1.
.32 ACP
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.32 ACP, also known as the.32 Automatic is a centerfire pistol cartridge. It is a semi-rimmed, straight-walled cartridge developed by firearms designer John Browning and it was introduced in 1899 by Fabrique Nationale, and is also known as the 7. 65×17mmSR Browning or 7.65 mm Browning Short. John Browning engineered a number of modern semi-automatic pistol mechanisms and cartridges, as his first pistol cartridge, the.32 ACP needed a straight wall for reliable blowback operation as well as a small rim for reliable feeding from a box magazine. The cartridge headspaces on the rim, the cartridge was a success and was adopted by dozens of countries and countless governmental agencies. The popularity of the.32 ACP in the half of the 20th century cannot be overstated—especially in Europe. Firearms expert Geoffrey Boothroyd of the UK informed author Ian Fleming, his countryman, a significant factor in recommending this round was its near universal availability throughout the world in the 1950s. To avoid patent infringement John Pedersen designed the Remington Model 51 so as to not to rely on any other, the.32 ACP has been chambered in more handguns than any other cartridge. Between 1899 and 1909, Fabrique Nationale produced 500,000 guns chambered for.32 ACP, heckler & Koch produced the HK4, their first handgun, in 1967. Twelve thousand HK4 pistols were produced in.32 ACP for the German police, the.32 ACP was intended for blowback semi-automatic pistols which lacked a breech locking mechanism. It was John Pedersen with the Remington Model 51 that delivered a true locked breech for the.32 ACP cartridge, the relatively low power and light bullet of the cartridge allowed Browning to incorporate a practical blowback mechanism in a small pocket-size pistol. It is still used primarily in compact, inexpensive pistols. The.32 ACP is compact and light, while some believe it has marginal stopping power, it has been used effectively by military and police worldwide for the past century. Weapons chambered in it are often valued for their compactness, although.32 ACP handguns were traditionally made of steel, they have been produced in light weight polymers since the 1990s. Their light weight, very low recoil and very good relative to larger caliber pistols make them suitable for concealed carry use. Some popular pistols chambered in.32 ACP are the Walther PP and the Walther PPK as well as the FEG PA-63, which is a clone of the Walther PP. It offers more velocity and energy than the.32 S&W, although of lighter bullet weight, the.32 ACP also compares favorably to the.32 S&W Long in performance. Some European 73 grain.32 ACP loads provides similar performance to the.32 H&R Magnum 77 grain lead flat point and 90 grain lead semiwadcutter, the.32 ACP is one of the most common calibers used in veterinary humane killers, such as the Greener Humane Killer. Given that a.22 LR can penetrate bone, the higher power.32 ACP can easily penetrate a skull with a muzzle-contact shot
2.
Handgun
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A handgun is a firearm designed to be handheld, in either one or both hands. This characteristic differentiates handguns as a class of firearms from long guns such as rifles. Major handgun subtypes are the revolver and pistol, other subtypes include derringers, the words pistol and handgun have overlapping variations, in meaning. Although handgun use often includes bracing with a hand, the essential distinguishing characteristic of a handgun is its facility for one-handed operation. The word pistol is often synonymous with the word handgun, some handgun experts make a technical distinction that views pistols as a subset of handguns. But UK/Commonwealth usage often does not make this distinction, handheld firearms were first made in China where gunpowder was first developed. By the 14th century, they existed in Europe as well, the first handheld firearms that might better be called pistols were made as early as the 15th century, but their creator is unknown. By the 18th century, the term came to be used often to refer to handheld firearms, previously there had been no such differentiation, and in fact Samuel Colts original patent was for a revolving-breech pistol. There is no equivalent for handgun in the Romance languages. The general types of handguns are listed below in their order of historical appearance, each type can be classified into many sub-types. Some of these types can also be classified using the general distinction between muzzle-loading firearms and breech-loading firearms. Single-shot pistols are the simplest possible form of pistols and are known to have existed in AD1365, the earliest handguns were single-shot, muzzle-loading guns with ignition provided by inserting a smoldering match cord into a touch hole. As such, they were nothing more than miniature cannon. Improvements followed in subsequent centuries, as types of locks were invented. In the matchlock, the separate match cord was affixed to a pivot which could be tripped by a trigger. In the wheellock, an analogous to that used in todays cigarette lighters replaced the smoldering match cord. In the 17th century, the flintlock, which strikes a flint against steel, the flintlock remained the standard method of small arms ignition around two hundred years. In the 19th century, percussion caps were developed, followed shortly by modern integrated-primer cartridges, an example of a single-shot pistol is the flare gun
3.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
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.
Primer (firearms)
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In firearm ballistics, the primer is a component of pistol, rifle, and shotgun rounds. Early primers were simply the same black powder used to fire the weapon and this external powder was connected though a tube in the barrel that led to the main charge. As powder wont burn when wet, this led to difficulty, or even the inability, modern primers are shock sensitive chemicals. In smaller weapons the primer is usually integrated into the rear of a cartridge, in larger weapons like cannon the primer is a separate component placed inside the barrel to the rear of the main propellant charge. The first step to firing a firearm of any sort is igniting the propellant, the earliest firearms were cannons, which were simple closed tubes. There was an aperture, the touchhole, drilled in the closed end of the tube. This hole was filled with finely ground powder, which was ignited with a hot ember or torch. With the advent of firearms, this became an undesirable way of firing a gun. The first attempt to make the process of firing a small arm easier was the matchlock, the matchlock incorporated a lock that was actuated by a trigger, originally called a tricker. The lock was a lever which pivoted when pulled. The match was a burning fuse made of plant fibers that were soaked in a solution of nitrates, charcoal, and sulfur. This slow-match was ignited before the gun was needed, and it would slowly burn, after the gun was loaded and the touchhole primed with powder, the burning tip of the match was positioned so that the lock would bring it into contact with the touchhole. To fire the gun, it was aimed and the trigger pulled and this brought the match down to the touchhole, igniting the powder. With careful attention the slow-burning match could be burning for long periods of time. The next revolution in technology was the wheel-lock. It used a spring-loaded, serrated steel wheel which rubbed against a piece of iron pyrite, a key was used to wind the wheel and put the spring under tension. Once tensioned, the wheel was held in place by a trigger, when the trigger was pulled, the serrated edge of the steel rubbed against the pyrite, generating sparks. These sparks were directed into a pan, called the flash pan, the flashpan usually was protected by a spring-loaded cover that would slide out of the way when the trigger was pulled, exposing the powder to the sparks
6.
Cartridge (firearms)
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Military and commercial producers continue to pursue the goal of caseless ammunition. A cartridge without a bullet is called a blank, One that is completely inert is called a dummy. Some artillery ammunition uses the same concept as found in small arms. In other cases, the shell is separate from the propellant charge. In popular use, the bullet is often misused to refer to a complete cartridge. The cartridge case seals a firing chamber in all directions excepting the bore, a firing pin strikes the primer and ignites it. The primer compound deflagrates, it does not detonate, a jet of burning gas from the primer ignites the propellant. Gases from the burning powder pressurize and expand the case to seal it against the chamber wall and these propellant gases push on the bullet base. In response to pressure, the bullet will move in the path of least resistance which is down the bore of the barrel. After the bullet leaves the barrel, the pressure drops to atmospheric pressure. The case, which had been expanded by chamber pressure. This eases removal of the case from the chamber, brass is a commonly used case material because it is resistant to corrosion. A brass case head can be work-hardened to withstand the pressures of cartridges. The neck and body portion of a case is easily annealed to make the case ductile enough to allow reforming so that it can be reloaded many times. Steel is used in some plinking ammunition, as well as in military ammunition. Steel is less expensive than brass, but it is not feasible to reload, Military forces typically consider small arms cartridge cases to be disposable, one-time-use devices. However, case weight affects how much ammunition a soldier can carry, conversely, steel is more susceptible to contamination and damage so all such cases are varnished or otherwise sealed against the elements. One downside caused by the strength of steel in the neck of these cases is that propellant gas can blow back past the neck
7.
AMT AutoMag V
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The AMT Automag V is a large single action semi-automatic pistol made by Arcadia Machine and Tool. The weapon was created by Harry Sanford, who invented the original.44 AutoMag pistol. Its built-in compensator ports in the barrel assist in keeping muzzle rise to tolerable levels, the recoil, however, is still surprisingly brisk even for the most experienced shooter. The Automag V has a 5-shot magazine capacity and is, like all of the AMT pistols, production quantity was supposed to be 3000 units, numbered 0001-3000 to 3000-3000. This goal was never reached, however, the MK V used the same frame as the MK IV, and pistols have been discovered with MK V frames with MK IV slides and vice versa. AMT AutoMag II AMT AutoMag III AMT AutoMag IV
8.
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
