Gun Information
Information on Companies, Guns and Inventors
Information courtesy of Wikipedia
AK Style Rifles
(And other weapons of Russian origin)
Note: All military-style firearms are banned from importation into the U.S.A. Including replacemment barrels and receivers.
Mikhail Kalashnikov
Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov (Михаи́л Тимофе́евич Кала́шников, born November 10, 1919) is a famous Russian gun designer. Born in a poor peasant family he started his engineering career working at a train depot, where Kalashnikov was able to learn much about mechanics. In 1941 he was drafted into the Red Army and served as a tank commander during the first months of the Great Patriotic War. In October 1941 Kalashnikov was heavily wounded in combat and sent home from the frontlines. He started to create his first gun designs in a hospital and soon joined a depot's workshop of the Moscow Aviation Institute. While working there Kalashnikov produced a number of innovations for tanks, including a mechanism that would count the number of shots fired. Within several years, he was promoted to the position of chief engineer and given far more resources to work with. In 1947, he designed the AK-47 (an acronym for "Avtomat Kalashnikov model 1947"). In 1949 the AK-47 assault rifle became operational in the Red Army; after this the design would become Kalashnikov's most famous invention. Kalashnikov who started as a self-taught-inventor ascended to the prominent position of General Designer of small arms for the Soviet Army. In his design engineering department, Hugo Schmeisser and Dr. Gruner (MG 42), a pioneer in the area of the sheet metal embossing technology, worked into the 1950s. In addition, a number of German laborers were enlisted or coerced to work in the USSR under the technical designer. Later in his career he developed a squad automatic weapon variant of the AK-47, known as the RPK (Ruchnoi Pulemyot Kalashnikova - Kalashnikov's Light Machinegun), and also the PK (Pulemyot Kalashnikova - Kalashnikov's Machinegun), which used a much larger cartridge (the same full-powered rifle cartridge as employed in the Mosin-Nagant rifle). The cartridge was belt-fed rather than magazine-fed. In other respects, it was nearly the same design. These designs were not as popular as the AK series, which is still widely used. Since 1949 Mikhail Kalashnikov has been living and working in his native town of Izhevsk. Mikhail Kalashnikov was awarded twice the title of Hero of Socialist Labour. In 1998 he was awarded an Order of Saint Andrew the Protoclet (орден Святого Андрея Первозванного). His military rank is lieutenant-general. He is a Doctor of Technical Sciences. His son later became a weapons designer, and lost in the recent "Abakan" design competition which saw the adoption of the AN-94 Nikonov rifle by the Russian army.
Mikhail Kalashnikov and Eugene Stoner
Gennadiy Nikonov
Gennadiy Nikolayevich Nikonov (born August 11, 1950) is a Russian gun engineer. His most famous accomplishments are probably as the designer of the AN-94 assault rifle, and the "straight-back bolt." Nikonov holds 44 Copyright Certificates, and was awarded the titles of "The Best Designer of the Company" and "The Best Designer of the Ministry." He was born in Izhevsk and his father and mother were employed at Izhmash, a Soviet arms factory. His father was a mechanic. Nikonov graduated from technical school in 1968. He started work at Izhmash in the Department of the Chief Arms Designer. His first position was as a technician. In technical school, Nikonov became obsessed with underwater rifles. He won his first professional recognition by designing a trigger mechanism for an underwater rifle. At Izhmash, he took evening classes. In 1975 he graduated from the Izhevsk Mechanical Institute certified as a gun engineer. It is said that his high quality and quantity of work helped him advance to higher positions at work. He designed various rifles, including air guns and sporting firearms. One of the most praised was the stylish, accurate "Izjubr" (Buck Deer) carbine - a limited edition luxury weapon. Nikonov was appointed as a senior project engineer to design single-shot bolt action rifles and fully automatic weapons. In this assignment he patented a number of mechanisms and components. One of the most significant was the "straight-pull bolt," first used in a winter biathlon target rifle. Nikonov also worked on research projects. In the middle 1970s he entered a post-graduate Ph.D course. From 1980 to 1985 he worked on projects for the Soviet Ministry for Defense Industry. He is married with two sons, Nikolay and Yuri. Tatiana, Nikonov's wife, works as an arms designer in the same bureau. As of 2003 he lives in Izhevsk.
Sergei Gavrilovich Simonov
Inventor of the SKS, known as the Samozaryadnyi Karabin sistemi Simonova, (Self-loading Carbine system, Simonov). The SKS was designed in 1945, by Simonov in Russia, and is still one of the most popular weapons in use today. Much of this is due to its low price and its reputation as being a solid, reliable weapon. It uses the 7.62x39 cartridge and was produced by many former Warsaw-Pact nations and China. The weapon was produced in the 'millions', though there are no 'exact' numbers available. Many were officially and 'unofficially' brought into the U.S. by soldiers returning home from Vietnam. It's popularity on the civilian surplus market has brought it world-wide recognition. It has remained in service for decades, and is still a ceremonial arm in Russia today.
Armalite
Eugene Stoner
Eugene Morrison Stoner (November 22, 1922–April 24, 1997) is the man most associated with the design of the AR-15, which was adopted by the military as the M16. Eugene Stoner was born in Gasport, Indiana on November 22, 1922. He went to high school in Long Beach and afterwards worked for the Vega Aircraft Company installing armament. During World War II, he enlisted for Aviation Ordnance in the Marines and served in the South Pacific and northern China. In late 1945 he began working in the machine shop for Whittaker, an aircraft equipment company, and ultimately became a Design Engineer. In 1954 he came to work as chief engineer for Armalite, a division of Fairchild Engine & Airplane Corporation. While at Armalite, he designed the AR-3 and the AR-16. The 7.62 x 51 mm AR-16 became the basis for the 5.56 x 45 mm AR-18. In 1955, he completed design of the AR-10 which was submitted for trials to the US Army. The Army rejected it in favor of the T44, which would become the M14. Stoner's chief assistant, Robert Fremont and drafter L. James Sullivan were responsible for deriving the AR-15 from the AR-10, by scaling it down to fire the .223 Rem cartridge. Stoner left Armalite in 1961 to serve as a consultant for Colt. He eventually came to work for Cadillac Gage, where he designed the Stoner 62 Weapons System, a modular weapons system that could be reconfigured to be a standard automatic rifle, a light machine gun, a medium machine gun, or a solenoid-fired fixed machine gun. Because Armalite has sold Stoner's patent for direct gas operation to Colt, the Stoner Weapons System used a piston-operated gas impingement system, though Stoner himself believed direct gas operation was the ideal method for firearms. Once again, Robert Fremont and L. James Sullivan would take a Stoner design and redesign it for the .223 Remington cartridge, to create the Stoner 63 Weapons System. He co-founded Ares Incorporated of Port Clinton, Ohio, in 1971, but left the company in 1989, after designing the Ares Light Machine Gun, sometimes known as the Stoner 86. It was an evolved version of the Stoner 63. At Ares, he also designed the Future Assault Rifle Concept (FARC). In 1990, he joined Knight's Armament Company (KAC) to create the Stoner Rifle-25 (SR-25), which currently sees military service as the United States Navy Mark 11 Mod 0 Sniper Weapon System. While at KAC, he also worked on yet another version of the Stoner Weapons System, called the Stoner 96. Among his last designs was the SR-50 sniper rifle. Eugene Stoner was married twice, first to Jean Stoner with whom he had four children. He divorced her in 1962 and married Barbara Hitt in 1965, with whom he remained married until his death. He was also a private pilot who owned his own airplane. Eugene Stoner passed away on April 24, 1997 at his home in Palm City, Florida, from cancer.
(Stoners' other guns invented listed as well)
AR-10
AR-15
AR-18
M-4
M-16
Stoner 63
Stoner 63A
Barrett Firearms Co
Ronnie Barrett
In 1982, a 20-year-old named Ronnie Barrett took a dare from a local gun maker: to invent a .50 caliber sniper rifle – one of the most powerful military rifles in the world – that would work for recreational use. He came up with the M82A1. At just short of five feet long, weighing almost 35 pounds, Barrett's rifle has been coined "the grandfather" of .50 caliber rifles. It fires a six-inch long bullet, has a very low recoil and is capable of hitting its target at a range of about 20 football fields.
By their own claim, Barrett Rifles is today the leading manufacturer of .50 caliber rifles, and the M82A1 has been purchased by over 40 militaries worldwide. It became legendary in the first Gulf War for disabling Iraqi armored personnel carriers from a mile away. Fighters in the Bosnian army used just one .50 caliber rifle to great effect in fending off Serb forces in Srebrenica during the Bosnian War of the early 1990s. Florin Krasniqi and his associates acquired dozens of the rifles in the late '90s. They found that they afforded a psychological advantage, once the Serbs and the international press discovered that the Kosovo Liberation Army forces were armed with Barretts. Barrett .50 caliber rifles are legal to purchase everywhere in the US but California, where they were banned in 2004. Thousands have been sold to private citizens. Primary non-military uses are target shooting and big-game hunting, such as elephant hunting. Here is what Mr. Barrett had to say about the Constitutionally Repugnant state of California:
“The California Legislature has banned the .50 BMG from the good citizens of the state of California , violating their rights and the constitution of our republic. Therefore, Barrett will not sell to or service any California government agencies.” - American Rifleman, May 2006, Pg. 66
Good man, that Ronnie!
M82A1
M107
XM109
BenelliUSA
M4 Super 90
Nova
Beretta
Fabbrica d'Armi Pietro Beretta
is a major Italian gun manufacturing company. Its weapons are used extensively by civilians, police and militaries around the world. Beretta is among the world's oldest corporations, and has been owned by the same family for nearly 500 years, making it the oldest still functioning company in the world. The Beretta company was established historically in 1526, when gunsmith Mastro Bartolomeo Beretta, of Gardone, received 296 ducats as payment for 185 arquebus barrels sold to the Arsenal of Venice. The paperwork for that order still exists in the company's archives. Today, the company is owned by Ugo Gussalli Beretta, a direct descendant of the original Bartolomeo, and is run by him and his sons, Franco and Pietro. (The traditional Beretta dynasty — father to son — was broken when Ugo Gussalli Beretta took over. His uncles Carlo and Giuseppe Beretta had no children. Carlo adopted Ugo, the son of sister Giuseppina Gussalli, to give him the Beretta name.)
Beretta is famous for its broad product range that includes side by side shotguns, over and under shotguns, self-loading shotguns, hunting rifles, express rifles, assault rifles, sub-machine guns, lever action rifles, single action revolvers, double action revolvers and pistols. Parent company Beretta Holding also owns Beretta USA, Benelli, Franchi, SAKO, Stoeger, Tikka, and Uberti, and is a partner of Fabrique Nationale de Herstal. Beretta products are generally well made, durable and reliable. Beretta is famous for the 92FS 9mm Parabellum pistol, which has seen much exposure in American action movies, such as the Lethal Weapon and Die Hard series. That gun has at various times been the official sidearm of several first world armies.
In 1985, Beretta was chosen during a controversial selection process to produce the M9 9mm Parabellum sidearm for the United States military, winning a contract for 500,000 units. There have been many follow-up orders. A condition of the original agreement was that U.S. military pistols be manufactured domestically. The Beretta USA plant in Accokeek, Maryland makes finished pistols from raw materials for the military, law enforcement, and civilian markets.
Browning
John Moses Browning
John Moses Browning (January 21, 1855 – November 26, 1926), born in Ogden, Utah, was an American firearms designer who developed many varieties of weapons which were used in the U.S. military for decades in the 20th century. He is sometimes referred to as "the patron saint of automatic fire." He is credited with 128 gun patents—his first (for a single shot rifle) was granted October 7, 1879. From 1883, Browning worked in partnership with the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, and designed a series of repeating rifles and shotguns, most notably the Winchester Model 1887 and Model 1897 shotguns and the Winchester Model 1885, Model 1886 and Model 1894 rifles, all of which are still in production today. Until his death in 1926, Browning designed weapons for Colt, Remington, his own company and Fabrique Nationale of Belgium. Whilst working on a self-loading pistol design for the latter company he died, in Liege, of heart failure.
Several of his most notable designs are still in production today. The most notable include: The Winchester Model 1887 lever-action repeating shotgun; The Browning Auto-5 semi-automatic shotgun of 1902; The Browning M1910 semi-automatic handgun; The Colt Model 1911 semi-automatic handgun; The Model 1917 water-cooled machine gun; The Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) of 1918; The Browning M2 .50 caliber heavy machine gun of 1921. The 9mm self-loading pistol he was working on when he died was eventually completed in 1935, by Belgian designer Dieudonne Saive. Released as the Fabrique Nationale GP35, it was more popularly known as the Browning Hi-Power. The Colt 1911, Browning 1917, and the BAR saw action in World War I, World War II and the Korean War, with the 1911 going on to serve as the United States's standard military sidearm until 1986; a variant is still used by special operations units of the USMC and FBI's Hostage Rescue Team, and the design is very popular amongst civilian shooters. The Browning Hi-Power would have a similarly lengthy period of service outside the United States, and remains the standard sidearm of the United Kingdom's armed forces. The M2 heavy machine gun is still in widespread use throughout the world. In 1977 FN acquired the Browning Arms Company which had been established in 1927, the year after Browning's death. Perhaps the most famous individual Browning-designed firearm was a Browning M1910 handgun, serial number 19074. In 1914, the pistol was used by Gavrilo Princip to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, an event which sparked off the First World War. The pistol was rediscovered in 2004. Browning belonged to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and served a two year mission for the church in Georgia beginning on March 28, 1887. His father Jonathan Browning, who was among the thousands of Mormon pioneers in the mass exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois to Utah, had established a gunsmith shop in Ogden in 1852.
William Caslon
William Caslon (1692-1766) was an English gunsmith and designer of typographic fonts. His typefaces were influenced by Dutch types then common in England. His work influenced John Baskerville and are thus the progenitors of Transitional types, which in turn led to Modern types. Caslon typefaces were very popular and used for many important printed works, including the first printed version of the Declaration of Independence. They fell out of favour in the century after his death, but were revived in the 1840s, and Caslon-inspired typefaces are still widely used today.
Colt Defense
Samuel Colt
Samuel Colt (July 19, 1814 – January 10, 1862), born in Hartford, Connecticut, was the inventor of the Colt revolver, and founder of the Colt Firearms company.Colt's father owned a textile mill, where the young Colt learned the principles of machinery. His work in the mill led to being a shipping hand, which then led to the aspiration to go to sea. At the age of 15, Colt left Connecticut and signed on as a sailor bound for India. Common legend holds that it was while observing the operation of the ship's capstan that Colt conceived the idea of revolving pistol. Colt received a European patent for his revolver in 1835, and an American patent in 1836. Along with his investors, he formed the "Patent Arms Manufacturing Company", which produced the first production model of Colt's revolver on March 5 of the same year. Due to slow acceptance of the revolutionary design, the Patent Arms company went into bankruptcy in 1842, and during the ensuing litigation that lasted through 1846 Samuel Colt produced no further pistols. With his patent rights re-secured, Colt began making firearms again in 1847 at the factory of Eli Whitney, and established his factory in Connecticut in 1848, where the Colt Firearms company remains to this day. Colt's new factory was based upon the American system of manufacturing he observed at Whitney's plant, but Colt advanced this system to create what would be recognized as the first industrialized firearm factory in the world. In 1849, Colt hired Elisha K. Root, who had made the Collins Company the foremost axe manufacturer in the world, to bring his machinery to state of the art, making the Colt revolver the first firearm with truly interchangeable parts. Root invented the Lincoln Miller milling machine that was to become the most important American heavy machine tool of the late 1800s, with 150,000 being sold. Another Colt employee, William Mason patented over 125 inventions that modernized the production of firearms, as well as steam pumps and power looms. Besides firearms, other roles Colt played in the development of technology included the first remotely detonated explosive, the first underwater telegraph cable, and the popularization of using nitrous oxide as anesthesia. A popular saying regarding Colt and his firearms during the Nineteenth century was "God made all Men, Samuel Colt made them equal."
Commando
M4 Carbine
M16
Colt Mfg
M1911
Anaconda
Python
Single Action Army
Derringer
John Wilkes Booth's Deringer
Henry Deringer (October 26, 1786 - 1868) was an American gunsmith born in Easton, Pa. He invented, and gave his name to the Deringer pistol. Further development and copying of his design resulted in the derringer pistol, manufactured widely by other companies.
Fabrique Nationale de Herstal
Fabrique Nationale de Herstal, more often known as Fabrique Nationale and abbreviated simply as FN, is a well-known firearm manufacturer that originated in the Belgian city of Herstal, near Liège. The Fabrique Nationale d'Armes de Guerre was established in 1889 to manufacture 150,000 Mauser rifles ordered by the Belgian Government. FN also owns the U.S. Repeating Arms Company (Winchester) and the Browning Arms Company (an American gun company founded by John Moses Browning's family). The British .303 Browning aircraft machine gun introduced in the late 1930's and used in World War Two was actually a license-built FN Browning design, not a "Colt-Browning" as often referred-to. FN and John Moses Browning also jointly developed the Browning GP35 'High Power' (sometimes written as Hi-Power) pistol, the 'GP' standing for Grande Puissance or 'high power' in French.
Weapons made by FN include:
FAL
Five-Seven
FNC
M240
M249
MAG
P90
SCAR
France
FAMAS
FRF2
PGM Hecate II
John Cantius Garand
(January 1, 1888 - February 16, 1974) was a designer of firearms most famous for creating the first semi-automatic rifle to be put into active military service, the M1 Garand. Garand was born in St. Rémi, Quebec, and moved as a child to rural Connecticut. He attended school until he was twelve years old, and then became employed in a textile mill, where he was later promoted to machinist. After gaining the necessary experience, he was hired at a tool factory in Providence, Rhode Island. His fondness for machinery and target shooting blended naturally into a hobby of designing guns, which however took a more vocational turn in 1917. That year the United States Army took bids on designs for a light machine gun, and Garand's design was eventually selected by the War Department. Garand was appointed to a position with the United States Bureau of Standards with the task of perfecting the weapon. The first model was not built until 1919, too late for use in World War I, but the government kept Garand on in a position as consulting engineer with the Springfield Armory.
In this position he was tasked with designing a semiautomatic infantry rifle. After several preliminary designs, and quite a bit of detail work, stretching over fifteen years, to perfect the model to Army specifications, the resulting M-1 Garand was patented by Garand in 1934 and began mass production in 1936. For his work with the Springfield Armory, Garand was awarded the Medal for Meritorious Service in 1941, and the Medal for Merit in 1944. A bill was introduced in Congress to award him $100,000 in appreciation, but did not pass. Garand remained in his consulting position until his retirement in 1953, and died in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Dr. Richard Jordan Gatling
(September 12, 1818 – February 26, 1903) was an American inventor, best known for his invention of the Gatling gun, the first successful machine gun. The son of inventor, Jordan Gatling, Gatling was born in Hertford County, North Carolina and by the age of 21 had invented the screw propeller for steamboats, only to discover it had recently and independently been patented by Francis Pettit Smith.
Gatling graduated from Ohio Medical College in 1850 but was more interested in continuing his career as an inventor than in practicing medicine. He invented the Gatling gun after he noticed the majority of dead returning from the American Civil War died of illness, rather than gunshots. In 1877, he wrote: "It occurred to me that if I could invent a machine - a gun - which could by its rapidity of fire, enable one man to do as much battle duty as a hundred, that it would, to a large extent supersede the necessity of large armies, and consequently, exposure to battle and disease [would] be greatly diminished."
He founded the Gatling Gun Company in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1862. The company merged with Colt in 1897. In the interm he further developed the device, and while experimenting with improving gatling guns he made a electric motor powered one, creating the first minigun. Miniguns and electric powered gatling cannons of various size would go on to be used as aircraft weapons on airplanes and helicopters starting in the later half of the 1900s, as well as on some ground forces. The hand-cranked gatling gun was declared obsolete by the United States Army in 1911, though machine driven Gatling Guns (miniguns) would see use again later that century. Gatling died in New York City in 1903.
Heckler & Koch
Heckler & Koch GmbH (H&K) is a German weapons manufacturing company famous for various series of small firearms, notably the MP5 submachine gun, the MP7 personal defense weapon, the extremely precise sniper rifle PSG-1, the G3 and G36 assault rifles. Heckler & Koch are famous for the precision, durability, reliability and accuracy of their firearms. All firearms made by H&K are named by the prefix H&K and the official name. Heckler & Koch has a history of innovations in small arms, such as the use of polymers. Not all of its technologically ambitious designs have resulted in successful products (for instance, the advanced but now abandoned G11 assault rifle). HK produces the whole range of small arms, from pistols to grenade machine guns. In its extensive product range, HK has used most of the operating systems for small-arms: blowback, short recoil, roller-delayed blowback, gas-delayed blowback, and gas-operated.
HK was founded by Edmund Heckler, Theodor Koch, and Alex Seidel in 1949 from the remnants of Mauser, and the company was registered in 1950. In the beginning, the company produced sewing machines and other fine mechanics, but this was changed in 1956 when the company constructed a rifle for the German Bundeswehr. In 1991, H&K was bought by British Aerospace/Royal Ordnance (now BAE Systems) who resold it to a German group that was created for this purpose in 2002. The company is located in Oberndorf in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, but also has a subsidiary in the United States. Their slogan is: "In a world of compromise, some don't!" HK has been contracted by the U.S. Army to produce the kinetic energy subsystem of the Objective Individual Combat Weapon, a planned replacement for the M-16/M203 grenade launcher combination. OICW will fire both 5.56mm bullets and 20mm grenades. As development has been delayed, this project has spun off the XM-8.
Other HK Weapons of fame include;
G3
G36
HK53
HK UCP
HK UMP
HK USP
MP5
MP7
P7
PSG1
Henry Repeating Arms
Benjamin Tyler Henry
Benjamin Tyler Henry (1821–1898) was an American gunsmith and manufacturer. He was the inventor of the Henry rifle, the first reliable lever-action repeating rifle. Henry was hired by Oliver Winchester at the New Haven Arms Company in the late 1850s to improve the design of the Volcanic repeating rifle. On October 16, 1860, he received a patent on the Henry rifle, which soon proved the worth of the lever-action design on the battlefields of the Civil War, where Henry rifles were used alongside muzzle-loading rifled muskets such as the Springfield Model 1861. (The first Henrys were not produced for army use until mid-1862.) Benjamin Tyler Henry continued to work at the Winchester Repeating Arms Company until at least 1873.
Massachusetts Arms Company
The Massachusetts Arms Company, of Chicopee Falls, MA. was a manufacturer of firearms and firearm-related products from about 1849 into the early 20th century. The Company was incorporated March 5th, 1850 and was founded by Arthur Savage along with Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson, who later founded Smith and Wesson. The Company was an outgrowth of the Wesson Rifle Company. Christian Sharps, who later founded the Sharps Rifle Company, transferred the manufacture of his first rifle to the Massachusetts Arms Company in 1849 or 1850.
The company also manufactured Wesson & Leavitt revolvers between 1850 and 1851. However in 1851 Samuel Colt filed and won a historic patent infringement lawsuit against the company. The company then limited its revolver production to relatively unpopular designs by Edward Maynard until 1857, when Colt's patent expired. Maynard, the firearms inventor and former dentist, patented his revolutionary breechloading rifle in 1851 and when he and some financial backers founded the Maynard Arms Company in 1857, it was the Massachusetts Arms Company which actually manufactured the rifle. The company had been manufacturing the system under contract for several years. In 1855 they had produced 2,000 Greene Carbines, a Maynard system firearm, for a British government contract. These carbines were used in the Crimean War.
Maynard's rifle was operated by a lever which when depressed raised the barrel to open the breech for loading. A brass cartridge, also developed by Maynard, was then inserted and the lever raised to close the breech. Once cocked the loaded rifle could then be primed by either placing a percussion cap directly on its nipple or by using Maynard's patented priming system to advance a primer to the nipple. Also in 1857 the Company received a contract to manufacture Adams revolvers under license for the U.S. government. Some 500 or so were produced and used in the U.S. Civil War. The company also produced single- and double-barrel shotguns, including both box-locks and external central hammers. Later it manufactured a selection of 20- and 28-bore Maynard-action shotguns of 1865 and 1873 patterns. With civil war looming some Southern states purchased Maynard rifles from the company for their state militias. Of close to 3000 sales most were to Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi. The First Model Maynard was designated an official Confederate firearm.
The Company factory burned down in January of 1861, halting production until the factory was rebuilt in 1863. The company then received an order for 20,000 of the simpler Second Model Maynard carbines. Deliveries of these guns began in June of 1864 continuing through May of 1865. As the war was then coming to an end few of these rifles saw service. Some, however, are known to have been used by the 9th and 11th Indiana Cavalry and the 11th Tennessee Cavalry regiments. In the late 19th century the company began producing revolvers on various Smith & Wesson patterns. Production continued until the factory closed permanently during the Great Depression. The Massachusetts Arms Company is also the trade name used by J. Stevens Arms and Tool Company for firearms produced for sale at the Blish, Mizet and Silliman Hardware Company of Atchinson, Kansas.
J. Mike O'Dwyer
Metal Storm Limited is a research and development company that specialises in electronic ballistics equipment. The company is based in Brisbane, Australia and owns the proprietary rights to the electronic ballistics technology invented and developed by J. Mike O'Dwyer. There are currently no commercially available or mass-produced weapons based on the Metal Storm technology, however, they have been doing various live-firing demonstrations and tests.
The technology makes it possible to load a single gun barrel with multiple rounds and to fire each round either singly or in rapid succession with safety. The complete system is technically a muzzle loading selective fire weapon. A 36 barrel weapon with this type of action can fire in excess of one million rounds per minute and can throw a "wall" of bullets in front of the unit being defended. Compare this with an advanced mechanical Gatling gun type weapon that can fire at a rate of 6,000 rounds per minute (e.g. M61 Vulcan). Extremely high rates of fire are needed to increase the kinetic energy striking the target rather than to increase the number of rounds actually fired. A theoretical unit designed for ship defence using 20 mm calibre can have a maximum burst rate of 75,000rpm, firing 300 rounds in 0.24 seconds with the rounds separated by just 1 metre in flight and can be used to destroy an incoming missile. This compares with another type of missile defence system for ships that fires 12.7mm tungsten sub-calibre projectiles at 3,000 rpm, delivering one round on target every fiftieth of a second, with each round separated by over 20m. Examples of such Close In Weapons Systems CIWS are the Phalanx CIWS and the Goalkeeper CIWS. This extremely high rate of fire is achieved by eliminating mechanical steps that would slow the rate and instead using solely electronic means in combination with specially designed bullets, which serve as shell casings as well as projectiles. Through the use of electronic controls, fire rates can be made variable and also limited in duration, providing a variety of capabilities by simply pressing a button. For instance, a new handgun for use by police can make a ultra-quick (under 1 millisecond) burst of 2-3 bullets from one barrel with each bullet just a few dozen cm apart in flight; this would provide excellent penetration against a bullet proof vest as each round would hit very close to each other and at a rate too fast for the vest to adsorb the kinetic energy safely. It can also fire several bullets from several barrels proving a spread of bullets like a shotgun, or it can fire bullets in rapid succession like a submachine gun. Different types of bullets can be loaded into each barrel such as kinetic stun rounds, providing less-then-lethal capability at the press of a button.
Seth Pomeroy
Seth Pomeroy (May 20, 1706 – February 9, 1777) was an American gunsmith and soldier from Northampton, Ma. His military service included the French and Indian War and the early stages of the American Revolutionary War. He served as a Brigadier General in the Continental Army.
Brigadier General John T. Thompson
An Outstanding Military Career
John Taliaferro (pronounced "Tolliver") Thompson was born in Newport, Kentucky on December 31, 1860.
He graduated from West Point in 1883, and became the youngest Colonel in the U.S. Army. He was Chief Ordnance Officer for General Shafter's Expeditionary Forces in the Spanish American War. It was there that he realized the necessity for increasing the firepower of the soldier, and began his quest for a more efficient small arms weapon.
Appointed Chief of the Small Arms Division of the Army Ordnance Department, he supervised the development of the M1903 Springfield Rifle, considered for many years to be the perfect rifle for military use.
Early in his new capacity, General Thompson believed that the only available means of equipping the greatly expanding armies of the United States with small arms was to adapt the caliber .303 Enfield to the caliber .30 cartridge manufactured in the United States. This would utilize existing manufacturing facilities for the continued production of both Springfield and Enfield rifles.
When World War I broke out in Europe in 1914, it became obvious that the production of military small arms on a large scale in the U.S. would become necessary. Col. Thompson resigned from the Army to enter this field, and was appointed Chief Engineer of the Remington Arms Co. While serving in this capacity he designed and build the Eddystone Plant at Chester, Pennsylvania, which at the time was the largest small arms plant in the world. Under his supervision, this plant manufactured great numbers of Enfield rifles for the British, and "Three-Line" (7.62x54R caliber) Moisin-Nagant rifles for Russia.
Upon the entry of the United States into the war in 1917, he re-entered the Service, reaching the rank of Brigadier General and as Director of Arsenals was placed in charge of all small arms production.
For his achievements he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal by Congress.
By Tracie L. Hill
Thompson: the American Legend THE FIRST SUBMACHINE GUN |
United Kingdom
L96
SA80
Oliver Fisher Winchester
(November 30, 1810 - December 11, 1880) was a famous American businessman and politician. His main claim to fame was his manufacture and marketing of the Winchester repeating rifle, which was a much re-designed descendant of the Volcanic rifle of some years earlier. Winchester was a clothing manufacturer in New York, New York, and New Haven, Connecticut, before investing his money in the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company when it was founded in 1850. By 1856, Winchester was the principal stockholder in the company and had it move to New Haven, changing the name to New Haven Arms Company. Winchester hired Benjamin Tyler Henry to improve on the Volcanic repeating rifle, with the result being the Henry repeating rifle. The Company's name was briefly changed to the New Haven Arms Company and manufactured the Henry rifle during the civil war. After the war Winchester took firm control over the company, which was reorganized and renamed Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1866. The first Winchester rifle was the Model 1866, which was a thorough redesign of the basic Henry rifle, with an improved magazine system.
Repeating rifles were used to some extent in the Civil War. However, the United States Army at that time did not use many repeating rifles as it was a new, untested technology and the army would rather spend money on proven firearms. Repeating rifles were not widely used until after the Civil War, but after the war they were increasingly popular with civilians, while the military authorities concentrated primarily on perfecting breech-loading single shot rifles for some years. With thousands of rifles in the hands of the average pioneer, the Winchester repeating rifles gained a reputation as "the gun that won the West".
Winchester was also active in politics, serving as a New Haven City Commissioner, Republican Presidential elector in 1864, and as Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut from 1866 - 1867. When Winchester died his ownership in the company passed to his son, William Winchester, who died of tuberculosis in March of the next year. William's wife Sarah believed the family was cursed by the spirits killed by the Winchester rifle, and moved to California and began building a chaotic mansion with her inheritance, to confuse the spirts seeking revenge.
"Quinon proficit deficit."
(He who does not advance, goes backward).
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