A muzzle-loading rifle is a muzzle-loaded small arm or artillery piece that has a rifled barrel rather than a smoothbore. The term "rifled muzzle loader" typically is used to describe a type of artillery piece, although it is technically accurate for small arms as well. A shoulder arm is typically just called a "rifle", as almost all small arms were rifled by the time breechloading became prevalent. Muzzle and breechloading artillery served together for several decades, making a clear distinction more important. In the case of artillery, the abbreviation "RML" is often prefixed to the guns designation; a Rifled breech loader would be "RBL", or often just "BL", since smoothbore breechloading artillery is almost nonexistent.
A muzzle loading weapon is loaded through the muzzle, or front of the barrel. This is the opposite of a breech-loading weapon or rifled breechloader (RBL), which is loaded from the breech-end of the barrel. The rifling grooves cut on the inside of the barrel cause the projectile to spin rapidly in flight, giving it greater stability and hence range and accuracy than smoothbore guns. Hand held rifles were well-developed by the 1740s. A popularly recognizable form of the "muzzleloader" is the Kentucky Rifle, which was actually developed in Pennsylvania. The American Longrifle evolved from the German "Jäger" rifle.
A 6.3 inch 64-pounder rifled muzzle loader in the forecastle of HMS Gannet (1878)
The reloading mechanism onboard HMS Inflexible.
Image: Lepage silex gun dite du Premier Consul circa 1800
Image: Canon de montagne de 4 modele 1859 Le Petulant
A rifled breech loader (RBL) is an artillery piece which, unlike the smoothbore cannon and rifled muzzle loader which preceded it, has rifling in the barrel and is loaded from the breech at the rear of the gun.
A Japanese swivel breech-loading gun of the time of Oda Nobunaga, 16th century.
Wahrendorff breech
Armstrong gun screw breech.
The Armstrong gun was a pivotal development for modern artillery as the first practical rifled breech loader. Pictured, deployed by Japan during the Boshin War (1868–69).