Thursday, February 23, 2012

Gun

A gun is a cage or breech-loaded projectile-firing weapon. There are assorted definitions depending on the nation and annex of service. A "gun" may be acclaimed from added accoutrements in getting a crew-served weapon such as a blaster or mortar, as against to a baby arm like a burglarize or pistol, but there are exceptions, such as the U.S. Air Force's GUU5/P. At one time, land-based arms tubes were alleged cannon and sea-based argosy cannon were alleged guns. The appellation "gun" acquired into a all-encompassing appellation for any tube-launched projectile-firing weapon acclimated by sailors, including boarding parties and marines.

In avant-garde parlance, a gun is a projectile weapon application a hollow, tubular butt with a bankrupt end—the breech—as the agency of administering the projectile (as able-bodied as added purposes, for archetype stabilizing the projectile's trajectory, aiming, as an amplification alcove for propellant, etc.), and battlefront in a about collapsed trajectory.

The appellation "gun" has aswell taken on a added all-encompassing meaning, by which it has appear to accredit to any one of a amount of trigger-initiated, hand-held, and hand-directed implements, abnormally with an extending bore, which thereby resemble the chic of weapon in either anatomy or concept. Examples of this acceptance cover basic gun, attach gun, cement gun, grease gun. Occasionally, this addiction is ironically reversed, such as the case of the American M3 submachine gun which carries the appellation "Grease Gun".

Most accoutrements are declared by the blazon of butt used, the agency of firing, the purpose of the weapon, the caliber, or the frequently accustomed name for a accurate variation.

Barrel types cover rifled—a alternation of coiled grooves or angles aural the barrel—when the projectile requires an induced circuit to balance it and smoothbore if the projectile is counterbalanced by added agency or rifling is causeless or unnecessary. Typically, autogenous butt bore and the associated projectile admeasurement is a agency to analyze gun variations. Butt bore is appear in several ways. The added accepted admeasurement is advertisement the autogenous bore of the butt in decimal fractions of the inch or in millimeters. Some guns—such as shotguns—report the weapon's barometer or—as in some British ordnance—the weight of the weapon's accepted projectile.

A gun projectile may be a simple, single-piece account like a bullet, a case absolute a burden like a shotshell or atomic shell, or circuitous projectile like a sub-caliber projectile and sabot. The propellant may be air, an atomic solid, or an atomic liquid. Some variations like the Gyrojet and assertive added types amalgamate the projectile and propellant into a individual item.

Terminology

The use of the appellation "cannon" is changeable with "gun" as words adopted from the French accent during the aboriginal 15th century, from Old French canon, itself a borrowing from the Italian cannone, a "large tube" augmentative of Latin canna "reed or cane".1 Recent scholarship indicates that the appellation "gun" may accept its origins in the Norse woman's name "Gunnildr" (or "Gunnild", possibly Queen Gunhild of Wenden, wife of King Sweyn Forkbeardcitation needed), which was generally beneath to "Gunna".2 The ancient recorded use of the appellation "gonne" was in a Latin certificate about 1339. Added names for accoutrements during this era were "schioppi" (Italian translation-"thunderers"), and "donrebusse" (Dutch translation-"thunder gun") which was congenital into the English accent as "blunderbuss".3 Artillerymen were generally referred to as "gonners" and "artillers".4 Aboriginal accoutrements and the men who acclimated them were generally associated with the devil and the gunner's adeptness was advised a atramentous art, a point able by the that appears to smell of sulfur on battlefields created from the battlefront of accoutrements forth with the cage bang and accompanying flash.5

In aggressive use, the appellation "gun" refers primarily to absolute blaze weapons that capitalize on their acceleration for assimilation or range. In avant-garde parlance, these weapons are breech-loaded and congenital primarily for continued ambit blaze with a low or about collapsed ballistic arc. A aberration is the blaster or gun-howitzer advised to action the adeptness to blaze both low or high-angle ballistic arcs. In this use, archetype accoutrements cover argosy guns. A beneath austere appliance of the chat is to analyze one arms weapon arrangement or non-machine gun projectile ammunition on aircraft.

The chat cannon is retained in some cases for the absolute gun tube but not the weapon system. The appellation gunner is activated to the affiliate of the aggregation answerable with operating, aiming, and battlefront a gun.

Autocannon are automated accoutrements advised primarily to blaze shells and are army on a car or added mount. Machine accoutrements are similar, but usually advised to blaze simple projectiles. In some calibers and some usages, these two definitions overlap.

A accompanying aggressive use of the chat is in anecdotic gun-type fission weapon. In this instance, the "gun" is allotment of a nuclear weapon and contains an explosively propelled sub-critical bang of fissile actual aural a butt to be accursed into a additional sub-critical accumulation in adjustment to admit the fission reaction. Potentially abashed with this acceptance are baby nuclear accessories able of getting accursed by arms or recoilless rifle.

In noncombatant use, a accompanying account acclimated in agronomics is a bound bolt gun. Such bound agent accoutrements are generally acclimated to humanely amaze acreage animals for slaughter.6

Shotguns are commonly noncombatant weapons acclimated primarily for hunting. These weapons are about bland apathetic and blaze a carapace absolute baby advance or animate balls. Variations use rifled barrels or blaze added projectiles including solid advance slugs, a Taser XREP projectile able of beauteous a target, or added payloads. In aggressive versions, these weapons are generally acclimated to access aperture hinges or locks in accession to antipersonnel uses.

Types of guns

Military firearms

Long gun

Arquebus

Blunderbuss

Musket

Musketoon

Wall gun

Grenade launcher

Submachine gun

Personal aegis weapon

Rifle

Lever activity rifle

Bolt activity rifle

Assault rifle

Battle rifle

Carbine

Service rifle

Sniper rifle

Shotgun

Combat shotgun

Semi-automatic shotgun

Automated shotgun

Flamethrower

Machine guns

Gatling gun

Minigun

Nordenfelt gun

Metal storm

Mitrailleuse

Submachine gun

Apparatus pistol

Apparatus gun

General-purpose apparatus gun

Light apparatus gun

Squad automated weapon

Infantry Automated Rifle

Medium apparatus gun

Heavy apparatus gun

Handguns

Handgun

Service pistol

Revolver

Service revolver

Apparatus pistol

Autocannon

Autocannon

Chain gun

Revolver cannon

Artillery guns

Artillery gun

Cannon

Carronade

Falconet

Field gun

Howitzer

Tank guns

Tank gun

Hunting guns

Elephant gun

Express rifle

Shotgun

Muzzleloader

Breechloader

Guns for training and entertainment

Air gun

Airsoft gun

BB gun

Drill Purpose Rifle

Paintball gun

Replica gun

Inert gun

Spud gun

Water gun

Nerf gun


Operating principle

Generally, accoutrements use aeroembolism gas bedfast by the butt to actuate the ammo up to top speed, admitting accessories operating in added means are sometimes alleged guns. In accoutrements that are accoutrements the top burden gas is generated by combustion, usually of gun powder. This assumption is agnate to that of centralized agitation engines, except that the ammo leaves the barrel, but the agent transfers its motion to added locations and allotment down the cylinder. As in an centralized agitation engine, the agitation propagates by deflagration rather than by detonation, and acceptable gunpowder, like acceptable motor fuel, is aggressive to detonation. This is because abundant of the activity generated in blast is in the anatomy of a shock wave, which can bear from the gas to the solid anatomy and calefaction or accident the structure, rather than blockage as calefaction to actuate the agent or bullet. The acceleration of a shock beachcomber at such top temperature and burden is abundant faster than that of any bullet.