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Ambrose Everett Burnside was an American soldier, gunsmith and politician. He was born in 1824 and died in 1881. A graduate of West Point in 1847 he was commander of the Army of the Potomac, before inventing a breech-loading rifle and retiring from the army to engage in business before becoming a Republican governor of Rhode Island from 1866 until 1868 and a US Senator for Rhode Island from 1875 until 1881. During the American Civil War he led a brigade at the first battle of Bull Run and in 1862 was placed in command of an expedition to North Carolina.
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Antoine Alphonse Chassepot was a French inventor. He was born in 1833 at Mutzig and died in 1886. He invented the breech-loading, centre-fire needle-gun (Chassepot) adopted by the French army in 1866 for which he received the Cross of the Legion of Honour and a gratuity of 30000 francs.
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Jacob Snider was a Dutch-American inventor. He died in 1866. A wine merchant in Philadelphia, his hobby was mechanics and he made a number of inventions, of which a breech-loading rifle was one. He took his rifle design to England in 1859 where it was accepted by the British government, but details of payment had not been settled by the time of his death in 1866.
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Philo Remington was an American inventor. He was born in 1816 at Lichfield, New York, and died in 1889. He invented the typewriter and also the Remington breech-loading rifle.
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William George Armstrong was a British engineer and inventor. He was born in 1810 at Newcastle and died in 1900. A solicitor by trade, his real interest were in science and by 1841 he was publishing papers on engineering, mainly specialising in hydraulic machinery. During the Crimean War he turned his attention to the invention of guns and invented the breech-loading Armstrong Gun. In 1859 William Armstrong was knighted and in 1887 made a peer as Baron Armstrong.
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The 160 mm Mortar M1943 is a Soviet breech-loading mortar developed from the 120mm Mortar M38 and used during the Second World War. The 160 mm Mortar M1943 has a 3030 mm long barrel and fires a 90 lb bomb to a maximum range of 5150 metres with a rate of fire of 3 rounds per minute.
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The 2A28 is a Russian 73 mm calibre smooth-bore closed-breech rocket launcher. It fires the PG-9 rocket at a muzzle velocity of 400 metres per second and is mounted on the BMP-1 IFV.
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The 9 mm Makarov is a Soviet pistol round first produced in the 1960's. The 9 mm Makarov has a higher power than the .390 Auto (9 mm Short) cartridge, but is not so high power as to require a locked breech.
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The Armscor Z-88 is a South African double-action locked-breech semi-automatic pistol based upon the Beretta Model 92 and designed for the South African police. The Z-88 is chambered for the 9 mm Parabellum round which it takes from a 15-round magazine.
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The Armstrong Gun is a type of cannon named after its inventor, William Armstrong. It is made of wrought-iron spirally-coiled bars so disposed as to bring the metal into the most favourable position for the strain to which it is to be exposed, and occasionally having an inner tube or core of steel, and with a rifled barrel. The size of these guns ranges from the smallest field-piece to pieces of the highest calibre. The projectile is coated with lead, and inserted into a chamber behind the bore. This the explosion drives forward, compressing its soft coating into the grooves, so as to give it a rotary motion, and at the same time obviate windage. Both breech-loading and muzzle-loading Armstrong guns have been made. The Armstrong Gun was invented in the middle of the 19th century.
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The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
©1993 - 2009 The Probert Encyclopaedia
Southampton, United Kingdom
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