1.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
2.
Eley Brothers
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Eley Brothers were a manufacturer of firearms cartridges at the Eleys Cartridge Factory, located in Edmonton and bordered by the River Lee Navigation and the Great Eastern Railway at Angel Road. It was founded by Charles and William Eley in London in the 1820s, the Eley Brothers purchased the patent rights to the wire cartridge in the spring or early summer of 1828. The patent for “wire cartridge” was issued by the English Patent Office on 28 November 1827 to Joshua Jenour under Patent No.5570. Mr. Jenour had been born in Fleet Street, London in 1755 and had previously been the owner and manager of the Daily Advertiser, the wire cartridge consisted of a wire cage which held the shot together during the first stages of its flight. In 1828 Charles and William Eley established a factory in Charlotte Street, initially, Charles Eley had been the primary owner of the concern and the original wire cartridges had only the name of Charles Eley on them. The initial attempts to sell the Eley Wire Cartridge went poorly, during the mid-1830s, William Eley reinvigorated the company and began sell the Improved Patent Wire Cartridges. In 1837 the company added percussion caps to their range and though William was killed in an explosion in 1841 and his eldest son William Thomas forged an alliance with Samuel Colt, the two patenting a skin cartridge for use in the latters revolvers. In 1874 they went public to fuel expansion, but lost momentum after 1881 when William Thomas died and his brothers remained in control until 1901 but shareholders accused them of running it as a private company. Nevertheless, innovations included smokeless powder, and in the 1890s,400 types of cartridges were produced and they had established a factory at Tile Kiln Lane, Edmonton, London by 1865. In 1894 the company transferred production to enlarged premises at Angel Road which included a tramway to its wharf on the nearby River Lee. Twice the War Office removed the company from their Approved List of suppliers due to poor quality.303 British ammunition, moreover, poor facilities meant the company had to buy in components, unlike their competitors. In 1900 an explosion killed two workmen, the directors squabbled amongst themselves, and in 1906 the mostly female workforce went on strike when their wages were cut. A leading ballistics expert F W Jones, was brought in to improve matters, after the war, Eleys, along with other firms, became part of Explosive Trades Ltd, soon part of Nobel Industries. Many Belgians had been billeted in Edmonton as refugees and many, as elsewhere and this led to natural links between the two countries, and in the 1920s Eleys went into partnership with Fabrique Nationale, buying out the Belgian firm of Cartoucherie Russo - Belge. However, the need for ammunition had slumped, and the Angel Road factory closed in 1921, the name Eley persists as a brand name for gun cartridges, and in recent years for corrosion-proof-coated lead shot to fill scuba divers shot belts. The shot tower was demolished in the late 20th century, the area today is known as the Eley Industrial Estate. Eley Limited was brought by IMI industries and operated within IMI until 2014 when it was out by an investment company backed by Lloyds TSB. Eley Limited is now located in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, England.450 No 2 Nitro Express in 1903.360 No 2 Nitro Express in 1905.475 No.2 Nitro Express after 1907
3.
Rim (firearms)
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A rim is an external flange that is machined, cast, molded, stamped or pressed around the bottom of a firearms cartridge. Thus, rimmed cartridges are sometimes called flanged cartridges, almost all cartridges feature an extractor or headspacing rim, in spite of the fact that some cartridges are known as rimless cartridges. These types are rimmed, rimless, semi-rimmed, rebated rim and these categories describe the size of the rim in relation to the base of the case. The rimmed cartridge, sometimes called flanged cartridge, is the oldest of the types and has a rim that is larger in diameter than the base of the cartridge. Rimmed cartridges use the rim to hold the cartridge in the chamber of the firearm, because the rimmed cartridge headspaces on the rim, the case length is of less importance than rimless cartridges. This allows some firearms chambered for similar rimmed cartridges to safely chamber and fire shorter cartridges, rimmed cartridges are well suited to certain types of actions, such as revolvers, where the rim helps hold the cartridge in position, and break-action firearms. Semi-automatic handguns have been chambered in rimmed cartridges as well, for example a LAR Grizzly or Desert Eagle in.357 or.44 Magnum, under the metric cartridge designation system, a capitalized R added at the end of the designation denotes a rimmed cartridge. For example,7. 62×54mmR is a cartridge, while 7. 62×51mm is a rimless cartridge.45 Auto Rim. Examples of rimmed handgun cartridges include the.38 Special.357 Magnum, rimmed rifle cartridge examples include the.22 Hornet.303 British and 7. 62×54mmR. Rimless cases are not well suited to break-open and revolver actions, though they can be used with modifications, such as a spring-loaded extractor or, in a revolver. Crimping affects the length of the cartridge, and thus cannot be used on cartridges which headspace on the case mouth. Examples of rimless handgun cartridges include the 9mm Parabellum.40 S&W, rimless rifle examples include the.223 Remington.308 Winchester. 30-06 Springfield and 7. 92×57mm Mauser. On a semi-rimmed case the rim projects slightly beyond the base of the case, the tiny rim provides minimal interference feeding from a box magazine, while still providing enough surface to headspace on. Semi-rimmed cases are less common than the other types, if the chamber is cut shallow, so the case headspaces off the mouth, the rim is used for extraction only, a standard chamber will use the rim for both headspacing and extraction. Examples of more commonly encountered rimless handgun cartridges are.25 ACP.32 ACP and.38 ACP, while the.308 Marlin Express.338 Marlin Express and.444 Marlin are rifle cartridges that are semi-rimmed. Rebated rim cartridges have a rim that is smaller in diameter than the base of the case. Functionally the same as a case, the rebated rim provides some additional benefits when considered in conjunction with other cartridges. One example of a rebated rim cartridge is the.50 Action Express, by using the same rim dimensions as the.44 Magnum, a Desert Eagle could be converted from.44 Magnum to.50 AE by merely changing the barrel and magazine
4.
Bullet
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The word bullet is a firearm term. A bullet is a projectile expelled from the barrel of a firearm, the term is from Middle French and originated as the diminutive of the word boulle which means small ball. Bullets are made of a variety of materials and they are available singly as they would be used in muzzle loading and cap and ball firearms, as part of a paper cartridge, and much more commonly as a component of metallic cartridges. Bullets are made in a numbers of styles and constructions depending on how they will be used. Many bullets have specialized functions, such as hunting, target shooting, training, defense, a bullet is not a cartridge. In paper and metallic cartridges a bullet is one component of the cartridge, bullet sizes are expressed by their weight and diameter in both English and Metric measurement systems. For example.22 caliber 55 grain bullets or 5. 56mm 55 grain bullets are the same caliber, the word bullet is often used colloquially to refer to a cartridge, which is a combination of the bullet, paper or metallic case/shell, powder, and primer. This use of bullet, when cartridge is intended, leads to confusion when the components of a cartridge are discussed or intended, the bullets used in many cartridges are fired at a muzzle velocity faster than the speed of sound. Meaning they are supersonic and thus can travel a substantial distance, bullet speed through air depends on a number of factors such as barometric pressure, humidity, air temperature, and wind speed. Subsonic cartridges fire bullets slower than the speed of sound and so there is no sonic crack and this means that a subsonic cartridge such as.45 ACP can be effectively suppressed to be substantially quieter than a supersonic cartridge such as the.223 Remington. Bullets do not normally contain explosives, but damage the target by impact. The first use of gunpowder in Europe was recorded in 1247 and it had been used in China for hundreds of years. Later in 1364 hand cannon appeared, early projectiles were made of stone. Stone was used in cannon and hand cannon, in cannon it was eventually found that stone would not penetrate stone fortifications which gave rise to the use of heavier metals for the round projectiles. Hand cannon projectiles developed in a similar following the failure of stone from siege cannon. The first recorded instance of a ball from a hand cannon penetrating armor occurred in 1425. In this photograph of shot retrieved from the wreck of the Mary Rose which was sunk in 1545, the round shot are clearly of different sizes and some are stone while others are cast iron. The development of the hand culverin and matchlock arquebus brought about the use of cast lead balls as projectiles, bullet is derived from the French word boulette, which roughly means little ball
5.
Single-shot
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Single-shot firearms are firearms that hold only a single round of ammunition, and must be reloaded after each shot. The history of firearms began with designs, and many centuries passed before multi-shot designs became commonplace. The vast majority of firearms before the introduction of metallic cartridges in the 1860s were single-shot, however, multi-barrel, breech loading, revolving, and other multi-shot firearms had been experimented with for centuries. Notable pre-cartridge era single-shot firearms included matchlock, wheellocks, snaplock, doglock, miquelet locks, flintlock, muzzle loaders included Brown Bess muskets, Charleville muskets, Kentucky Rifles, dueling pistols, M1841 Mississippi Rifle, Springfield Model 1861 and many others. There were also breech loading pre-cartridge era single shots such as Hall rifles, Fergussion rifles, Sharps rifles, almost all of the early cartridge-fed rifles were single-shot designs, taking advantage of the strength and simplicity of single-shot actions. A good example is the trapdoor or Allin action used in early cartridge conversions of 1863 Springfield muzzleloading rifles. The conversion consisted of filing out the rear of the barrel, and attaching a folding bolt, the trapdoor, once loaded, the bolt was closed and latched in place, holding the round securely in place. The bolt contained a pin that used the existing percussion hammer. After firing, the act of opening the bolt would extract the fired case from the chamber. In 1866, the United States standardized on the. 50-70 cartridge, the trapdoor mechanism continued with the adoption of the Springfield 1873 rifle, chambered in the new. 45-70 cartridge. The Springfield stayed in service until 1893, when it was replaced by the Krag–Jørgensen bolt-action rifle, another muzzleloader conversion similar in concept to the Allin action was the British Snider–Enfield, also introduced in 1866, which hinged to the side rather than forward. Unlike the US Army, which kept its trapdoors for decades, martini–Henrys were the standard British rifles of the late Victorian era, and Martini–Enfield conversions continued in second-line service until the Second World War. Single-shot rifles were the tools of big-game hunters in the later 19th century. The single-shot big-game rifle would only be displaced by bolt action repeaters firing high-velocity smokeless-powder cartridges in the early 20th century. From about 1872 until the U. S. entry into World War I, during that golden age of match shooting, the most popular target rifles were made by Bullard, Stevens, Remington, Maynard, Ballard, Farrow, and Winchester. Calibers used by some of these rifles during matches ranged from the. 25/20. 32/40.33.35. 35-55. 38-55. 40-50. 40/70, but two calibers maintained consistency throughout their tenure during the single-shot era, the. 32-40 and the. 38-55 calibers. The minimum standard in the beginning of the sport had been 200 yard firing from the standing position. No rifle scopes, no rests, no prone positions
6.
John Rigby & Company
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John Rigby & Company is the oldest gunmaking firm in continuous operation in the English-speaking world. Rigby has a history of technological advancement for both sporting and military application. Rigby rifles, guns and pistols have played prominent roles throughout the British Empire and particularly in Asia and Africa. The company was established by the first John Rigby in Dublin, Ireland, apparently in 1775, his grandson, also John, opened a London branch in 1865, the Company is now based in Vauxhall, central London, under the supervision of Managing Director, Marc Newton. In a relationship that extends back at least to 1895, John Rigby & Co. is again affiliated with Mauser GmbH and is building big game and stalking rifles on Mauser barrelled actions. In 2013, the firm resumed production of rifles based on its Rigby-Bissell 1879 Patent rising-bite action. Rigby also offers a research service, refurbishes vintage Rigbys for owners and collectors around the world. One of the highlights is the Rigby rifle used by Jim Corbett. Some documents suggest the firm was established in 1735, however, since the first John Rigby was born in 1758, in Dublin, and entered the gunmaking trade there in 1775, Rigby today claims that as its founding date. Rigby was a leader in barrel-making and rifling technology and, at the time, the third John Rigby, born in 1829 in Dublin and educated in science at Trinity College, took over in 1858 when William, his father, died. It was this John Rigby who brought the firm to international prominence, sometime in the 1890s, Rigby sold his Dublin operations to Trulock & Harriss and became a bona fide member of the small circle of elite gunmakers who catered for London society. Like his grandfather, the third John Rigby was a top target shot and he won several Wimbledon Cups and, for 28 years, he helped form the Irish national shooting team. Rigby also won the Abercorn Cup and the first Gordon Bennett Cup, between circa 1860 and 1875, the Rigby. 451-calibre muzzleloader was the match rifle of choice throughout the United Kingdom. In October 1874, one such rifle was presented to Lt. Col. George A. Custer, the Irish team had dined with him, the Irish were on an American tour following the first International Rile Match at the Creedmoor Range in New York. There, John Rigby had posted the highest individual scores among all competitors, the areas of greatest interest were military rifles and, because of their prestige, top-shelf sporting guns. John Rigby & Co. was deeply involved in creating guns, because of his expertise, in 1887 the British government appointed John Rigby superintendent of the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield Lock. By government policy, at the age of 65, in 1894, one of these was Peter Paul Mauser, and, in 1898, Rigby was appointed the exclusive importer and distributor for Mauser rifles and components for the British Empire. For sale under his name, John Rigby also developed sporting versions of the G98 Mauser rifle and its ammunition
United Kingdom