Muzzle-loading rifle

A muzzle-loading rifle (often abbreviated RML) is a gun in which the projectile and propelling charge is loaded through the muzzle (i.e. the front-end of the gun), in contrast to a breech loading rifle, and "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 smoothebore guns. The phrase can be applied to both hand held rifles and to artillery. Hand held rifles were well-developed by the 1740s. A recognizable form of the "muzzleloader" is the Kentucky rifle, which was actually developed in Pennsylvania. The American Longrifle evolved from the German "Jaeger" rifle.

Small arms

The first rifles were muzzle-loading, although this involved a lot of complication in inserting the bullet pass the rifling, and clogging and cleaning problems were notorious.

Because of a slower loading time than a musket, they were not adopted by the whole army. Early military rifles, such as the Baker rifle were shorter than the day's muskets, and usually the weapon of a marksman.

Artillery

La Hitte system

The La Hitte rifled guns were used from 1859 during the Franco-Austrian War in Italy. They were able to shoot at 3,000 meters either regulars shells, ball-loaded shells or...
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