1.
.357 Magnum
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The.357 S&W Magnum, or simply.357 Magnum, is a revolver cartridge with a. 357-inch bullet diameter. It was created by Elmer Keith, Phillip B, Wesson of firearms manufacturers Smith & Wesson and Winchester. It is based upon Smith & Wessons earlier.38 Special cartridge, the.357 Magnum cartridge was introduced in 1934, and its use has since become widespread. This cartridge started the Magnum era of handgun ammunition, the.357 Magnum cartridge is notable for its stopping power. The.357 Magnum was collaboratively developed over a period in the early to mid-1930s by a group of individuals in a response to Colts.38 Super Automatic. Tests at the revealed that those vests defeated any handgun cartridge traveling at less than about 1,000 feet per second. Colts.38 Super Automatic just edged over that velocity and was able to penetrate car doors and vests that bootleggers and gangsters were employing as cover. Though.38 and.357 would seem to be different diameter chamberings, they are in fact identical, the.38 Special nomenclature relates to the previous use of heeled bullets, which were the same diameter as the case. Thus, the only difference in the two cartridges is a slight difference in length, solely for safety purposes. Much credit for the. 357s early development is given to hunter and experimenter Elmer Keith, the. 38-44 HV load used the. 38-Special cartridge loaded to a much higher velocity than standard. 38-Special ammunition. The. 38-44 revolvers were made by using a.44 Special size gun with the barrel bored to accept. 357-caliber bullets, since the frame, cylinder, and barrel were much stronger than the standard.38 Special components, it was capable of withstanding much higher pressures. The. 38-44 HV round, while no longer available, was in most cases the equal of the later.357 Magnum, which works at more than double the pressure of standard.38 Special. Elmer Keith also contributed the Keith-style bullet, which increased the mass of bullet located outside the cartridge, the Keith bullet also employed a large, flat meplat, thus enabling rapid energy transfer for greater wounding properties. At the same time, this design does not deform like a hollow point. These characteristics of the Keith bullet make it suitable for hunting applications as well as for target shooting. In order to reassert itself as the leading law-enforcement armament provider, Smith & Wesson developed the.357 Magnum, Wesson leading the effort within Smith & Wesson, along with considerable technical assistance from Phillip B. Sharpe, a member of the Technical Division staff of the National Rifle Association, the new round was developed from Smith & Wessons existing.38 Special round. It used a different powder load, and ultimately the case was extended by 1⁄8 inch, the case extension was more a matter of safety than of necessity
2.
.44 Magnum
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The.44 Remington Magnum, or simply.44 Magnum, and frequently.44 Mag, is a large-bore cartridge originally designed for revolvers. After its introduction, it was adopted for carbines and rifles. Despite the.44 designation, guns chambered for the.44 Magnum round, and its parent, the.44 Magnum is based on a lengthened.44 Special case, loaded to higher pressures for greater velocity. The.44 Magnum cartridge was the end result of years of tuned handloading of the.44 Special, the.44 Special, and other large-bore handgun cartridges, were being loaded with heavy bullets, pushed at higher than normal velocities for better hunting performance. One of these handloaders was Elmer Keith, a writer and outdoorsman of the 20th century, Elmer Keith settled on the.44 Special cartridge as the basis for his experimentation, rather than the larger.45 Colt. At the time, the selection of.44 caliber projectiles for handloaders was more varied, also, the.44 Special case was smaller in diameter than the.45 Colt case. In revolvers of the cylinder size, this meant the.44 caliber revolvers had thicker. This allowed higher pressures to be used with less risk of a burst cylinder, Keith encouraged Smith & Wesson and Remington to produce a commercial version of this new high-pressure loading, and revolvers chambered for it. Smith & Wessons first.44 Magnum revolver, the Model 29, was built on December 15,1955, julian Hatcher, and Elmer Keith received two of the first production models. Hatchers review of the new Smith & Wesson revolver and the.44 Magnum cartridge appeared in the March,1956 issue of the magazine, Smith & Wesson produced 3,100 of these revolvers in 1956. By the summer of 1956, Sturm, Ruger became aware of this project, Ruger began shipping their new revolver in late November,1956. The film Dirty Harry, prominently featuring the S&W M29, contributed to that models popularity, Ruger introduced its first long gun, a semi-automatic carbine called the Ruger Model 44 chambered for.44 Magnum, in 1959. Marlin followed soon after with a lever action Model 1894 in.44 Magnum, the. 38-40 Winchester and. 32-20 Winchester were also available in both carbines and revolvers, allowing the shooter to use one type of ammunition for both firearms. In 2006, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the.44 Magnum, Ruger introduced a special 50th anniversary Blackhawk revolver, the.44 Magnum delivers a large, heavy bullet with high velocity for a handgun. In its full-powered form, it produces so much recoil and muzzle blast that it is considered to be unsuitable for use as a police weapon. Rapid fire is difficult and strenuous on the hands, especially for shooters of smaller build or with small hands. Although marketed as a.44 caliber, the.44 Magnum, the.44 designation is a carryover from the early measurements of heeled bullets, used in the later 19th century. In those times, bullets were measured on the outside of the cartridge, not the inside of the cartridge
3.
.45 Colt
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The.45 Colt or.45 Long Colt cartridge is a handgun cartridge dating to 1872. It is a black-powder revolver round developed for the Colt Single Action Army revolver and this cartridge was adopted by the U. S. Army in 1873 and served as an official US military handgun cartridge for 14 years. Colt began work on the revolver in 1871, and submitted a sample to the U. S. Army in late 1872, the revolver was accepted for purchase in 1873. The cartridge is an inside lubricated type, the rebated heel type bullet design of its predecessor, the.44 Colt, was eliminated, since it was an outside lubricated type, which would pick up dirt and grit during handling. The.45 Colt replaced the.50 caliber Model 1871 Remington single shot pistol, while the Colt remained popular, the Smith & Wesson M1875 Army Schofield Revolver was approved as an alternate which created a logistic problem for the Army. Adoption of the.45 M1887 Military Ball Cartridge resolved the Armys ammunition logistic problems, the M1887 Govt round was replaced by the.38 Long Colt in 1892. In 1909, the.45 M1909 round was issued along with the.45 Colt New Service revolver and this round was never loaded commercially, and is almost identical to the original.45 Colt round, except having a larger diameter rim. The rim is large enough that it cannot be loaded in adjacent chambers in the rod-ejector Colt model, the.45 Colt remains popular with renewed interest in Cowboy Action Shooting. The modern.45 Colt bullet has changed as well, and it is now.451 inches in diameter for jacketed bullets, the.45 Colt became the basis for other rounds, such as the.454 Casull. The.45 Colt originally was a cartridge, but modern loadings use smokeless powder. The original black-powder loads called for 28 to 40 grains of powder behind a 230-to-255-grain lead bullet. These loads developed muzzle velocities of up to 1,050 ft/s, because of this power and its excellent accuracy, the.45 Colt was the most-used cartridge at the time of its introduction, succeeding the.44 WCF. The.45 Colt at that time did not enjoy the. 44-40s advantage of a Winchester rifle chambered for it, the rumor was that early.45 Colt cartridges had a very minimal rim, and would not eject reliably. Currently manufactured brass has a rim of adequate diameter for such uses, modern Winchesters, Marlins and replicas have remedied this omission almost 100 years after the fact, and the.45 Colt is now available in modern lever-action rifles. While this has one of numerous arguments to explain the lack of a rifle chambered in.45 Colt, in fact. It required the expiration of those original patents for the.45 Colt to become available in a rifle, todays standard factory loads develop around 400 ft·lbf of muzzle energy at about 860 ft/s, making it roughly equivalent to modern.45 ACP loads. There are Cowboy Action Shooting loads which develop muzzle velocities of around 750 ft/s, cartridges of the World states that.45 Colt should never be loaded to more than 800 fps. Some handloads and factory manufactured cartridges put this round in the class as the.44 Magnum using special revolvers
4.
Revolver
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A revolver is a repeating handgun that has a revolving cylinder containing multiple chambers and at least one barrel for firing. Revolvers might be regarded as a subset of pistols, or as a subset of handguns. Though the term revolver usually only refers to handguns, other firearms may also have a revolving chamber and these include some models of grenade launchers, shotguns, and rifles. Most revolvers contain five or six rounds in the cylinder, though the original name was revolving gun, the short-hand revolver is universally used. The revolver allows the user to fire multiple rounds without reloading, each time the user cocks the hammer, the cylinder revolves to align the next chamber and round with the hammer and barrel, which gives this type of firearm its name. In a single-action revolver, the user pulls the back with his free hand or thumb. In a double-action revolver, pulling the trigger moves the back, then releases it. Loading and unloading a double-action revolver requires the operator to swing out the cylinder and insert the proper ammunition, the first guns with multichambered cylinders that revolved to feed one barrel were made in the late 16th century in Europe. They were expensive and rare curiosities, not until the 19th century would revolvers become common weapons of industrial production. One of the first was a flintlock revolver patented by Elisha Collier in 1814, the first percussion revolver was made by Lenormand of Paris in 1820 and the first percussion cap revolver was invented by the Italian Francesco Antonio Broccu in 1833. He received a prize of 300 francs for his invention, although he did not patent it, however, in 1835 a similar handgun was patented by Samuel Colt, who would go on to make the first mass-produced revolver. The first cartridge revolvers were produced around 1854 by Eugene Lefaucheux, revolvers soon became standard for nearly all uses. In the early 20th century, semi-automatic pistols were developed, which can hold more rounds, Automatic pistols also have a flat profile, more suitable for concealed carry. Automatic pistols have almost completely replaced revolvers in military and law enforcement use, revolvers still remain popular as back-up and off-duty handguns among American law enforcement officers and security guards. Also, revolvers are still common in the American private sector as defensive, in the development of firearms, an important limiting factor was the time it took to reload the weapon after it was fired. While the user was reloading, the weapon was useless, several approaches to the problem of increasing the rate of fire were developed, the earliest being multi-barrelled weapons which allowed two or more shots without reloading. Later weapons featured multiple barrels revolving along a single axis, the earliest examples of what today is called a revolver were made in Germany in the late 16th century. These weapons featured a barrel with a revolving cylinder holding the powder
5.
.38 Special
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The.38 Smith & Wesson Special is a rimmed, centerfire cartridge designed by Smith & Wesson. It is most commonly used in revolvers, although some semi-automatic pistols, in other parts of the world, it is known by its metric designation of 9×29. 5mmR or 9. 1×29mmR. Noted for its accuracy and manageable recoil, the.38 Special remains the most popular cartridge in the world more than a century after its introduction. It is used for shooting, formal target competition, personal defense. Despite its name, the caliber of the.38 Special cartridge is actually. 357–.358 inches, except for case length, the.38 Special is identical to the.38 Short Colt.38 Long Colt, and.357 Magnum. This allows the.38 Special round to be fired in revolvers chambered for the.357 Magnum. Upon its introduction, the.38 Special was originally loaded with black powder and this.38 Special variant incorporated a 200 grains round-nosed lead Lubaloy bullet, the.38 Super Police. Remington-Peters also introduced a similar loading, testing revealed that the longer, heavier 200 grains. 357-calibre bullet fired at low velocity tended to keyhole or tumble upon impact, providing more shock effect against unprotected personnel. This cartridge was called the.38 S&W Super Police or the. 38/200, britain would later adopt the. 38/200 as its standard military handgun cartridge. In 1930, Smith & Wesson introduced a large frame.38 Special revolver with a 5-inch barrel and fixed sights intended for police use, the following year, a new high-power loading called the. That same year, Colt Firearms announced that their Colt Official Police would also handle high-speed.38 Special loadings, the. 38/44 high-speed cartridge came in three bullet weights,158 grains,150 and 110 grains, with either coated lead or steel jacket, metal-piercing bullets. The media attention gathered by the. 38/44 and its ammunition eventually led Smith & Wesson to develop a new cartridge with a longer case length in 1934—this was the.357 Magnum. During World War II, some U. S. aircrew were issued.38 Special S&W Victory revolvers as sidearms in the event of a forced landing, the new military.38 Special loading propelled its 158 grains bullet at a standard 850 ft/s from a 4-inch revolver barrel. During the war, many U. S. naval and marine aircrew were also issued red-tipped.38 Special tracer rounds using either a 120 or 158 gr bullet for emergency signaling purposes. In 1956, the U. S. Air Force adopted the Cartridge, Caliber.38, Ball M41, a military variant of the.38 Special cartridge designed to conform to the rules of land warfare. By 1961, a slightly revised M41.38 cartridge specification known as the Cartridge, Caliber.38 Ball, Special, a variant of the standard M41 cartridge with a semi-pointed, unjacketed lead bullet was later adopted for CONUS police and security personnel. At the same time.38 tracer cartridges were reintroduced by the US Navy, Marines, tracer cartridges in.38 Special caliber of different colors were issued, generally as part of a standard aircrew survival vest kit. A request for more powerful.38 Special ammunition for use by Air Police and security personnel resulted in the Caliber.38 Special, Ball, in 1972, the Federal Bureau of Investigation introduced a new.38 +P loading that became known as the FBI Load
6.
Sturm, Ruger & Co.
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Sturm, Ruger & Co. Inc. is an American, Southport, Connecticut–based firearm manufacturing company, better known by the shortened name Ruger. The company was founded in 1949 by Alexander McCormick Sturm and William B, Ruger and has been publicly traded since 1969. Ruger produces bolt-action, semi-automatic, and single-shot rifles, shotguns, semi-automatic pistols, Sturm, Ruger & Company was founded by William B. Ruger and Alexander McCormick Sturm in 1949 in a small rented shop in Southport. Ruger is a dominant manufacturer in the.22 LR rimfire rifle market in the U. S. due primarily to the sales of its Ruger 10/22 semiautomatic rifle, the 10/22 is very popular due to being relatively inexpensive and of good quality. As a result, a wealth of after-market accessories and parts were available for it. The availability and variety of after-market parts makes it possible to build a 10/22 using only these parts, Ruger similarly dominates the.22 rimfire semi-automatic pistol market with the Ruger MK II and Ruger MK III, descendants of the Ruger Standard pistol. Like the 10/22, the MkII is supported with a variety of after-market accessories. The 22/45 is similar to the Ruger Standard family of pistols but features a different grip angle, Ruger Casting has plants in Newport, New Hampshire and Prescott, Arizona, making ferrous, ductile iron and commercial titanium castings. Ruger Golf makes steel and titanium castings for golf clubs made by a number of different brands, Sturm, Ruger stock has been publicly traded since 1969, and became a New York Stock Exchange company in 1990. After Alex Sturm’s death in 1951, William B, Ruger continued to direct the company until his death in 2002. From 1949 through 2004, Ruger manufactured over 20 million firearms, and currently offers models for hunting, target shooting, self-defense, collecting, and law enforcement. Sturm, Ruger & Co. is headquartered in Southport, Connecticut, and maintains manufacturing facilities in Newport, New Hampshire, Prescott, Arizona, and Mayodan, North Carolina. Rugers subsidiaries are Ruger Precision Metals LLC in Earth City, Missouri, Pine Tree Castings in Newport, New Hampshire, and Ruger Sportswear & Accessories in Mayodan, North Carolina. Of the total 2,288 makers of civilian firearms operating in the United States from 1986–2010, Ruger was ranked the number one U. S. firearms manufacturer from 2008–2011. In 2011, Ruger manufactured 1,114,687 firearms, as their promotion, the company has set a new goal of 2 million firearms produced per year. From 2009 to 2012, Ruger was the top-seller of handguns, list of modern armament manufacturers TALO Distributors Wilson, R. L. Ruger & His Guns, A History of the Man, the Company and Their Firearms. Sturm, Ruger & Co official site Ruger Official History
7.
Remington Arms
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Remington Arms Company, LLC is an American manufacturer of firearms and ammunition in the United States. It was founded in 1816 by Eliphalet Remington in Ilion, New York, as E. Remington, Remington is Americas oldest gun maker and Its Americas oldest factory that still makes its original product-guns. It is the only U. S. company which produces both firearms and ammunition domestically and is the largest U. S. producer of shotguns, Remington has also developed or adopted more cartridges than any other gun maker or ammunition manufacturer in the world. Additionally its products are distributed in over 60 foreign countries, making its distribution base, Remington Arms is part of the Freedom Group, which is owned by Cerberus Capital Management. Remington built a new plant in Huntsville, Alabama which is now building Modern Sporting Rifles, the Remington company was founded in 1816. Eliphalet Remington II believed he could build a gun than he could buy. Farming communities in the region were famous for their skills and self-sufficiency. Remingtons father was a blacksmith, and wanted to expand his business into rifle barrel production, local residents often built their own rifles to save on costs, but purchased the barrel. Remingtons father sent him to a barrel maker in a major city to purchase a barrel. At the time, the method was to heat and wrap long flat bars of iron around a rod of the caliber desired. By heating and hammering the coiled bars around the central rod, after the young man returned home, his family added a successful barrel making operation to his fathers forge, in Ilion Gorge, New York. Remington began designing and building a rifle for himself. At age 23, he entered a match, though he only finished second. Before Remington left the field day, he had received so many orders from other competitors that he was now officially in the gunsmithing business. By 1828, the moved to nearby Ilion, New York. On March 7,1888, ownership of E. Remington & Sons left possession of the Remington family and was sold to new owners, Marcellus Hartley, at this time the name was formally changed to the Remington Arms Company. The Bridgeport site became the home of Remingtons ammunition plant, in 1912, Remington and Union Metallic Cartridge Company were combined into a single entity, called Remington UMC. In 1915, the plant at Ilion was expanded, and with this expansion became basically the same plant as today, during World War I, Remington produced arms under contract for several Allied powers
8.
Thompson/Center Arms
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Thompson/Center Arms is an American firearms company based in Springfield, Massachusetts. The company is best known for its line of interchangeable-barrel, single-shot pistols, Thompson/Center also manufactures muzzle-loading rifles and is credited with creating the resurgence of their use in the 1970s. In the 1960s, Warren Center developed an unusual break-action, single-shot pistol that later known as the Contender in his basement workshop. Meanwhile, the K. W. Thompson Tool Company had been searching for a product to manufacture year-round, in 1965, Warren Center joined the K. W. Thompson Tool Company, and together, they announced Warren Centers Contender pistol in 1967. As K. W. Thompson Tool began marketing Centers Contender pistol, then, in 1970, Thompson/Center created the modern black powder industry, introducing Warren Centers Hawken-styled black powder muzzle-loader rifle. On January 4,2007, Thompson/Center was purchased by Smith & Wesson, on December 8,2010, Smith & Wesson announced that the original Rochester, New Hampshire plant would be closed and manufacturing was transferred to Springfield, Massachusetts. Thompson/Centers success came with the emergence of long range hunting, target shooting. Their break-action, single-shot design brought rifle-like accuracy and power in a handgun, the Contender, first introduced in 1967, is a break-action, single-shot pistol or rifle with a number of unique features. The first unique feature is the way the barrel is attached to the frame, by removing the fore-end, a large hinge pin is exposed, by pushing this hinge pin out, the barrel can be removed. Since the sights and extractor remain attached to the barrel in the Contender design, a barrel of another caliber can be installed and pinned in place, the fore-end replaced, and the pistol is ready to shoot with a different barrel and pre-aligned sights. This allowed easy changes of calibers, sights, and barrel lengths, the Encore was released in 1983. The Encore uses a different trigger mechanism, designed to be stronger than the original Contenders, the Encore uses a considerably larger and stronger frame than the Contender, and accordingly, is found in over 86 cartridges - ranging from.22 Hornet to the huge.416 Rigby. There has even been one pistol-length stainless barrel made in.600 Nitro Express, the Encore barrel list also includes shotgun barrels in 28,20, and 12 gauge, and muzzleloading barrels in.45.50 caliber, and 12 gauge using #209 shotgun primers. In 2007, Encore rimfire barrels became available in 22 LR and 17 HMR, an upgraded T/C Encore is called the Pro Hunter which generally includes stocks with rubber Flex Tech inserts and are stainless or carbon steel with weather shielding. There are other differences among the rifles including the breech plug on muzzleloader versions. The original Contender, now known as the generation one Contender, was replaced by the G2 Contender soon after the Encore came out, the G2 Contender is essentially dimensionally the same as the original Contender, but uses an Encore style trigger group. Unlike the original Contender, dry-firing of the G2 Contender is possible only in the center hammer position, also, unlike the original Contender, the break-action does not need to be opened/closed to practice dry-firing, provided the hammer is lowered between dry firing shots. The adjustability of G2 Contender triggers is also different from the original G1 Contender
9.
.44 Special
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The.44 Special or.44 S&W Special is a smokeless powder center fire metallic cartridge developed by Smith & Wesson in 1907 as the standard chambering for their New Century revolver, introduced in 1908. On the late 19th Century American frontier, large. 44- and. 45-caliber cartridges were considered the epitome of handgun ammunition for self-protection and hunting. Black-powder rounds such as the.44 American.44 Russian. 44-40 Winchester, and.45 Colt enjoyed a reputation for effective terminal ballistics, accuracy. At the start of the 20th Century, Smith & Wesson decided to celebrate by introducing a new revolver design which they called the New Century. Smith & Wesson wished to pair their new design with a worthy new ammunition chambering. At the time, smokeless powder was state of the art in ammunition technology, older black-powder ammunition was in the process of being converted to smokeless. Due to the energy density of the early semi-smokeless powders. Smith & Wesson addressed this issue by lengthening the.44 Russian cartridge case by 0. 190-inch, the resulting design, which S&W called the.44 Special, had a case length of 1. 16-inch. Nevertheless, the.44 Special retained its progenitors reputation for accuracy, the SAAMI maxiumum pressure standard for the 44 SW special is 15,500 PSI. Led by articles in firearms periodicals penned by gun writers such as Elmer Keith and Skeeter Skelton, a loose cadre of enthusiastic fans who called themselves the.44 Associates formed. Elmer Keith, one of the most famous and popular firearms related authors at the time, developed a number of classical heavy handloads for the.44 Special, many are still highly regarded today. He also championed the concept of higher powered big-bore revolvers with Smith & Wesson and Remington Arms, eventually leading to the development of the.357.41, and.44 Magnums. Keiths suggested designation for the proposed.44 caliber round was the.44 Special Magnum, nonetheless, the new cartridge was developed directly from the.44 Special design by simply lengthening the older case by.125 inch. Remingtons stated rationale for the making of this change was to preclude higher pressured Magnum loads from being chambered in.44 Special revolvers. The hype and excitement surrounding the introduction of the.44 Magnum in the mid-1950s eclipsed the.44 Special, as a result, gunmakers offered fewer revolver models chambered in.44 Special for several years. This makes the.44 Special cartridge an attractive alternative for reduced velocity target shooting and plinking
10.
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
11.
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
12.
Dan Wesson Firearms
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Dan Wesson Firearms, part of CZ-USA, is an American handgun manufacturer. The corporate headquarters is in Kansas City, Kansas, and the service and manufacturing plant is located in Norwich. Dan Wesson Firearms is known for its expertise and for some types of ammunition it has introduced over the years. Wesson II was the great-grandson of one of the founders of Smith & Wesson and he earned his degree in Material Science and Metallurgy and controlled the quality of his production strictly. After the purchase of Smith & Wesson by the Bangor-Punta manufacturing concern, Wesson set out to open his own manufacturing operation in order to produce high quality, American made revolvers for service as well as competition use. Dan Wesson Arms was incorporated in 1968, with its headquarters and production located in a school building in Monson. Wesson was aware of gunmaker Karl Lewis modular designs which had proposed during Lewis tenure with Browning. Wesson signed a agreement with Lewis, and began setting up the necessary machining and manufacturing equipment. The new Dan Wesson revolver proved to be accurate, though sales were limited - in large part due to the guns unorthodox appearance. After reworking the design to improve its aesthetics and correct some detail faults, Wesson introduced the model as the Model 15 in.357 Magnum. A large framed version in.44 Magnum caliber was introduced in 1980, later, Dan Wesson offered revolvers in stainless steel as well. Barrels and shrouds were constructed of chrome moly steel, despite the success of the revised design and new caliber offerings, Dan Wesson Arms experienced significant upheaval and ownership changes after Wessons death in 1978. The original Monson facility and production equipment became outdated, and production costs of the gun reduced profits, the company declared bankruptcy in 1990. The corporation was initially moved to Palmer Massachusetts, and the name was changed to Dan Wesson Firearms. In 1995, poor sales led to yet another bankruptcy, after which Bob Serva purchased the corporation and its assets, moving the group to Norwich, New York, where it is currently located. Seeking to diversify its line, the company introduced a popular series of high quality M1911A1-type pistols in various calibers. Dan Wesson revolvers also went back into limited production, though required a substantial investment in new CNC tooling. Despite increased sales, the company faced financial hardships
