page_title: Muzzle-loading rifle
section_title: Rifled muzzle loaders
hierarchical_section_title: Muzzle-loading rifle / Artillery / Rifled muzzle loaders
caption_attribution_description: Photograph of a 6.3 inch rifled muzzle loading gun&#160;: RML 64 pounder 64 cwt&#160;: on HMS Gannet at Chatham Dockyard, UK
context_page_description: 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, 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.
context_section_description: Rifled muzzle loader (RMLs) are artillery pieces of muzzle-loading rifle format, invented in the mid-19th century. In contrast to smooth bore cannon which preceded it, the rifling of the gun barrel allowed much greater accuracy and penetration as the spin induced to the shell gave it directional stability. Typical guns weighed 30 tonnes with 10" diameter muzzles, and were installed in forts and ships.
  This new gun and the rifled breech loader generated a huge arms race in the late 19th century, with rapid advances in fortifications and ironclad warships.
  In the British navy, many smaller 64-pounder smoothbore guns were converted to rifled weapons: the converted guns were called RMLs, whilst weapons manufactured with rifling were termed muzzle-loading rifles.  This distinction did not survive with the larger calibres, which were generally all called RMLs.
  Many artillery pieces were converted from older smooth bore weapons once technical problems in strengthening the original cast iron body had been overcome. The widely adopted solution, invented in 1863 by William Palliser, consisted of enlarging the bore to accept a wrought iron tube (called the A tube) into which the rifling had been cut. The A tube was closed at the breech end by a wrought iron cup screwed into it.  Iron was removed from the outside of the original gun barrel near to the muzzle so that a cast iron collar could be screwed over it and provide a shoulder at the muzzle to hold the A tube in place. The A tube was also held by a plug screwed into the gun underneath its trunnions. The outside of the breech portion was turned on a lathe so that another wrought iron tube, called the B tube, could be slid over it to strengthen it.
caption: A 6.3 inch 64-pounder rifled muzzle loader in the forecastle of HMS Gannet (1878)
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