Sporting guns are often made withtwo barrels fixed side by side upon one stock. Such barrels are made separately, and have their adjacent sides filed flat, in order that they may lie close together. They are secured together by ribs running between them from end to end.
The wooden stock: upon which the barrel is mounted is most commonly made of walnut tree. When the shaping of the stock is com pleted, it is shod with brass, the trigger-guard and other metallic fittings and ornaments are let into the wood, and every part is fitted with suitable screws and fastenings, after which the whole is taken to pieces ; the woodwork is finished by staining and polishing, the brass work is filed and polished, and the barrels are sent to be finished, which is done in various ways. Most barrels are now bronzed, by the application of some chemical liquid aided by heat. Until a comparatively recent period all military guns, and most of those used for sporting purposes, were made with flintlocks, in which the ignition of the priming-powder was effected by the sudden stroke of a wedge shaped flint against a piece of steel, by which a stream of sparks was directed into the pan containing the priming. But percussion caps, containing an explosive powder, are now generally used. The fulminating substance is usually placed in a small copper capsule resembling a thimble in shape, which fits on to the nipplo of the touch-hole, and if not blown to pieces by the explosion, is removed previous to reloading. The hammer is pro
vided with a shield to prevent any fragments of the copper cap from flying against the face of the shooter.
In the manufacture of common infantry guns, Birmingham is beginning to feel the competition of Liege, in Belgium ; but in the better kinds of fowling-pieces she has no com petitor but London.
Of the hand guns used in past ages, the variety was greater than many readers would suppose. The following are the names of most of them :—Arquebtts, haquebut, demi haque, ?nun net, wheel-lock, currier, snaphaunce, caliver, carabine, esdopetta, fusil, mushetoon, petronel, blunderbus, dragon, hand-mortar, dag, pistol, trickerlock, firelock, the. Of those whose names are hest known at the present day, the musquet was a Spanish invention, originally very clumsy ; the carabine is a short gun, about forty inches long; the fusil, a French inven tion, was as long as the musquet, but much lighter ; the blunderbus is shorter than the carabine, and has a wide barrel; the pistol was invented at Pistoia in Tuscany, in the time of Henry VIII.
At Vincennes in France, specimens of all the fire-arms in Europe have been lately tried by the government authorities, with a view to determine the relative efficiency of different forms and different manufactures.