Rifles: "To Keep and Bear Arms" 1962 US Army; The Big Picture TV-557

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Since the discovery of America by Columbus, the rifle has played a significant role in helping our great country fight for and maintain its freedom. This week's issue of THE BIG PICTURE, narrated by Craig Stevens of "Peter Gunn" fame, offers a moving insight into the history of the rifle and the part it has played in our nation's development.

Originally a public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifle

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

A rifle is a long-barrelled firearm designed for accurate shooting, with a barrel that has a helical pattern of grooves ("rifling") cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus on accuracy, rifles are typically designed to be held with both hands and braced firmly against the shooter's shoulder via a buttstock for stability during shooting. Rifles are used extensively in warfare, law enforcement, hunting, and shooting sports.

The term was originally rifled gun, with the verb "rifle" referring to the early modern machining process of creating groovings with cutting tools...

The distinct feature that separates a rifle from the earlier smoothbore long guns (e.g., arquebuses, muskets) is the rifling within its gun barrel. The raised areas of a barrel's rifling are called "lands", which make contact with and exert torque on the projectile as it moves down the bore, imparting a spin around its longitudinal axis. When the projectile leaves the barrel, this spin persists and lends gyroscopic stability to the projectile due to conservation of angular momentum, preventing yawing and tumbling in flight. This allows the use of more elongated and aerodynamically-efficient bullets (as opposed to the spherical balls used in smoothbore muskets) and thus improves range and accuracy...

The grooved gun barrel is considered by many to have been invented as early as 1440 and further developed by Gaspard Kollner of Vienna, Austria, circa 1498. The spirally grooved gun barrel is considered German in origin, invented by Augustus Kotter of Nuremberg circa 1520. Military commanders preferred smooth bore weapons for infantry use because rifles were much more prone to problems due to powder fouling the barrel and because they took longer to reload and fire than muskets.

...The black powder used in early muzzle-loading rifles quickly fouled the barrel, making loading slower and more difficult. The greater range of the rifle was considered to be of little practical use, since the smoke from black powder quickly obscured the battlefield and made it almost impossible to aim the weapon from a distance. Since musketeers could not afford to take the time to stop and clean their barrels in the middle of a battle, rifles were limited to use by sharpshooters and non-military uses like hunting...

The performance of early muskets defined the style of warfare at the time. Due to the lack of accuracy, soldiers were deployed in long lines (thus line infantry) to fire at the opposing forces. Precise aim was thus not necessary to hit an opponent. Muskets were used for comparatively rapid, imprecisely aimed volley fire, and the average soldier could be easily trained to use them.

In the territory of Kentucky, one of the most successful early rifles, the long rifle, was developed over the course of the 18th century. Compared to the more common Brown Bess, they had a tighter bore with no space between bullet and barrel, and still used balls instead of conical bullets. The balls the long rifle used were smaller, allowing the production of more rounds for a given amount of lead. These rifles also had longer barrels, allowing more accuracy, which were rifled with a helical groove. These first started appearing sometime before 1740, one early example being made by Jacob Dickert, a German immigrant. By 1850 there were a number of such manufacturers in the area. The longer barrel was a departure by local gunsmiths from their German roots, allowing bullets to achieve a higher speed (as the burning gunpowder was contained longer) before emerging from the barrel.

The rifle was used for precise shooting, aiming and firing at individual targets, instead of the musket's use for imprecise fire

By the time of the American Revolutionary War, these rifles were commonly used by frontiersmen, and Congress authorized the establishment of ten companies of riflemen...