The Book of RIFLES W. H. B. SMITH and JOSEPH E. SMITHTHE BOOK OF RIFLES Copyright © 1948 by The National Rifle AssociationContents Part I. THE EVOLUTION OF SHOULDER ARMS CHAPTER PAGE 1. The Origins of Gunpowder and the Gun ......-.--. 60.6000 e eee eee 3 2. The Development of Shoulder Weapons ...................-.--- 8 The Cannon Lock 20... 2.000 tet nes 8 The Matchlock 20000. 0. nt n eens 13 The Wheel-lock 00000. cc ccc cee teeter enee 18 The Smaphaunce .. 0... cee ee beet e eee 21 The True Flintlock ..........5 ceeeenes ceeeees 23 The Percussion Lock 0.0.0.0. 00.00 c cece eee eens 29 3. Rifling and Early Repeating Weapons ........... 0.000 cere ees 32 4. The Dawn of the Metallic Cartridge Rifle ....... 000 ccc eee ee eee 37 5. The Development of Bolt Actions .......0.0. 0.000 c eee eee ee 54 6. The Development of the Semiautomatic Rifle ....-............... 62 Part Il. TYPES OF RIFLE ACTIONS 7, Single Shot Rifles 2.00... 0. . ccc eee eee eee 76 8. Repeating Rifles 2.0.0... eee eee teeter 79 Part IJ. THE MODERN RIFLE 9, Albania... 0... tne e terete tenes 91 WO. Arabia 2... nett teen eee eres 91 JL. Argentina 2.00... 0... e nen eee eee 91 J2. Austria 2 cern teen teen ee 94 13. Belgium ..0 0.0 cen eee eee nent tne ees 113 14, Bolivia occ eee e tet tne 131 15. Brazil oe cee ete t etn eens .-. 131 V6. Bulgaria... 0.0 cece tee eee n beta eben eennes 138 Vi. Canada 2... eee eee renee eet e eee 184 8. Chile 0.0 eee eens eee eee teas 139 19. Nationalist China .......,......- Seed ec te ee dente e eens 142 20. Communist China 2.2.0.0. 00.0000 cece cette eens 144 21, Colombia 6... cece ce ener e ected ete ee 144 22. Costa Rica 000.00 e eee een nen nee 145 28. Cuba eee n eee n tenn eens 145 24. Czechoslovakia 146 25. Denmark 2.0... ccc cnn tenet n ete ene be nen eee 155 26. Dominican Republic 2.0.00... 60. c cece cece eee e terete ees 166Ecuador 0.0.2... 0c cece ce ene eee e eee n eee nes 169 27. 28. Egypt (United Arab Republic) ....... 60.00. c eee eee eee eee eee ee 169 29, Ethiopia... 0.0... cece reer tenet ees im 30. Finland 2.0... ec nen 171 BL. Frame co.cc eee enn Ee een eens 77 32. Germany ...... 0.0.00 cece cece eee nee eee vet eeeeeeee 197 33. East Germany .......0..0 0.0020 e cece eee eee ees 249 34. West Germany ...... 00. e eee eee eens 251 35. Great Britain . 255 86. Greece 2. eee eee 285 BT. Hungary co.cc cece nen te teen ene ee 29) BB. Tram oe eee eet enn stent eeeee 295 UR 296 MQ. Ttaly cece eee e ee ee eee eee eees an 297 41. Japan cece een e teens dee eee e nee 311 42. North Korea ......, IY 326 43, Mexico occ cece eee dee e cette ence teen nee e ees $27 44. Netherlands ...........0. 00520 c ccc eee eee teenies 330 45. Norway ..... 2... eee eee eee eee 338 AG. Paraguay... eee eee ene tee eee 343 AT, Peru 0... een eeee eee eens eee enebnneee 343 48. Poland cocci enenee ee eee e tenet e ee enne $45 49, Portugal ... 0.0.00. e eee ene n eee ee 346 50. Roumania 2.0... 0.0... eee eee eee eee eee nncneees 349 BL Spain 2. cee eee ett nnn ee $55 52. Sweden 20.0... eee eee ee eee eee n nets 363 53. Switzerland ..............05 beeen eee beeen tent eens 372 5A, Turkey oc. ccc nen eee eee een e ene ... 395 55. Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ............. 000.0 eee ee -»» 400 56. United States of America .............. 439 57. U.S. Cartridges 529 58. Uruguay ............ 574 59. Venezuela 6... cece cee e eee eee ee 574 60. Yugoslavia .... 574 61. Ammunition 578 T. Glossary 0.0... cect nent eee 586 II. The Williams Floating Chamber .......... 0.000600 eee eee eeees Gis III. Double Barreled and Three Barreled Rifles ..........-....00----- 617 IV. Paradox Guns oo... 0c cece cee eee ee teen een nen eee 618 ¥V. Rifle-Shotgun Combinations ...........0. 5.2000 sees ee enters 618 VIL Rifled Shotgun Slugs 0.00.00. 00e sce eee eee eee eee 618VIL. Morris Tube Gums 2.0.00... ccc cree eee ete eee neat 619 VIII. The Rifles of Peter Paul Mauser .......-..0-50 200-02 e cere eerie ee 619 1X. The Rifles of the Ritter von Mannlicher .......-...-.-.-.-0-0005 624 X. German Small Arms Manufacturing Codes .........-.--.-2+ 0005: 628 XI. Foreign Rifle Markings «1.0.0... 0.0 eee ence cern teen eens XII. Australian, Indian and Philippine Rifles .... XIII. Latest U.S. Sporting Rifles... 2.2.62... eee eee eensPART I The Evolution of Shoulder ArmsChapter 1 THE ORIGINS OF GUNPOWDER AND THE GUN GUNPOWDER The discovery of gunpowder lies shrouded in the mists of time. We find ambiguous references in the writing of the ancients which the credulous and the romantic can use to prove—to their own satisfaction, at any rate—that almost any invention, including gunpowder, is a product of a dim and dis- lant past. In Virgil’s Aeneid one can find mention of the attempt of Salmoneus to reproduce thunder; Valerius Flaccus can be quoted on the efforts of the Brahmins to do the same; Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of Tyanaeus says of the failure of Alexander the Great to storm India; “These truly wise men, the Oxydracae, dwell between the Rivers Hyphasis and Ganges; their country Alexander never entered . . . their cities he never could have taken, though he had led a thousand as brave as Achilles, or three thousand such as Ajax to the assault; for they come not out to the field to fight those who attack them, but these holy men, beloved by the gods, overthrow their enemies with tempests and thunderbolts shot from their walls.” In Vitruvius, and in Plut- arch's Fife of Marcellus are statements which can be extracted to indicate that Archimedes was familiar with gunpowder. The ancient Sanskrit records (notably those quoted in the Halhed trans- lation of the Gentoo Code as printed by the East India Company in 1776 and alleged to date back some 500 years) and Oppert’s On the Weapons of the Ancient Hindus published in England in 1880, are replete with allusions and out-of-context extracts which seek to establish a knowledge of gunpowder in India long before the dawn of European history. French researchers in the last century endeavored to prove that the explo sive was first brought to Europe by returning Crusaders who learned of it from the Arabs who, allegedly, had employed it in the year Ggo A.D. at the Siege of Mecca. While there is adequate evidence of the use of inflammable compounds by the ancients, there is no real evidence that gunpowder—particularly as a pro- pellant—was known before the 13th Century. On the contrary, there is a vast body of negative fact to make a case against gunpowder being used in very early times. Anna Comnena’s work The Alexiad,* a history of the reign of her father, the Roman Emperor Alexius I, from 1081 to 1118 A.D., lists various Greek Fire formulas, but gives no evidence of a knowledge of a true explosive. Another valuable piece of negative evidence is found in the account of one of the most remarkable—and most unknown—adventurer-ambassadors of all time: Giovanni di Plan Carpin. Carpin, a wained and experienced soldier thoroughly familiar with all the weapons of his day, was sent as ambassador *An excellent English translation by Elizabeth Dawes of The dlexied was published in England in 1928, 34 BOOK OF RIFLES to the Court of the Great Ghengis Khan at Karakorum by Pope Innocent 1V in 1246 A.D. Carpin was greeted by the Great Khan as a worthy friend and soldier; and during his stay he traversed the length and breadth of the Mongol Empire and was an observer of wars between the Mongols and the Chinese. Methodically he listed the types and classes of weapons he encountered—ballista and similar military machines, the sling, baws, Greek Fire, and he carefully described the burning of invested cities by hurling melced fat or callow projec- tiles into them. He wrote a detailed account of the historic siege of Kai-Fung Fu, Yet nowhere in his original report does he intimate an awareness of any substance resembling gunpowder. Hime, Oman, Guttman, Kohler and other researchers have written thick volumes exposing the errors of translation and belief which produced the early fables of gunpowder. Most of the legends of very early Arab firearms and explosives stem from translations of documents in the Escurial made by the Librarian, Michael Casiri, between 1760 and 1770; translations which have been proved incorrect. As to the claim that the fourteenth century monk Berthold Schwartz (or Bartholdus Niger) discovered gunpowder at Freiburg in Germany, even a cursory study of the record discloses that the legend is baseless. A Professor Lenz in 1840, seeking to claim the invention for Germany, reported an alleged entry in the Memoariebook der Stad Ghant for the year 1313 which translated read: “In this year the use of guns was first discovered in Germany by a monk.” Here would seem to be clear proof of the Berthold Schwartz claim, But there are six copies of the Memoriebook known to be in existence. Five of these contain no mention whatever of the passage cited. The sixth copy when checked by M. Diegerich, the conservator of old records at Ghent, about 1906 also failed to disclose the passage quoted by Lenz under the date listed. However, in a transcript of the Ghent annals fer the year 1393, a passage of somewhat similar nature is found. In some manner Professor Lenz may have confused the year 1393 with the year 1913. If we assume that this one transcript is accurate, the fact remains that by 1393 firearms had appeared in every major corner of Eurape, so that the Schwartz “discovery” claim would certainly not be valid. Where, then, did gunpowder first. appear on the record? In a manuscript first written in Greek by the unknown monk Mareus Graecus, which later appeared in expanded form in Latin under the title Liber ignium ad com- burendos bostes. This remarkable manuscript, while listing formulas for Greek Fire, also gives specific formulas for gunpowder (ignis volans). One formula is: “1 part quick sulphur, 2 parts willow charcoal, 6 parts saltpeter.” Gunpowder made by this formula was too powerful for use in weapons made even in the igth and the 15th Centuries. ‘he Liber igntum lists 35 formulas altogether and also gives instructions for manufacturing rockets. Hofer in his Historie de la Chimie gave the date of this manuscript as the year 846 A.D.; but later researches by Hime, Oman and others, and examiina- tion of the translations at the Bibliotheque in Paris, the Hof-und-Staats- bibliothek at Munich, and Germanische National Muscum at Nuremberg, and at Oxford University have established that while same passages in the GraecusORIGINS OF GUNPOWDER AND THE GUN 3 work are of classical antiquity, the sections dealing with gunpowder formulas were written about the middle of the 1gth Century. The next, or perhaps concurrent, references to gunpowder are in the manu- scripts of the English monk Roger Bacon, the Spanish monk Ferrarius and the Bishop Albertus Magnus of Ratisbon. The manuscript of Ferrarius is an unedited letter now in England in the Bodleian Library at Oxford addressed to an unknown “Ansclm.” The Opus de mirabilibus mundi of Bishop Albertus Magnus, like that of Ferrarius, is undated but Albertus Magnus is known to have lived between about 1193 and 1280. Inasmuch as the references ta gunpowder in Liber ignium are believed to have been added to that manuscript about the middle of the 13th Century, and Bacon and Magnus were in communication with one another, there may be some connection between all three manuscripts. Obviously they all ante- dated the so-called “discovery” of gunpowder by the German monk. In the Epistola de secretis aperibus Artis et Naturae et de nullitate magiae which Roger Bacon wrote in 1248, and dedicated to William of Auvergne, Bishop of Paris, Bacon not only describes the ingredients of gunpowder and lists many of its properties, but actually recommends its military use as an explosive far the destruction of armies. This treatise is particularly noteworthy because Bacon does not claim to have invented the mixture, but speaks of it as something well known at the period of his writing and alludes to its use in pyrotechnics. Where did Roger Bacon learn of gunpowder? We can do no more than guess. He travelled in Spain for a time when it was the home of a great culture and the seat of the outstanding universities. Among the authentic manuscripts in the Esenrial at Madrid are a few treating of chemical formulas which might indicate a knowledge of gunpowder, though they are not. explicit, as is Bacon's own work. Most notable of these are the formulas of Nedj-iddin Hassan Abrammah who died in 1295 and one credited to Yussuf-ibn-Ismail. It is important to note that while formulas such as these mention the ignition factor of saltpeter, they do not note any explostve applications of it. Since the subject was explored by the Saracens, many of whom were noted for their knowledge of alchemy, it is possible that Bacon gained some information from them, as is often claimed. However, since the Marcus Graccus manuscript was available with its gunpowder formulas about the year 1270, and the learned men of those days were principally churchmen, it seems more likely that Bacon’s knowledge came through a study of the Graecus manuscript. Millions of words have been written by enthusiasts, theorists, nationalists, scholars and religionists to prove that the invention was ancient Indian or Chinese, Italian or Saracen, German or Flemish, English-Russian and even Icelandic! All those theories are interesting. Many are possible. A few are even probable. But this brief summary covers the salicnt points of all that is provable of the origins of gunpowder. THE ORIGINS OF THE GUN Exactly when and where tubes were first used with a charge of gunpowder to hurl projectiles we do not know. In The Alexiad already quoted, we learn that bronze tubes were used to direct inflammable mixtures. The German6 BOOK OF RIFLES Zeilschrift fiir historische Waffenkunde among whose papers we find many of the outstanding research studies on early arms, states that Chinese annals for the year 1259 A.D. list the use of a “fiery powder” in bamboo tubes. Hollow tubes of wood wrapped around with hide, hemp or a similar winding and then loaded from the muzzle with alternate charges of powder and an incen- diary ball are known to have been in use by the carly ‘Vartars and Arabs. These last mentioned devices operate on the system of Roman Candles, the fire at the muzzle communicating around each ball to the powder which launches it. It must be evident, however, that all such weapons were not actually guns but were, in effect, forerunners of the modern flame thrower. They were used to start fires, not to penetrate by projectile force. German writers for years have pointed to the legend of the “discovery” of guupowder by the monk Berthold Schwartz as evidence that the discovery of the possibility of projecting lethal balls by gunpowder was made in Germany. According to the favorite version of this tale, the monk was compounding gun- powder in a chemist’s mortar with a pestle when it exploded and the pestle was hurled a goodly distance. From this accident Schwartz is said to have evolved the idea of projectile force from which came the artillery mortar. Schwartz may have had such an accident and it may have been the genesis of the gun idea in Germany bne from the historical record we can establish that projectile firearms were known and used in Italy and in the Low Countries long before the time of Schwartz. While the early Saracen records seem to show quite general use of stone- throwing cannon as early as 1247 in the defense of Seville, the projecting devices may have been mechanical engines rather than cannon with gun- powder. The earliest records whose authenticity can be satisfactorily estab- lished arc those of Italian and Flemish origin, with the Italian apparently somewhat earlier than those of the Flemings. Whether the handgun evolved from the sicge or deiense cannon, was con- current with it, or was an entirely separate development, it is impossible to establish. One can make a case from fragmentary records to bolster any one of those conjectures; but invariably the weight of counterevidence is strong enough to prevent a positive decision. The earliest records seldom distinguish between heavy ordnance and hand guns. It is only at a later date thac explicit descriptions, tapestries and drawings provide positive evidence about this phase of small arms evolution. An excellent example of an undocumented statement being accepted as fact is to be found in the remark first made, apparently, by the German writer Auguste Demunin in his Die Kriegswaffen that the town of Amberg in Ger- many had a cannon in the year igo1. This claim was accepted uncritically by W. W. Greener in his book The Gun first published in 1880. Unfortunately, Demmin and Greener did not or could not document statements of this char- acter, Their later statements about the very early manufacture of arms in Flanders atso rest largely on undisclosed or unverifiable sources, and many have been seriously questioncd by later researchers of the caliber of Oscar Guttman and Sir Charles Oman. The first authentic contemporaneous illustration we have of a true cannon is in the famous Millimete Manuscript. The manuscript text is titled DeORIGINS OF GUNPOWDER AND THE GUN 7 officiis regnum and is a dedicatory address given by de Millimete to King Edward III on his accession to the throne in 1327 A.D. It is dated 1326. It is important to arms research because we know that Edward ILI was a mili- tary leader who tried to keep abreast of the war developments of his time, and that he was among the first to employ cannon on the field of battle. This manuscript is in the library of Christ Church College at Oxford, England. It has beautiful illuminations of cannon, but the decorations have no bearing whatever on the text of the manuscript! Whatever we learn we glean from the illuminations themselves. One of these vignettes shows ‘a bottle-shaped cannon on a four-legged mount loaded with a huge “holt” which projects from the muzzle. An armored soldier standing by the piece is firing it against a for- tress gate at close range. From the tinting of the face of the soldier, some writers have suggested that the gunner was intended to be a Moor, indicating Saracen origin for the cannon—but this is guess-work pure and simple. The bolt (called “garrot’ or “carreau’’) was adapted from projectiles used in earlier war engines such as the espringale; and was used in both hand guns and small ordnance of this and somewhat later times. Some historians state that Edward IT] mounted two or three cannon on a small hill near Grecy, and that they played a part in the catastrophic defeat of the French. From this point on, however, facts are easier to find. We still encounter the indiscriminate use of terms which may mean either heavy ordnance or hand guns (the Italians listing them as “bombardes,” the Germans as “biichsen,” the Lowlanders as “vogheleer” and the French as “iquenon” or “canon”, but the Italian and French records in particular now begin cto give specific descrip- tions often augmented by drawings and frescoes of great clarity. Small arms which can be verified as having been manufactured in these very early times do not exist but the text and pictorial records furnish a discernible pattern of the evolution of the hand gun.Chapter 2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHOULDER WEAPONS THE CANNON LOCK The earlicst positive data we have on the use of small arms comes from Italian sources. The first small arms, now called “Cannon Locks,” were com- monly of cylindrical form and had a length of about nine inches exclusive of the staff or pike to which they were affixed. They were made of cast bronze or brass or of wrought iron, some having chambers and some having straight bores. They actually had no “lock” but were ignited through a touchhole on top of the barrel. The muzzle commonly had a thick outer ring to strengthen it, The rear of the cylinder had a socket to receive the staff, which was fastened into place by leather or iron bands. The crude powder of those days was truly a powder, granulation not then being known. A wad of soft wood was placed between the propelling charge and the projectile to give the gas pressure opportunity to build up, because the low saltpetcr content of the compound coupled with the powdered form gave very slow combustion. From a study of the tapestries and illuminations of the time it is evident that both balls and bolts were used as projectiles. The balls were of iron, lead or brass; while the bolts (quarrels or parros 4 feu) were similar to the crossbow missiles and were brass “feathered.” These first arms were usually “aimed” with one hand, the staff being held under the arm, while a lighted coal or a hot iron was placed against the powder in the touch-hole. 1324-1343 A.D. In the early 14th Century, Italy was the most advanced and the best edu- cated nation in the world. During that same period Flanders and Germany were busily engaged in developing all the appliances of war—the Belgians to sell them abroad, the Germans to use them for conquest. The Italian records were the best organized in the world at that time, though the Germans were soon to outreach them. The archives of the City of Florence for this period definitely establish that firearms were already in extensive use there. Since no invention is generally accepted immediately upon its appearance, the inclusion of firearms in a city's chronicles makes it reasonable to suppose that such arms had been experimented with and used at a much earlier date. However, for the record, here is the first account which can be positively checked: Archivo de Florence, reg. 23, De riformagioni, page 65, dated 1924. In the year 1991, the Chronicles of Gividale, a town in the Province of Fruile in Venezia, made definite mention of “‘scolop.” Three years later “sclopetus” was mentioned in the Ckronicon Extense of 1334. In 1340 Paolo del Maestro Neri began work on a series of frescoes in the church of the former monastery of St. Leonardo in Lecetto, a small town near Sienna, Italy. The actual receipt signed by the artist on completion of the work 8DEVELOPMENT OF SHOULDER WEAPONS 9 in 1343 is preserved in the Sicnna Library, and in Jacopo Gelli’s Gli Arch- ibugiart Milanesi published in Milan in 1904 are photographs of the receipt and of the frescoes. These frescoes, still to be seen though peeling and badly weathered, show contemporary scenes of land and naval warfare. One panel shows very clearly the attack on a castle with the besiegers using cannon, while the defenders are firing back with bows and hand-cannons. These hand-cannon are true hand guns—metal tubes fastened to sticks but fired by one man with a lighted coal. These hand guns are essentially the same as those illustrated in German manuscripts of 50 years later and English manuscripts of 100 years later. They offer definite proof, particularly when considered in connection with early Italian city records in Florence and Perugia, that the hand gun followed very closely, or paralleled, the development of the heavy cannon or “bombard,” Many early writers on this subject were apparently led astray by incomplete historical research. 1364 A.D. The Chronicles of Perugia for 1364 record a definite order for “4,00 bom- barde.” This last reference is of particular interest in that it is the largest single arsenal record of carly days. Jt specifics that the bullets must penetrate any armor—quite an optimistic order for that day and age and for the arms and explosives then in use. During the last century there were in Italy two hand guns which historians of great ability believed to be the oldest then extant. The first of these was thoroughly discussed by the German General Kohler in his comprehensive work on early arms Entwicklung des Kriegswesens, etc. It was of bronze, orna- mented with a Greek cross and oak leaves, bore the number 1922 (believed to indicate the date of manufacture) and the letters PPPF. Kohler described it in his book published in 1887, though it had been described earlier (in 1847) by Count ‘d’ Arco who owned it at one time and also by the reliable Major Angelucci in his Decumenti imediti published in Turin in 1869. This gun was stolen from the Monastery of St. Orsola at Mantua in 1649. The second “sclopos” said to date from the early part of the 1qth Century was a wrought irom piece having a very roughly finished barrel and shaft attachment which was understood to have been excavated from the ruins of ancient Monte Vermini castle in 1841. Assuming it to be genuine, this piece would date from at least 1941 A.D. 1347-1370 AD. While there are no English records yet found specifically dealing with hand guns at this period, there is ample proof of an extensive use of gunpowder. In the records for 1347 of Thomas de Roldeston, Keeper of the King’s Privy Wardrobe, is an item covering the purchase of gunpowder at eighteen pence per pound. Later English records also detail powder purchase; but the hold of the longbow was so great on both the populace and the military of early days, that not until the Wars of the Roses (1455-85) do we encounter reason- ably common mention of hand guns. In France, Louis, duc d’Anjou ordered “four cannon at a price of three francs” in 1370. The original order is still in existence among Les Titres10 BOOK OF RIFLES Scellés Clairambault. The very low price rules out entirely the possibility of the term “cannon” in this manuscript being interpreted as anything but hand cannon—a small metal tube attached to a staff for use by an individual. The gunpowder of this period, ground to a very fine powder, had a slow rate of combustion and was very weak. Many of the earliest guns were made of strips of wrought iron poorly welded, hence only such a slow-combustion propellant could be safely used. 1380-1390 A.D. The Codex Germanicus 600 is an original manuscript entitled Anleitung Schiesspulver zu bereiten. Biichsen zu laden und zu beschiessen (Directions for Preparation of Gunpowder. How to Load Guns and Discharge Them.) It is in the Kéngl. und. Staatsbibliothek in Munich; and while early German author- ities date it as far back as 1345, later and more thorough researchers place it in the period about 13g0 A.D. As its name implies, this manuscript is an extensive and most important study of the explosives of the period and of their use, It is one of the best of several such treatises which have come down to us. Te instructs that the barrel be loaded three-fifths of its length with powder, then rammed down; that a space be left between the charge and a soft birch- wood wad or plug, and that the ball be loaded against the wad. ‘he purpose was, of course, to improve combustion by allowing some air (oxygen) over the powder to compensate for the lack of oxygen in the closely packed powder. During this period, and from then on, the record of the hand gun in con- temporary manuscript, drawing and sample weapons becomes clearer. While other nations of Europe seem to have dabbled in or extensively used firearms sometime before the Germans, it is to German records, illuminations, tapestries, paintings and arms that we must now turn for most of our verifiable knowledge of the carly arms. Contemporary records are of definite value on firearms only when they are explicit. When the German “biichsen” appears in early records it may mean any type of ordnance or firearm. (Literally interpreted it reads “box.") But when in the Vestenberg Inventory of 1389 we find two “hantbuchsen” listed, there is no longer doubt. These hantbuchsen generally fired half or three- quarter ounce bails, and were held in the hands when discharged. By this time the art of welding had been fairly well developed. One or two plates of stccl were bent or rolled over a dorn (or mandrel) and welded into a tube the rear end of which was then sealed by forging. With the strength of barrel and breech increased by this improvement in metal working we find the proportion of saltpeter in gunpowder mixtures rising from 2 parts to 3 or 4 parts, with resultant improvement in combustion and pressures. The Tannenberger Biichse, 1399 It is now that we come to the Tannenberger Biichse, probably the greatest single historical item in the field of early hand guns. This is the one existing hand gun of the 14th Century whose authenticity can be proved beyond doubt. Vesta ‘lannenberg in Hesse during the 14th Century was the stronghold of a robber band whose depredations were notorious. The fortress was invested and stormed in 1399 and every effort was made to obliterate it. It was blown