14 SPORTSMAN'S HAND BOOK. 



FIRE -ARMS. 



It is now a little over four hundred years since fire- 

 arms were first invented, and from the period of their first in- 

 ception to the present time money has been expended to 

 almost an unlimited degree, and the brains of many, many ' 

 men, have been racked in perfecting the crude results of first 

 experiments and in bringing before the public at the pres- 

 ent time the high degree of attainment wrought in their per- 

 fection as found in the hammerless breech-loading shot-guns 

 of to-day. 



About the first gun that we have any account of was 

 called the "Bombard," which dates back to about the year 

 1450. This gun was an unwieldy, uncouth mass of iron, 

 weighing eighty pounds or over, and was fired by using a 

 lighted stick. The first shoulder gun, or a gun with a 

 stock, called an "Arquebus," was brought into notice about 

 the year 1468. This was a very awkward arm, and could 

 not be introduced in nor used by the armies of that period, 

 as they were exceedingly heavy, requiring several men to 

 handle them, and were of little practical use- they were 

 able to fire it but about eight times in twenty-four hours by 

 hard work the soldiers at that time much preferring their 

 bows and arrows or cross-bows, and their cumbersome stone- 

 throwing catapult. The next step forward was the inven- 

 tion and attempted introduction of an improvement by the 

 addition of a contrivance called a v/heel lock, at Nurem- 

 berg, in 1630, answering the purposes of ignition, for which 

 it was intended, very poorly. This gave way to the flint 

 lock, which, in its perfected form, was used by our fore- 

 fathers who "fit in the Revolution." 



The greatest stride of progress towards making a fire- 

 arm practical (with due respect to our ancient flint lock)' 

 was the invention of the percussion cap, in 1818. 



