The First Guns

Q: Who invented the first automatic machine gun? A: The first fully automatic machine gun is credited to an American named Hiram Maxim. Maxim's remarkable gun could shoot more than 500 rounds per minute, giving it the firepower of about 100 rifles.

The first handheld guns were essentially miniature cannons; you loaded some gunpowder, a steel ball and lit a fuse. Eventually, this technology gave way to trigger-activated weapons, such as the flintlock gun and the percussion cap.

Flintlock guns ignited gunpowder by producing a tiny spark, while percussion caps used mercuric fulminate, an explosive compound you could ignite with a sharp blow. To load a percussion cap gun, you poured gunpowder into the breech, stuffed the projectile in on top of it, and placed a mercuric fulminate cap on top of a small nipple. To fire the gun, you cocked a hammer all the way back, and pulled the gun's trigger. The trigger released the hammer, which swung forward onto the explosive cap. The cap ignited, shooting a small flame down a tube to the gunpowder. The gunpowder exploded, launching the projectile out of the barrel. (Check out How Flintlock Guns Work for more information on these weapons.)

A percussion cap gun (left) and a flintlock gun (right), two important
steps on the way to modern firearms. To learn more about these
weapons, check out How Flintlock Guns Work.

Ballistic Background: Cartridge
The next major innovation in the history of firearms was the bullet cartridge. Simply put, cartridges are a combination of a projectile (the bullet), a propellant (gunpowder, for example) and a primer (the explosive cap), all contained in one metal package.

Needless to say, cartridges were a phenomenal success. In fact, they form the basis for most modern firearms. In the next section, we'll see how these sorts of weapons work.

The backward motion of the bolt also activates the ejection system. The ejector's job is to remove the spent shell from the extractor and drive it out of an ejection port. We'll discuss this in more detail later. But first, let's look at how all of this works -- in a revolver.