Hunting Rifles 2

Hunting Rifles

Another Look on Hunting Rifles

Summary: Hunting rifles have a significant effect on technology advancement; in fact it’s featured in every part of history.

I always have a passion for hunting rifles though I am not an avid fan for hunting myself. It’s the hunting rifle that fascinates me. No, I’m not a dreadful psycho who revels in chains and instruments of death and torture, it’s not the physics of ballistics but its component of history that I am captivated with. For me hunting rifles are pieces of history, the science of gunpowder that set most of our technology running today.

Hunting rifles have a significant effect on technology advancement; in fact it’s featured in every part of history. I always thought of the event when the 16th century flint& lock musket that rendered armors useless, or even those cheap blunderbuss that are used to board enemy ships. Or the Battles of Lexington and Concord where the outnumbered minutemen with their hunting rifles heroically defended Middlesex County against the British Regulars.

Shot of Time

At first there was hunting. Game hunting evolves eons ago where primitive man learns to get sustenance by using weapons. As the need grew, the technology of hunting grew. Now the early forms of ballistics and trajectory have been learnt by the use of bow and arrow. Such was the success of that invention that it was used for the majority of the human existence*.

*Note: Archery was thought to exist roughly 50,000 due to an excavation of the same date revealing stone arrowheads in Africa. Archery (and all other forms) was a dominant range attack until it was replaced by guns somewhere in the 17th century.

The Advent of Gunpowder

Though certain records show that gunpowder had been in production as early as 1247 in Europe there had been no reference in actual rifle use or its early forms. The siege of Seville did mention but at this time, cannons were now loaded will gunpowder to facilitate longer range. The Chinese did have early accounts on inventing gunpowder though there had been no records yet of guns. Hand guns did appear on Italian knights in 1397 where they fire before engaging. These “hand guns” where literally small cannons. It was clear 1498, after Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas when the rifling technology was really discovered. Muskets and harquebus, flint lock rifles began to render the plate armor useless.

Truly hunting rifles are magnificent pieces. No other single item has much history behind it than a hunting rifle. Take an authentic Winchester for instance and learn about its role in the Indian wars. Or perhaps a browning and its role in the first world war.

Hunting rifles are things from the past but their legacy still runs far into the future. Aside from history, they may or may not be effective on the woods but they do make really gorgeous centerpieces.