Topic: Marksmenship
A. riflemansjournal.blogspot.com
A1. There are 5 essentials that must be attained in order that one may be able to shoot accurately.
A2. Rifle Shooting is almost entirely a matter of intelligent practice.
A3. To become a good shot requires body and brain.
A4. To become an expert marksmen years of experience are required.
B. www.odcmp.org
B1. 1,500 CMP's founded since WW2
B2. American shooting clubs are mere infants compared to European shooting clubs.
B3. Many cities learned to shoot in order to better defend there cities.
B4. Shooting in these clubs was typically only done standing.
C. www.caes.uga.edu
C1. These weapons were designed for war but evolved into equipment for sport.
C2. Target Shooting is a sport of control, discipline, and concentration.
C3. Target Shooting brings all competitors to an even playing field.
C4. Shooting can teach vital life skills.
D. http://www.nramuseum.org/gun-info-research/a-brief-history-of-firearms.aspx
D1. The origins of gunpowder are unknown, and may have occurred in China, Turkey, or Europe. The first record describing the combination that creates this exploding poweder was created in code by Franciscan Monk Roger Bacon.
D2. Within 50 Years the cannon was developed to help wield this new found power. It took another half century for this concept to be applied to hand held weapons.
D3. The first firearm, ca 1350, called the hand cannon or hand gonnes were miniature cannons that were operated the same as a cannon.
D4. For the next 4 centuries, the advances in this weapons manufacturing focused primarily on the methods for igniting the gunpowder, in addition to design advances for more rapid accurate firing.
E. http://www.americanfirearms.org/gun-history/
E1. During the Han Dynaty, a man named Wei Boyang was the first to write anything about gunpowder he wrote about a mixture of 3 powders that would fly and dance violently. Year 142]
E2. The earliest picture of a gun is in a manuscript dated showing a pear-shaped cannon firing an arrow Year 1326.
E3. The first mechanical device for firing the handgun made its appearance in records. Depicting armor being penetrated by bullets and the handgun became a weapon capable of rudimentary precision. Year 1424
E4. Firearms were recognized as hunting arms.
F. http://library.med.utah.edu/WebPath/TUTORIAL/GUNS/GUNHIST.html
F1. The greatest stimulus for firearms development was and continues to be military usage.
F2. The reliability issue sparked the development of a number of mechanisms to ignite gunpowder.
F3. Firing mechanisms include Matchlock, Wheellock, Flintlock, and Percussion.
F4. Accuracy was improved by rifling barrels.
G. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/12/the-history-and-evolution-of-guns-as-told-through-pictures/
G1. In 1861, Dr. Richard Gattling patented the Gatlling Gun, a 6 barreled weapon capable of firing 200 rounds per minute.
G2. In 1840, the pinfire cartridge was introduced.
G3. the Army didn’t want a repeating gun, fearing that soldiers would fire more often, constantly need fresh ammunition, and overtax the supply system.
G4. But in 1863, President Lincoln test-fired a Spencer. His approval led to the purchase of 107,372 Spencer repeating carbines and rifles (of 144,500 made), and the Spencer became the principal repeating gun of the Civil War.
H. https://thecmp.org/competitions/competition-archives/
H1. CMP history goes back to late 19th century efforts by U.S. military and political leaders to strengthen our country’s national defense capabilities by improving the rifle marksmanship skills of members of the Armed Forces.
H2. The CMP traces its direct lineage to 1903 when Congress and President Theodore Roosevelt established the National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice (NBPRP) and the National Matches.
H3. During this period, program objectives shifted from military marksmanship to training civilians who might serve in the military to developing youth through marksmanship training.
H4. The CMP provides competition rules and sanctioning services for events in each of these disciplines. It now sanctions over one thousand local and regional competitions a year in these disciplines.
I. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91942478
I1. 1791: The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified. The amendment reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
I2. 1871: The National Rifle Association was formed by Union Army veterans Col. William C. Church and Gen. George Wingate.
I3. 1968: Congress passes the Gun Control Act. The law calls for better control of interstate traffic of firearms. Lee Harvey Oswald used a mail-order gun to assassinate President John F. Kennedy.
I4. 1968: Congress passes the Gun Control Act. The law calls for better control of interstate traffic of firearms. Lee Harvey Oswald used a mail-order gun to assassinate President John F. Kennedy.
J. http://nypost.com/2010/12/12/the-gun-that-changed-the-world/
J1. The Kalashnikov, or AK-47, is the gun that assassinated Sadat, armed the PLO and allowed Idi Amin to become the devil of Uganda. A favorite of both Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, the AK-47 and its offshoots are by far the most plentiful guns on Earth, with over 100 million in circulation — one for every 70 people on the planet.
J2. By the time the AK appeared, of course, military men already were enamored with the machine gun. In the 1860s, North Carolina’s Dr. Richard Gatling invented “the first reasonably effective rapid-fire arm” in the Gatling gun, which weighed about a ton and was operated by a bulky hand crank.
J3. The Gatling gun proved effective in battle, although many rejected it for its size, fearing that it would slow an army’s movement. (Before the Battle of Little Bighorn, Lt. Col. George Custer was offered Gatling guns but opted for single-shot rifles instead, likely leading to his massacre.)
J4. The world got a taste of the Gatling’s power in 1879, when the British faced down 20,000 Zulus. Outnumbered four to one, the Brits started shooting, and Zulu lines “began to melt away.” The Zulu’s were conquered in a half-hour, with only 11 British casualties.
J5. The next advance came via New Englander Hiram Maxim, who sought to design a weapon with a trigger instead of a hand crank. Realizing that the energy from a gun’s recoil could be used to power the crank’s tasks, he created the Maxim gun, which weighed less than 150 pounds and became the world’s first truly automatic weapon.
J6. With the Maxim, the British showed how easy killing had become. In 1893’s Matabele War in South Africa, they killed 1,500 natives without suffering a single casualty. In another battle, four dozen policemen with four Maxims reportedly killed 3,000 Africans.
J7. Despite — or sometimes because of — their clear success as killing machines, the global verdict on automatic weapons remained divided.
J8. But the ease and brutality of murder inspired opposition as well. In 1898, 23-year-old British journalist Winston Churchill watched his countrymen kill somewhere between 10,000-20,000 Sudanese in one day — all before noon, in fact — while losing only 48 of their own men. Churchill wrote of seeing men “destroyed, not conquered, by machinery.”
J9. “At such sights,” he wrote, “the triumph of victory faded on the mind, and a mournful feeling of disgust grew stronger.”
J10. In one 1916 battle, the British marched in formation, equipped with bayonets, against a German army with machine guns. In the first hour, 30,000 British soldiers were killed or wounded.
J11. While rifles changed little during World War II, the Soviets held a secret contest among their designers during the conflict, challenging them to create a light, compact, reliable gun that was made from few parts and easy to assemble and use.
J12. The Kalashnikov’s critical feature was that, unlike most automatic weapons, its parts were designed to be loose fitting, which drastically reduced instances of jamming. It also consisted of very few parts, making it so easy to use that Soviet schoolboys — who were trained in these matters — could dissemble and reassemble the guns in 30 seconds flat.
K. http://study.com/academy/lesson/the-history-of-gunpowder-in-the-west.html
K1. Perhaps the most significant development in the story of conquest and warfare is the use of gunpowder to propel a deadly object toward a chosen mark. Although history tells us it was the Chinese who developed this deadly weapon, the Europeans would jump on the technological band wagon, using it to devastate the natives of the New World during the Age of Exploration.
K2. By the mid-14th century, simple gunpowder cannons were common in the English and French militaries. Both sides used this technology against each other in the Hundred Years' War, a devastating war fought over the right to the French throne.
K3. Like cannons, the smoldering match cord was used to fire off a shot. Although their aim was rather precarious, this invention put guns into the hands of the individual.
K4. Since even the most unskilled person with a gun was still a threat, this created a whole new class of soldiers.
L. http://www.explainthatstuff.com/bullets.html
L1. Bullets are a bit like fireworks and they are arranged in three sections: the primer, the propellant, and the bullet proper. At the back, the primer (or percussion cap) is like the fuse of a firework: a small fire that starts a bigger one. The next section of the bullet, effectively its "main engine," is a chemical explosive called a propellant. Its job is to power the bullet through the air from the gun to the target. The front part of the bullet is a tapering metal cylinder that hits the target at high speed. It tapers to a point to help it penetrate through metal, flesh, or whatever else the target may be made from.
L2. Bullets are designed to be (relatively) safe until the moment when you fire them. When you pull the trigger of a gun, a spring mechanism hammers a metal firing pin into the back end of the bullet, igniting the small explosive charge in the primer. The primer then ignites the propellant—the main explosive that occupies about two thirds of a typical bullet's volume. As the propellant chemicals burn, they generate lots of gas very quickly. The gas shoots from the back of the bullet, increasing the pressure behind it, and forcing it down the gun barrel at extremely high speed (300 m/s or 1000 ft/s is typical in a handgun).
L3. Gun barrels have spiraling grooves cut into them that make bullets spin around very fast as they emerge. A spinning bullet is like a gyroscope: a sort of "stubborn" spinning wheel that always tries to keep turning the same way. If you try to tilt a gyroscope while it's spinning, it will try to resist whatever force you apply and, if you let go, it will soon tilt back the other way. This is why, when things are spinning, they are very hard to deflect from their path.
L4. When all these factors—the bullet's motion, gravity, air resistance, recoil, and spinning—add together, they make a bullet follow a very complicated corkscrew path as it flies through the air.
M. http://www.nssf.org/safety/basics/
M1. Always Keep The Muzzle Pointed In A Safe Direction
M2. Firearms Should Be Unloaded When Not Actually In Use
M3. Don't Rely On Your Gun's "Safety"
M4. Be Sure Of Your Target And What's Beyond It
M5. Use Correct Ammunition
M6. If Your Gun Fails To Fire When The Trigger Is Pulled, Handle With Care!
M7. Always Wear Eye And Ear Protection When Shooting
M8. Be Sure The Barrel Is Clear Of Obstructions Before Shooting
M9. Don't Alter Or Modify Your Gun, And Have Guns Serviced Regularly
M10. Learn The Mechanical And Handling Characteristics Of The Firearm You Are Using
N. http://www.springfield-armory.com/resources/shooting-tips/
N1. Hold the gun firmly with your proper grip.
N2. Align the sights on the target.
N3. Begin pressing the trigger rearward, smoothly, without moving anything else.
N4. Once you have created enough pressure on the trigger, it will move (sometimes imperceptibly) until the striker, firing pin or hammer in the gun is activated and starts the ignition process, firing the gun.
N5. However, if you “jerk” or “flinch” before or at the instant you fire the gun, the shot will most probably head somewhere other than where intended.
N6. Serious shooters spend many, many hours perfecting their trigger pulling. Top marksmen can pull the trigger so well they never move the gun out of alignment.
N7. New shooters have a tendency to pull the trigger in an abrupt manner that can move the gun quickly out of alignment and cause the shot to miss.
N8. To a great degree, how you stand may be dictated by your physical condition and surroundings. However there are a few key points you should try to address when developing your shooting stance.
N9. Arms should be fully extended when possible, but not necessarily locked out. Shoulders should be relaxed, not up around your ears.
N10. Your torso should lean forward slightly with no more than a small amount of bending forward at the waist. NEVER bend backwards at waist, hip or shoulder area. Shoulders should always be forward of the hips.
N11. Your weight needs to have a forward bias to counteract the kick of the gun.
N12. Properly aligning the sights on the target gives you the orientation or exact location.
N13. Our guns’ sights are typically regulated so the bullet will impact at the top of the front sight, with proper sight alignment. Many pistol models come with sights that can be adjusted to change the point of impact.
O. cormacKAJ.RThe worldEncyclopediaofmodernGunsEdinburgh1979
O1. The development of sights for weapons has been largely governed by the accuracy of the firearm.
O2. The general maxim was "point and fire in the general direction of the preferably massed target.
O3. Only in the late 18th century were sights on pistols a common fitting.
P. http://www.history.com/topics/gatling-gun
P1. The Gatling gun is a machine gun that consists of multiple barrels revolving around a central axis and is capable of being fired at a rapid rate. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler of the Union army first used the gun at the siege of Petersburg, Virginia, in 1864-1865.
P2. The conservatism of the Union army chief of ordinance and the unreliability of early models of the gun frustrated efforts to sell it to the U.S. Army. But Gatling soon improved on the original six-barrel, .58 caliber version of the gun, which fired 350 rounds a minute, by designing a ten-barrel, .30 caliber model, which fired 400 rounds a minute. The U.S. Army adopted the Gatling gun in 1866, and it remained standard until it was replaced in the early twentieth century by the Maxim single-barrel machine gun.
P3. The Gatling gun played an important role after the Civil War, giving small numbers of U.S. troops enormous advantages in firepower over the western Indians. In newly colonized portions of Africa and Asia, the Gatling gun provided the Europeans’ margin of victory over local forces.
A1. There are 5 essentials that must be attained in order that one may be able to shoot accurately.
A2. Rifle Shooting is almost entirely a matter of intelligent practice.
A3. To become a good shot requires body and brain.
A4. To become an expert marksmen years of experience are required.
B. www.odcmp.org
B1. 1,500 CMP's founded since WW2
B2. American shooting clubs are mere infants compared to European shooting clubs.
B3. Many cities learned to shoot in order to better defend there cities.
B4. Shooting in these clubs was typically only done standing.
C. www.caes.uga.edu
C1. These weapons were designed for war but evolved into equipment for sport.
C2. Target Shooting is a sport of control, discipline, and concentration.
C3. Target Shooting brings all competitors to an even playing field.
C4. Shooting can teach vital life skills.
D. http://www.nramuseum.org/gun-info-research/a-brief-history-of-firearms.aspx
D1. The origins of gunpowder are unknown, and may have occurred in China, Turkey, or Europe. The first record describing the combination that creates this exploding poweder was created in code by Franciscan Monk Roger Bacon.
D2. Within 50 Years the cannon was developed to help wield this new found power. It took another half century for this concept to be applied to hand held weapons.
D3. The first firearm, ca 1350, called the hand cannon or hand gonnes were miniature cannons that were operated the same as a cannon.
D4. For the next 4 centuries, the advances in this weapons manufacturing focused primarily on the methods for igniting the gunpowder, in addition to design advances for more rapid accurate firing.
E. http://www.americanfirearms.org/gun-history/
E1. During the Han Dynaty, a man named Wei Boyang was the first to write anything about gunpowder he wrote about a mixture of 3 powders that would fly and dance violently. Year 142]
E2. The earliest picture of a gun is in a manuscript dated showing a pear-shaped cannon firing an arrow Year 1326.
E3. The first mechanical device for firing the handgun made its appearance in records. Depicting armor being penetrated by bullets and the handgun became a weapon capable of rudimentary precision. Year 1424
E4. Firearms were recognized as hunting arms.
F. http://library.med.utah.edu/WebPath/TUTORIAL/GUNS/GUNHIST.html
F1. The greatest stimulus for firearms development was and continues to be military usage.
F2. The reliability issue sparked the development of a number of mechanisms to ignite gunpowder.
F3. Firing mechanisms include Matchlock, Wheellock, Flintlock, and Percussion.
F4. Accuracy was improved by rifling barrels.
G. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/12/the-history-and-evolution-of-guns-as-told-through-pictures/
G1. In 1861, Dr. Richard Gattling patented the Gatlling Gun, a 6 barreled weapon capable of firing 200 rounds per minute.
G2. In 1840, the pinfire cartridge was introduced.
G3. the Army didn’t want a repeating gun, fearing that soldiers would fire more often, constantly need fresh ammunition, and overtax the supply system.
G4. But in 1863, President Lincoln test-fired a Spencer. His approval led to the purchase of 107,372 Spencer repeating carbines and rifles (of 144,500 made), and the Spencer became the principal repeating gun of the Civil War.
H. https://thecmp.org/competitions/competition-archives/
H1. CMP history goes back to late 19th century efforts by U.S. military and political leaders to strengthen our country’s national defense capabilities by improving the rifle marksmanship skills of members of the Armed Forces.
H2. The CMP traces its direct lineage to 1903 when Congress and President Theodore Roosevelt established the National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice (NBPRP) and the National Matches.
H3. During this period, program objectives shifted from military marksmanship to training civilians who might serve in the military to developing youth through marksmanship training.
H4. The CMP provides competition rules and sanctioning services for events in each of these disciplines. It now sanctions over one thousand local and regional competitions a year in these disciplines.
I. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91942478
I1. 1791: The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified. The amendment reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
I2. 1871: The National Rifle Association was formed by Union Army veterans Col. William C. Church and Gen. George Wingate.
I3. 1968: Congress passes the Gun Control Act. The law calls for better control of interstate traffic of firearms. Lee Harvey Oswald used a mail-order gun to assassinate President John F. Kennedy.
I4. 1968: Congress passes the Gun Control Act. The law calls for better control of interstate traffic of firearms. Lee Harvey Oswald used a mail-order gun to assassinate President John F. Kennedy.
J. http://nypost.com/2010/12/12/the-gun-that-changed-the-world/
J1. The Kalashnikov, or AK-47, is the gun that assassinated Sadat, armed the PLO and allowed Idi Amin to become the devil of Uganda. A favorite of both Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, the AK-47 and its offshoots are by far the most plentiful guns on Earth, with over 100 million in circulation — one for every 70 people on the planet.
J2. By the time the AK appeared, of course, military men already were enamored with the machine gun. In the 1860s, North Carolina’s Dr. Richard Gatling invented “the first reasonably effective rapid-fire arm” in the Gatling gun, which weighed about a ton and was operated by a bulky hand crank.
J3. The Gatling gun proved effective in battle, although many rejected it for its size, fearing that it would slow an army’s movement. (Before the Battle of Little Bighorn, Lt. Col. George Custer was offered Gatling guns but opted for single-shot rifles instead, likely leading to his massacre.)
J4. The world got a taste of the Gatling’s power in 1879, when the British faced down 20,000 Zulus. Outnumbered four to one, the Brits started shooting, and Zulu lines “began to melt away.” The Zulu’s were conquered in a half-hour, with only 11 British casualties.
J5. The next advance came via New Englander Hiram Maxim, who sought to design a weapon with a trigger instead of a hand crank. Realizing that the energy from a gun’s recoil could be used to power the crank’s tasks, he created the Maxim gun, which weighed less than 150 pounds and became the world’s first truly automatic weapon.
J6. With the Maxim, the British showed how easy killing had become. In 1893’s Matabele War in South Africa, they killed 1,500 natives without suffering a single casualty. In another battle, four dozen policemen with four Maxims reportedly killed 3,000 Africans.
J7. Despite — or sometimes because of — their clear success as killing machines, the global verdict on automatic weapons remained divided.
J8. But the ease and brutality of murder inspired opposition as well. In 1898, 23-year-old British journalist Winston Churchill watched his countrymen kill somewhere between 10,000-20,000 Sudanese in one day — all before noon, in fact — while losing only 48 of their own men. Churchill wrote of seeing men “destroyed, not conquered, by machinery.”
J9. “At such sights,” he wrote, “the triumph of victory faded on the mind, and a mournful feeling of disgust grew stronger.”
J10. In one 1916 battle, the British marched in formation, equipped with bayonets, against a German army with machine guns. In the first hour, 30,000 British soldiers were killed or wounded.
J11. While rifles changed little during World War II, the Soviets held a secret contest among their designers during the conflict, challenging them to create a light, compact, reliable gun that was made from few parts and easy to assemble and use.
J12. The Kalashnikov’s critical feature was that, unlike most automatic weapons, its parts were designed to be loose fitting, which drastically reduced instances of jamming. It also consisted of very few parts, making it so easy to use that Soviet schoolboys — who were trained in these matters — could dissemble and reassemble the guns in 30 seconds flat.
K. http://study.com/academy/lesson/the-history-of-gunpowder-in-the-west.html
K1. Perhaps the most significant development in the story of conquest and warfare is the use of gunpowder to propel a deadly object toward a chosen mark. Although history tells us it was the Chinese who developed this deadly weapon, the Europeans would jump on the technological band wagon, using it to devastate the natives of the New World during the Age of Exploration.
K2. By the mid-14th century, simple gunpowder cannons were common in the English and French militaries. Both sides used this technology against each other in the Hundred Years' War, a devastating war fought over the right to the French throne.
K3. Like cannons, the smoldering match cord was used to fire off a shot. Although their aim was rather precarious, this invention put guns into the hands of the individual.
K4. Since even the most unskilled person with a gun was still a threat, this created a whole new class of soldiers.
L. http://www.explainthatstuff.com/bullets.html
L1. Bullets are a bit like fireworks and they are arranged in three sections: the primer, the propellant, and the bullet proper. At the back, the primer (or percussion cap) is like the fuse of a firework: a small fire that starts a bigger one. The next section of the bullet, effectively its "main engine," is a chemical explosive called a propellant. Its job is to power the bullet through the air from the gun to the target. The front part of the bullet is a tapering metal cylinder that hits the target at high speed. It tapers to a point to help it penetrate through metal, flesh, or whatever else the target may be made from.
L2. Bullets are designed to be (relatively) safe until the moment when you fire them. When you pull the trigger of a gun, a spring mechanism hammers a metal firing pin into the back end of the bullet, igniting the small explosive charge in the primer. The primer then ignites the propellant—the main explosive that occupies about two thirds of a typical bullet's volume. As the propellant chemicals burn, they generate lots of gas very quickly. The gas shoots from the back of the bullet, increasing the pressure behind it, and forcing it down the gun barrel at extremely high speed (300 m/s or 1000 ft/s is typical in a handgun).
L3. Gun barrels have spiraling grooves cut into them that make bullets spin around very fast as they emerge. A spinning bullet is like a gyroscope: a sort of "stubborn" spinning wheel that always tries to keep turning the same way. If you try to tilt a gyroscope while it's spinning, it will try to resist whatever force you apply and, if you let go, it will soon tilt back the other way. This is why, when things are spinning, they are very hard to deflect from their path.
L4. When all these factors—the bullet's motion, gravity, air resistance, recoil, and spinning—add together, they make a bullet follow a very complicated corkscrew path as it flies through the air.
M. http://www.nssf.org/safety/basics/
M1. Always Keep The Muzzle Pointed In A Safe Direction
M2. Firearms Should Be Unloaded When Not Actually In Use
M3. Don't Rely On Your Gun's "Safety"
M4. Be Sure Of Your Target And What's Beyond It
M5. Use Correct Ammunition
M6. If Your Gun Fails To Fire When The Trigger Is Pulled, Handle With Care!
M7. Always Wear Eye And Ear Protection When Shooting
M8. Be Sure The Barrel Is Clear Of Obstructions Before Shooting
M9. Don't Alter Or Modify Your Gun, And Have Guns Serviced Regularly
M10. Learn The Mechanical And Handling Characteristics Of The Firearm You Are Using
N. http://www.springfield-armory.com/resources/shooting-tips/
N1. Hold the gun firmly with your proper grip.
N2. Align the sights on the target.
N3. Begin pressing the trigger rearward, smoothly, without moving anything else.
N4. Once you have created enough pressure on the trigger, it will move (sometimes imperceptibly) until the striker, firing pin or hammer in the gun is activated and starts the ignition process, firing the gun.
N5. However, if you “jerk” or “flinch” before or at the instant you fire the gun, the shot will most probably head somewhere other than where intended.
N6. Serious shooters spend many, many hours perfecting their trigger pulling. Top marksmen can pull the trigger so well they never move the gun out of alignment.
N7. New shooters have a tendency to pull the trigger in an abrupt manner that can move the gun quickly out of alignment and cause the shot to miss.
N8. To a great degree, how you stand may be dictated by your physical condition and surroundings. However there are a few key points you should try to address when developing your shooting stance.
N9. Arms should be fully extended when possible, but not necessarily locked out. Shoulders should be relaxed, not up around your ears.
N10. Your torso should lean forward slightly with no more than a small amount of bending forward at the waist. NEVER bend backwards at waist, hip or shoulder area. Shoulders should always be forward of the hips.
N11. Your weight needs to have a forward bias to counteract the kick of the gun.
N12. Properly aligning the sights on the target gives you the orientation or exact location.
N13. Our guns’ sights are typically regulated so the bullet will impact at the top of the front sight, with proper sight alignment. Many pistol models come with sights that can be adjusted to change the point of impact.
O. cormacKAJ.RThe worldEncyclopediaofmodernGunsEdinburgh1979
O1. The development of sights for weapons has been largely governed by the accuracy of the firearm.
O2. The general maxim was "point and fire in the general direction of the preferably massed target.
O3. Only in the late 18th century were sights on pistols a common fitting.
P. http://www.history.com/topics/gatling-gun
P1. The Gatling gun is a machine gun that consists of multiple barrels revolving around a central axis and is capable of being fired at a rapid rate. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler of the Union army first used the gun at the siege of Petersburg, Virginia, in 1864-1865.
P2. The conservatism of the Union army chief of ordinance and the unreliability of early models of the gun frustrated efforts to sell it to the U.S. Army. But Gatling soon improved on the original six-barrel, .58 caliber version of the gun, which fired 350 rounds a minute, by designing a ten-barrel, .30 caliber model, which fired 400 rounds a minute. The U.S. Army adopted the Gatling gun in 1866, and it remained standard until it was replaced in the early twentieth century by the Maxim single-barrel machine gun.
P3. The Gatling gun played an important role after the Civil War, giving small numbers of U.S. troops enormous advantages in firepower over the western Indians. In newly colonized portions of Africa and Asia, the Gatling gun provided the Europeans’ margin of victory over local forces.