsule (container of fulminate), slipped on a chimney leading to the combustion chamber.

This new principle appears to spread in the neighborhoods of 1820 and definitively supplants flint about 1840 in Europe. The appreciable advantages of the system with percussion were quickly exploited to develop weapons with several blows. " Poivrières" (ancestors of the revolvers) are the illustration. Provided with a long cylinder drilled several guns, they allow, by the simple support on the tail of relaxation, to align the various guns successively provided with their respective capsules. It was not necessary large any more thing, so that " Poivrière" , one reaches the following stage, the revolver. By reducing the length of the cylinder and by adjusting a gun opposite what had become rooms, one obtained a weapon much more practical, the ball not having more to be inserted by the mouth of the gun. This last could comprise stripes, whose role is paramount for the precision of the shooting.

It is impossible to speak about the revolver without mentioning the name of American Samuel Colt. Although the turning barrel was already known at the time of flint, Samuel Colt was the first to have into practice put it by using the advantages of the percussion. The first Colt revolvers are known under the name of " Paterson" , city in which they were manufactured as from 1837. The patents deposited guaranteed to Colt the monopoly of manufacture until 1857 on the American territory. Its rights covered its system with barrel, with starting of the loads via capsules slipped on chimneys, screwed in the prolongation of the rooms. The movement of the barrel was coupled with that of the dog, with blocking in the alignment of the gun at the time of the shooting, by the engagement of a stop in a notch on the body of the barrel.

It should be noted that Lepage and Prélat, arms manufacturers considered in France, them had also copied in the 1809 and 1810 system without being able to be continued (it appears that Napoleon did not love the English). The most important French invention in this beginning of the 19th century, employing fulminate developped at the point by Prelate, was the system of Samuel Johannes PAULY to loading by the cylinder head. Although known since XVIe century, the preceding systems were heavy and of a tiresome handling. Pauly invented the first weapon using a cartridge with central percussion with clean and refillable obturation. It employed in 1809 an arms manufacturer of the name of Dreyse which will become the inventor of Prussian needle rifle.

From more or less 1830

If starting with percussion represented without question an signification advance compared to flint, the principle of a ammunition in separated elements, presented many disadvantages.

The inventors thus sought the means of making easier the loading by carrying out a ammunition compacts in the shape of a cartouche paper and paperboard initially, always introduced by the mouth of the gun or the barrel, then the invention of the cylinder head allowed the introduction of the cartridge by this one. The percussion was carried out by a needle coming to strike the capsule in the center of the cartridge (system of our chassepot). Finally the cartridge with metal base with pin (+ - 1828), invented by the French arms manufacturer Casimir Lefaucheux, will give a new dash to this research.

It is however only in years 1840 that its use will spread on the continent of Europe.

In parallel, in 1854, at the United States, the firm Smith & Wesson developed and made patent a complete cartridge with annular percussion, ancestor from current the .22 Lr.

In 1855, an American of the name of Rollin White, had the idea to drill the barrel of the revolvers right through, thus authorizing the loading by the back. The firm Colt, approximate in first for the commercial exploitation, judged it without interest. It was finally the concurrent firm Smith & Wesson which bought the rights in 1856 of them, well satisfies to be able to exploit the only type of barrel likely to function with its news cartridges. During the expiry of the patent Colt (1857) concerning the invention of the barrel, Smith & Wesson profited from this fact of an exclusiveness on the barrels drilled right through and this until 1869. To circumvent this patent, of many arms manufacturers sought the most varied systems.

The characteristic of the cartridge with pin, with its stem leaving the base of the base, constituted its greater weakness. Initially, it was to be committed in the room in a very precise way, then, there was the risk of accidental percussion if the cartridge fell on the pin or if the hunter fell with its cartridge pouch around the belly. That will not prevent it from being in " service" until the first quarter of the XXe century.

The cartridge with annular percussion, it, suffered from a lack of resistance of the base, limiting it to relatively weak loads.

From more or less 1860

From the beginning of the year 1860, several arms manufacturers and inventors considered the realization of a cartridge with central percussion. Among them, the French Clement Potet and François Schneider, the British Edward Boxer and George H. Daw and the American Hiram Berdan. All these Sirs will make so that this new ammunition is operational towards the end of the decade 1870.

With the cartridge with central percussion, the weapons with repetitions, like the revolver, could reach quickly very a technical high level. The lawful model French Chamelot - Delvigne of 1874, gauges 11,4 mm, represents the beginning of this rise of them. All the great centers European arms manufacturers, among which the town of Liege, produced an enormous quantity of revolvers, improving gradually certain details, holding with the safety or the facility of loading.

Advent of the powder without smoke 1880-1890

If years 1870 transfer the dedication of the ammunition to central percussion, the event of the years 1880-90 was the appearance of the new powder without smoke. Three times more powerful than the old powder (blasting powder), its complete combustion avoided the heavy disadvantages of the fast clogging of the room and the gun. It was going to allow the use of lighter warheads, propelled at high speed and having by the fact more tended trajectory. The lawful revolver French " Model 1892" , 8mm gauges some says Lebel of war (the 8mm of trade being always out of blasting powder), is the typical example of this new generation.

The second industrial revolution with the advent of electricity will allow the evolution of the machine tool and will bring the precision in the machining of the parts and thus the real interchangeability of the parts. The research of the automatism of the tasks (Taylorism) will make disappear little by little Master craftsman Arms manufacturer with the profit of large firms from armurière production creating of the semi-skilled workers.

First semi-automatic guns

This small introduction finishes with the appearance of the first guns with semi-automatic operation. Thanks to the powder without smoke (thus without residues of combustion), the use of the pressure of gases to allow the automatic recharging of a ammunition, became a technically realizable objective. Many inventors will test themselves with more or less success in this new challenge. Among them, the Austrian Georg Luger who will improve the gun of Hugo Borchardt and the American John Browning creative of the Colt guns and FN.

Gauges

The Gauge S and the power of the Munition S increased regularly. The 9  mm Parabellum is the ammunition most usually employed for the guns in Europe whereas one finds many of .45 ACP STATES (11,43  mm) in the United States.

Since 1987, new guns were developed for intermediate ammunition, in particular the .40S&W and the 10  mm Car. The Desert Eagle is today the most powerful gun of series, it is indeed able to draw the .50 Action Express train, a ammunition of very large gauge (12,7  mm) which is specific for him. The majority of the guns draw from the ammunition easier to use.

With the generalization of the bulletproof clothes (waistcoats, Tee-shirts…), of the weapons indicated by initials PDW (for Personal Defense Weapon ), which is in fact of the compact machine pistols drawing a small fast gauge and perforating, were developed for soldiers. One can thus quote the Five-SeveN and PSM.

List guns

See the article: List of guns

External bond

• - Site containing of the cards on all kinds of weapons, of which guns

• - Site presenting of the guns and the revolvers with history
• Site on the French lawful weapons

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