page_title: Rifling
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Rifling / History
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Züge einer 9mm Pistole (selbst aufgenommen, FDL) (Original text: Züge eine 9 mm Pistole vom Patronenlager aus gesehen) Weitere Nutzung: WaffenWiki
context_page_description: In firearms, rifling is the helical groovings that are machined into the internal surface of a gun's barrel, for the purpose of exerting torque and thus imparting a spin to a projectile around its longitudinal axis during shooting. This spin serves to gyroscopically stabilize the projectile by conservation of angular momentum, improving its aerodynamic stability and accuracy over smoothbore designs.
  Rifling is often described by its twist rate, which indicates the distance the rifling takes to complete one full revolution, such as "1 turn in 10 inches", or "1 turn in 254 mm" A shorter distance indicates a "faster" twist, meaning that for a given velocity the projectile will be rotating at a higher spin rate.
  The combination of length, weight and shape of a projectile determines the twist rate needed to stabilize it – barrels intended for short, large-diameter projectiles like spherical lead balls require a very low twist rate, such as 1 turn in 48 inches. Barrels intended for long, small-diameter bullets, such as the ultra-low-drag, 80-grain 0.223 inch bullets, use twist rates of 1 turn in 8 inches or faster.
context_section_description: Muskets were smoothbore, large caliber weapons using ball-shaped ammunition fired at relatively low velocity.  Due to the high cost and great difficulty of precision manufacturing, and the need to load readily and speedily from the muzzle, musket balls were generally a loose fit in the barrels.  Consequently, on firing the balls would often bounce off the sides of the barrel when fired and the final destination after leaving the muzzle was less predictable.  This was countered when accuracy was more important, for example when hunting, by using a tighter-fitting combination of a closer-to-bore-sized ball and a patch.  The accuracy was improved, but still not reliable for precision shooting over long distances.
  Barrel rifling was invented in Augsburg, Germany in 1498.  In 1520 August Kotter, an armourer from Nuremberg, improved upon this work.  Though true rifling dates from the mid-16th century, it did not become commonplace until the nineteenth century.
  The concept of stabilizing the flight of a projectile by spinning it was known in the days of bows and arrows, but early firearms using black powder had difficulty with rifling because of the fouling left behind by the dirty combustion of the powder.  The most successful weapons using rifling with black powder were breech loaders such as the Queen Anne pistol.
caption: Traditional rifling of a 9 mm handgun barrel.
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot S20", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2004:06:30 20:24:50", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "184", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1220", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4116", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/30", "EXIF FNumber": "8", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2004:06:30 20:24:50", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2004:06:30 20:24:50", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "6", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "160789/32768", "EXIF ApertureValue": "6", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "29/10", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "163/1000", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired", "EXIF FocalLength": "169/16", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2048", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1536", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "1024000/139", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1536000/209", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "2048", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1536", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1072"}