Lee440 listed the 55 Boys and the 20 and 30mm

We need to see more people's lists in order. There are plenty good choices here now to chose and rank from.

This warms my heart... A gravity fed 45-70 Gatling gun.

This one will not make the list, for many reasons:





Darwin Award Grand Champion of 1954.
The USA and USAF probably stockpiled the ammo at Fort Campbell, KY from mid 1950's to late 1960's.

Rip ...

quote:

Originally posted by boom stick:
We need to see more people's lists in order. There are plenty good choices here now to chose and rank from.

boom stick,

You are the Grand Poobah, have at it!
I am having too much fun to come to a hasty conclusion.

1. Brown Bess
2. Kentucky Rifle
3. Springfield Model 1863

Percussion, 58-caliber, rifled muskets climaxed the muzzle loader era ending with the US Civil war,
which killed more US soldiers than all our other wars combined.
Some say that most of those combat deaths were due to the improved Minie Ball that I will call the "Burton Ball."
It was developed by James H. Burton in 1855 at Harper's Ferry Armory.



French Army Captain Claude-Etienne Minie (Minnie-yay!) tagged the nickname for the bullet in 1847,
that others had worked toward before him,
and improved on subsequently.
Burton's is the one we call the "Minie Ball" today.
The rifles leading up to the Model 1863 Springfield:

French Army P1851 Minie Rifle
British Army Pattern 1853 Enfield
US Army Model 1861 Springfield

After this it is cartridge developments that take the fore.
Bullets have gone from .75 and .69-caliber round balls to .58-caliber conical balls.
Getting smaller yet deadlier efficient, but still big bore.
French and British and American, what a motley crew so far!
Next milestone is the centerfire cartridge and breech loader starting at .58-caliber to .45-caliber.
Minie balls are not necessary in breech-loading, cartridge weapons, solid base bullets are more dependable.
The British and Americans primarily handled the next transition.
The British .577 Snider and .58 U.S. Musket were both developed 1865-1866.
Yet by 1866, the .50-70 Government was being chambered in re-lined .58-caliber musket barrels in America.
The British seem to have skipped right over the .50-cal and went directly to GO.
In the 1869 British Rifle Trials we see the appearance of the .450-3.25"-BP cartridge in coiled brass form
that would eventually spawn the drawn brass, balloon-headed darling BP cartridge by 1874, and finally the .450 NE 3.25" of 1897-1898.
But it failed the military trials, won by the .577/.450 Martini Henry adopted in 1871 by the British.
Then the American .45-70 Govt. of 1873 production arrived with a Brown Bess sort of load,
500 grains of lead and 70 grains of FFg used most efficiently.
Progress!

4. Remington Rolling Block in .50/70 Govt., .43 Spanish, .45/70 Govt., etc., etc.
From the basis Model 1871 and other variants onward into the MILITARY smokeless powder era, it was used worldwide, even by the French.

Rip ...

Shown is a Neisse 1809/35 Potsdam model. the 1809 is/was flintlock, the 1835 conversion was updating it to percussion. they are smoothbore, .70 caliber. the early history of this one isn't known by anyone still living, but the 1809 was used by Prussian troops against Napoleon and other antagonists of the era. then during the American Civil War quantities were sold to US and Confederate soldiers/armies. this particular one was owned by a Civil War veteran from Iowa, so while used during the war is not likely that it was involved in any battles of note. When the soldier died in 1930 my dad, then 8 years of age, purchased it at the estate auction for $.25. It is still operational though it hasn't been fired, likely in over 100 years.

Over 200 years old.
Nice.
Your Dad was precocious.
I bought a couple of comic books with my first weekly allowance of 25 cents.
He did better with his quarter.

Rip ...

Wow! Thank you for sharing. The best .25 cents you ever spent I bet.

boom stick,

That was Ray B's Pop that made the fantastic invesrment.
Not Ray B.
As you were ...
Greatest Military Big Bores Top Ten
(continued)
1. Brown Bess
2. Kentucky Rifle
3. Springfield M1863
4. Remington Rolling Block
5. Mauser M98

Thanks to the anti-tank rifle, a scaled-up M98, there was a big bore
military version, about equivalent to a 50 BMG.

Rip ...

When considering "significant" weaponry it is necessary to consider the strategic and tactical elements that accompany each. Prior to the development of gunpowder as a propellent the primary source of energy for individual weaponry was the strength of the individual soldier. Artillery was an expanded version of the same in the form of catapults and such. That technology predates the topic of large bore military weaponry. the initial individual weaponry was a firearm that was loaded from the muzzle. the choice was to have bullets that fit the bore tightly and while more accurate took longer to load and required more bore cleaning than guns that used bullets slightly smaller than the bore. these smaller bullets were faster to load and allowed for a larger amount of fouling in the bore. So while faster to load they were less efficient and less accurate than the tighter bullet. So armies seeking to gain the advantage arranged their tactics along the lines of these faster loading but less accurate guns. The firing from double ranks was developed and this was the dominant military tactic that saw the rise of the British Empire. Two armies marched to within 100 yards of each other then commenced fire- each side throwing as many bullets at the other as possible. After the firing had worn down the ranks, one army would charge the other and the hand to hand ensued. This was the era of the Brown Bess and the Potsdam. The next significant development was the rifled barrel. during the Army-Navy football game Knute Rockne's ancestor developed the forward pass and it was discovered that if the quarterback threw the ball point on and spiraling, that he could place it into the wide receivers hands at ranges considerably farther than if the ball was thrown without a spin. Later in armory class one of the enterprising cadets suggested that if the football traveled better with a spin that maybe the bullets from guns would have similar benefits. So to make the bullets spin there were grooves cut into the interior of the barrels patterned after barberpoles. These new rifled barrels were considerably more accurate than the old smoothbores, but considerable time was spent as the bullets needed to be pounded down the barrel. While quite effective for hunting the local deer that only needed one shot this was not a problem, But to take on the British army, even if you could hit one of them at a distance 40 yards greater than they could hit you it was a severe disadvantage since once fired it was several minutes before your rifle would be ready to fire the second time. By that time you would be involved in a hand to hand or the Brits would have closed the distance to 50 yards and sent volley after volley into your troops. Neither situation would lead to victory on the battlefield. the solution came about along two methods. Both involved bullets that were slightly smaller than bore. One method was to cast the bullets out of soft lead and have a large hollowed base. the powder was dropped into the barrel, then the hollowbase bullet was pushed down on it so that some of the powder was inside the base. On firing pressure pushed out on the base, filling the bullet into the rifling, allowing the bullet to follow the grooves on it's way through the barrel and continue to spin after leaving the barrel. the hollowbase was not very efficient aerodynamically but it was more accurate than the smoothbore and was equally as fast to load. The second method was to use a round ball similar to that used in the smoothbore but slightly smaller in diameter than the bore. the difference was made up with a cloth patch. the patch filled in the space between the barrel and bullet and gripped each tightly so that when fired the patch followed the rifling and its grip on the bullet caused it to spin. While taking slightly longer to load due to the addition of the patch, the smaller bullet allowed easier loading even with a fouled bore and the bullet was much more aerodynamic than the hollowbase. So a soldier with a rifle that used patched bullets had a rifle that effectively doubled the effective range over the smoothbore and took only a slightly longer amount of time to load. This was the development that included the Kentucky rifle. the change in tactics available to users of the Kentucky rifle when meeting on the field of battle with users of the Brown Bess was that they were no longer in a slug-fest at 50 yards. The significant increase in accuracy meant that the shooter could actually select a target rather than just pointing the gun at center mass of a formation. This ability led to a change in tactics. Instead of two armies meeting on a plain, the army equipped with Kentucky rifles could be dispersed in small groups, hidden by natural cover and camouflage and pick off targets of opportunity, and who else better to take out of service than the officers directing the troops? And so guerrilla warfare was born. Given beneficially arranged landscapes a few sharpshooters could hold down considerably larger numbers of enemy. The next significant development actually was a three pronged development: primer compound that exploded when crushed, brass cartridges that contained the primer as well as the powder and bullet, and the breach loading rifle. Each development allowed the development of the other. These changes allowed for the bullet to be sized to full bore since it didn't need to be pushed down the barrel to load, merely place in the breech, the breech then closed and the rifle was ready to fire. each cartridge was a self contained pre-made load. no measuring on the battlefield. Initially this was a significant change. Instead of going through the entire process of loading the muzzle loader, all that was needed was to open the breech, remove the spent case, insert a loaded one, close the breech, aim, fire, repeat. As such single-shot breechloading rifles were a quantum jump over their muzzleloading predecessors. These were rifles such as the Remington Rolling Block, Trapdoor Springfields and the cartridge model Sharps. during teh American Civil War there was a mix of smoothbore, rifled muzzleloader and rifled breechloader single shot and repeaters. Victory in the various battles was determined by the adaptability of the general's tactics when encountering an enemy armed with the latter.

with the impetus of war there was much research and development in firearms and it wasn't long after the development of the self-contained cartridge that the repeater was developed. the common theme was a breech that had a locking bolt to close it. various methods were used to open and close the bolt. The Mauser brothers in Germany just put a handle on the bolt and the soldier grabbed the handle, turned it to unlock, pulled back to remove the spent case, connect with a cartridge from the magazine and pushing the bolt forward, turning it down to lock and the rifle was ready to fire. On the American side of the Atlantic Henry, Spencer and others added a finger lever that connected to the bolt and by rotating the lever down and back up accomplished the same process as the Mauser. Both were used as military weapons, but use in battlefield conditions resulted in the Mauser type turnbolt winning favor. The earliest Mauser that I am aware of was the model 1881. The next significant development occurred: Nitroglycerin and nitrocellulose based "smokeless" powders that burned at progressive rates. In addition to the advantages of leaving less fouling in the bore and virtually no smoke compared to blackpowder the smokeless powder generated considerably more pressure which allowed development of cartridges that would shoot bullets at velocities over twice as fast. Such pressures required actions with much more strength and a series of Mauser actions were developed culminating in the Model 1898. Up to the development of smokeless powder the primary propellent was black powder which had little variation in burnrate. the maximum speed that bullets could be fired was slightly over 1000 feet per second, so the only way to have a more powerful rifle was to use a bigger bullet. Common blackpowder military cartridges were .45" and 11mm. With the advent of smokeless powder and suitably strong actions that allowed for cartridges with velocities over 2500 feet per second, even the generals figured that they could gain a distance advantage on their foes. Unfortunately for the West Point trained generals, the Spanish had adapted to the new technology quicker. Following the Spanish American War the armory updated the Springfield 1903 for ammunition designed in 1906. The transition to smokeless powder cartridges with bullets designed for accurate shooting to 500 yards spelled the end of personal long guns of large bore. From this point the 45/70 was relegated to parades, the new standard was .30" or at most 8mm.

the next significant development was the realization that some of the energy of the powder that was propelling the bullet could be used to operate the action. so the soldier didn't need to load and unload his rifle between shots, the gun would do it for him. So with rifles such as the M1 Garand, M1 Carbine and the Johnson all the soldier had to do was insert a clip or magazine, chamber the first cartridge and then press the trigger to fire as many rounds as the magazine/clip held. Naturally this left the generals apoplectic, the privates will shoot all of their ammunition then be overrun by the enemy; and even if the enemy doesn't charge, how will we eve keep the privates supplied with ammunition or keep them from burning up their barrels? In addition, with the development of the self-loading rifle it was a simple process to develop a selector that turned the self-loader into a fully automatic rifle. The selector for full auto firing was one of the modifications done to the M1 Garand in its transition to the M14. In doing so, another problem surfaced: the recoil of the 308 cartridge caused the muzzle of the rifle to be difficult to fire with any sort of accuracy.

the solution to this problem was to develop a firearm that had the buttstock directly behind the barrel so that recoil force didn't cause the rifle to rise (as with teh M14) and also to re-evaluate the needs from a cartridge. another of those generals determined that most battles were a series of short engagements and that the goal was to remove as many enemy combatants from that short term engagement as possible, thus changing the flow of the major battle. The same general that came to that conclusion also determined that if a soldier fired a killing shot at the enemy he killed one enemy but the other enemy soldiers would continue fighting, net reduction in fighting force= 1 soldier; but if a soldier fired a wounding shot at the enemy, that enemy is taken out of action, at least for the duration of the short engagement, but in addition there are four other soldiers that will be involved in saving the life of the wounded soldier- rendering first aid, removing him from the battlefield and so on; net reduction of enemy soldiers during the engagement = 5. So the army didn't need a high powered cartridge capable of killing at over 500 yards, all that was needed was a cartridge that would wound the enemy. Enter the 223. the best of both worlds, a cartridge with minimal recoil in a straight stocked M16 capable of aimed select-fire and a cartridge that will cause maximum reduction of the enemies ability to fight. This rifle/cartridge combination came at a fortuitous time because the USA became involved in a conflict where the enemy used tactics, namely the L shaped ambush, where the group that could laydown to heaviest fire was the one that prevailed. For those unfamiliar with military tactics, an L ambush involves a trail going through the bottom of a narrow valley and is fairly straight for a hundred yards or so. the ambushee is a patrol that is walking along the trail. the most of the ambusher force is lined up on one side of the high ground above the trail, ideally about twenty yards up the hill and enough soldiers to have a line as long as the patrol going along the trail. the other part of the ambush that gave it the L shape was at the turn in the trail would be set a machine gun that had a field of fire right down the trail. So when the last soldier in the patrol walking along the trail went past the first enemy soldiers position all of the enemy soldiers would start shooting down into the patrol. In addition, the machinegun would start firing into the patrol. so those in the patrol had a few options. they could stay where they were, in which case either the machinegun would get them or the shooters up the hill would. they could stay on the trail and charge the machinegun, in which case the gun would kill them, same thing if they turned and ran back on the trail away from the gun- only now they get shot in the back rather than front. they can get off the trail and run up the hill away from the shooters- in which case they still get shot in the back; or the last option, which in order to have any chance of survival needs to be the first option and taken immediately on the first shot, is for everyone in the patrol to put their firearm on full auto and charge up the hill toward the ambushers. Ordinarily the shooters are told to fire the M16 in 3-5 round bursts. Not the case here. It's point the rifle at the source of incoming fire and empty the magazine at them, turn the magazine over, insert the other full mag, and empty that. At the time, issue magazines held 20 rounds of which it was recommended that 18 be loaded. So each member of the patrol would be charging up the hill firing 36 rounds. a full patrol would have 14 soldiers, so if none were killed in the initial burst, that would be about 500 rounds impacting the ambushers in a time frame of about 4 seconds. If this was enough fire power to cause the enemy to stop shooting and get down because if they didn't, they got hit, then that was what was called gaining fire superiority. If it wasn't enough, then as in the other options, the ambushes got killed, but at least they went down taking the best of the available options.


With the Middle east conflicts, the weaponry has remained quite similar, with some advancements in rifling twists that enable accuracy with longer bullets for longer ranges, but the standard cartridges remain based on the smaller capacity 223 case. So unless one gets into the area of designated marksman aka sniper, where the duty weapon is a 308, 30-06, 300 Mag or 50 cal BMG, the main rifles remain smallbore.


I see no return to the glory days of the largebore rifles, certainly nothing bigger than 30, and even that is on very limited basis.

As RIP and Grenadier have done, I think we should have to explain why our choice is important, not just drop numbers on the page.

Yes, the Brown Bess. I seem to recall that the Americans had some, too, and that one of these may have fired the shot that was heard around the world.


The .577 Enfield P-53 deserves a mention, I think, because it was at the centre of the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

There's another Pommy calibre I could mention but it is not considered big bore.

Yes, the Minnie Ball was a PROFOUND change ...
might be the most important technology change, right behind the 45 colt

In the realm of the British Empire the 577 Snider and it's subsequent follow up the 450-577 Martini Henry likely the most significant big bores. a estimated 1 million Martini henry rifles were built

For the Germans it was the 11mm M71/84 Mauser with 1.9 million built and used.

I now would also like to mention the Madsen light machine gun, 1902 - present (YES, still in use some places!!). What makes the Madsen so remarkable is not that it was a brilliantly designed and superbly manufactured weapon. It was neither. But the Madsen brought with it the concept of a light machinegun embedded with the infantry small unit. That concept and use forever changed the way infantry fights.

quote:

It was the world's first true light machine gun produced in quantity. Consequently, Madsen was able to sell it in 12 different calibers to over 34 different countries worldwide, where it saw extensive combat for over 100 years.

It established the integral use of a light machinegun at the squad or platoon level. That role would be solidified in WWI with the adoption of the Lewis Gun and the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR). The idea of augmenting squads and platoons of soldiers shooting 5-10 shot bolt action rifles with a limited number of 20-round magazine fed light, portable, automatic rifles was revolutionary. The concept continued through the twentieth century and still continues to this day with the use of various Squad Automatic Weapons for the designated Automatic Rifleman, Ranger Automatic Rifleman, etc. The weapons have improved in design and materials, and they now use magazines of 30 or more cartridges and/or belts of linked cartridges. However, the basic concept of tactical deployment and use has remained the same for well over a century.



Here is an interesting article with an excerpt below: http://smallarmsreview.com/dis....cfm?idarticles=1280

quote:

Excluding the many Browning designed weapons, the Madsen machine gun holds the distinction of being one of the oldest and longest produced machine guns in history. Though used by thirty four different countries, it was never adopted officially by any major nation. It has been chambered in every military caliber used in the world, rimmed or rimless, from 6.5mm to 25mm. Little has been written about this remarkable weapon that introduced the concept of the light machine gun. From its conception in 1902, it remained in continuous production until 1970 when Madsen went out of business.

Both John Browning and Sir Hiram Maxim did what would be considered by today’s standards, virtually impossible: they converted a lever action Winchester 1873 rifle to full automatic. Browning utilized the gas from the muzzle blast to operate a flapper that worked the lever action of the Winchester Rifle and Maxim took the Winchester and made the recoil forces at the butt plate operate the same lever action. Somewhere along the line (approx. 1898) the concept of converting a single shot repeating rifle into a full auto landed in Denmark. Julius Rasmussen used as his inspiration the Peabody-Martini (British) falling block single shot rifle. On June 15th, 1899, he applied for the first patent employing this design. However, in 1902, Lt. Theodor Schouboe was granted a patent on the same principle. No one is clear how this occurred. The gun went on to be produced by Dansk Rekylriffel Syndikat under the patents supplied by Schouboe and, for some reason, the gun was named after W.O.H. Madsen, the Danish Minister of War. It was also manufactured in England and known as the Rexer or DRRS.

Note the cavalry in the background!



Indonesia:



Modern day Brazil:

quote:

Originally posted by jeffeosso:
Yes, the Minnie Ball was a PROFOUND change ...
might be the most important technology change, right behind the 45 colt

The reason I mentioned the .577 Enfield was, of course, religio/political rather than technical, as explained in in this article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Rebellion_of_1857):

"The final spark was provided by the ammunition for the new Enfield P-53 rifle.[39] These rifles, which fired Minié balls, had a tighter fit than the earlier muskets, and used paper cartridges that came pre-greased. To load the rifle, sepoys had to bite the cartridge open to release the powder.[40] The grease used on these cartridges was rumoured to include tallow derived from beef, which would be offensive to Hindus,[41] and pork, which would be offensive to Muslims."

Ok, here goes
1. The hand cannon
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_cannon
It was the original big bore
2 Brown Bess
It helped the British empire spread over the world and bring about forced western civilization.
3 Minié Ball
For obvious reasons
4 Pennsylvania/Kentucky Long Rifle
The rifle that made America
5 Colt 45
The cartridge that conquered America
6 45-70
The cartridge that killed the 50-70 and plenty of buffalo.
7 45 ACP
Duh! 1911
8 50 BMG
A ubiquitous grim reaper
9 12 gauge
The sweet spot of shotguns useful in combat and peacekeeping
10 577/450 Martini Henry
Because of the use by the British Empire from late expansion to decline.

So where did I get this wrong?