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A breechloader is a firearm in which the user loads the ammunition from the breech end of the gun barrel (i.e., from the rearward, open end of the gun's barrel), as opposed to a muzzleloader, in which the user loads the ammunition from the (muzzle) end of the gun barrel.
The vast majority of modern firearms are generally breech-loaders, while firearms made before the mid-19th century were mostly smoothbore muzzle-loaders. Only a few muzzleloading weapons, such as mortars, , some , such as the Panzerfaust 3 and RPG-7, and the GP series grenade launchers, have remained in common usage in modern military conflicts. However, referring to a weapon explicitly as breech-loading is mostly limited to weapons where the operator loads ammunition by hand (and not by operating a mechanism such as a bolt-action), such as artillery pieces or break-action small arms.
Breech-loading provides the advantage of reduced reloading time because it is far quicker to load the projectile and propellant into the chamber of a gun or cannon than to reach all the way over to the front end to load ammunition and then push them back down a long tube – especially when the projectile fits tightly and the tube has spiral ridges from rifling. In field artillery, the advantages were similar – crews no longer had to get in front of the gun and pack ammunition in the barrel with a ramrod, and the shot could now tightly fit the bore, greatly increasing its power, range, and accuracy. It also made it easier to load a previously fired weapon with a fouling barrel. and emplacements for breechloaders can be smaller since crews don't need to retract the gun for loading into the muzzle end. Unloading a breechloader is much easier as well, as the ammunition can be unloaded from the breech end and is often doable by hand; unloading muzzle loaders requires drilling into the projectile to drag it out through the whole length of the barrel, and in some cases the guns are simply fired to facilitate unloading process.
The advent of breech-loading gave a significant increase to effective firepower by its own right, and also enabled further revolutions in firearm designs such as repeating and self-loading firearms.
The main challenge for developers of breech-loading firearms was sealing the breech. This was eventually solved for smaller firearms by the development of the self-contained metallic cartridge in the mid-19th century. For firearms too large to use cartridges, the problem was solved by the development of the interrupted screw.
More breech-loading firearms were made in the early 18th century. One such gun known to have belonged to Philip V of Spain, and was manufactured circa 1715, probably in Madrid. It came with a ready-to load reusable cartridge.Musée de l'Armée exhibit, Paris.
Patrick Ferguson, a British Army officer, developed in 1772 the Ferguson rifle, a breech-loading flintlock firearm. Roughly two hundred of the rifles were manufactured and used in the Battle of Brandywine, during the American Revolutionary War, but shortly after they were retired and replaced with the standard Brown Bess musket. In turn the American army, after getting some experience with muzzle-loaded rifles in the late 18th century, adopted the first standard breech-loading rifle in the world, M1819 Hall rifle, and in larger numbers than the Ferguson rifle.
About the same time and later on into the mid-19th century, there were attempts in Europe at an effective breech-loader. There were concentrated attempts at improved cartridges and methods of ignition.
In Paris in 1808, in association with French gunsmith François Prélat, Jean Samuel Pauly created the first fully self-contained cartridges:Wallace, James Smyth. Chemical Analysis of Firearms, Ammunition, and Gunshot Residue, p. 24. the cartridges incorporated a copper base with integrated mercury fulminate primer powder (the major innovation of Pauly), a round bullet and either brass or paper casing.[2]. The cartridge was loaded through the breech and fired with a needle. The needle-activated central-fire breech-loading gun would become a major feature of firearms thereafter. The corresponding firearm was also developed by Pauly. Pauly made an improved version, which was protected by a patent on 29 September 1812.
The Pauly cartridge was further improved by the French gunsmith Casimir Lefaucheux in 1828, by adding a pinfire primer, but Lefaucheux did not register his patent until 1835: a pinfire cartridge containing powder in a cardboard shell.
In 1845, another Frenchman Louis-Nicolas Flobert invented, for Gallery gun, the first rimfire metallic cartridge, constituted by a bullet fit in a percussion cap. History of firearms. fireadvantages.com. How guns work. fireadvantages.com. Usually derived in the 6 mm and 9 mm calibres, it is since then called the Flobert cartridge but it does not contain any powder; the only propellant substance contained in the cartridge is the percussion cap itself. Shooting section ( la section de tir) of the official website (in French) of a modern indoor shooting association in Belgium, Les Arquebusier de Visé. In English-speaking countries the Flobert cartridge corresponds to the .22 BB and .22 CB ammunitions.
In 1846, yet another Frenchman, Benjamin Houllier, patented the first fully metallic cartridge containing powder in a metallic shell.Simili, Maître (Spring 1990). Les Lefaucheux. (In French.) Houllier commercialised his weapons in association with the gunsmiths Blanchard or Charles Robert. But the subsequent Houllier and Lefaucheux cartridges, even if they were the first full-metal shells, were still pinfire cartridges, like those used in the LeMat Revolver (1856) and Lefaucheux (1858) revolvers, although the LeMat also evolved in a revolver using rimfire cartridges.
The first centrefire cartridge was introduced in 1855 by Pottet, with both Berdan and Boxer priming.
In 1842, the Norwegian Armed Forces adopted the breech-loading caplock, the Kammerlader, one of the first instances in which a modern army widely adopted a breech-loading rifle as its main infantry firearm.
The Dreyse Zündnadelgewehr (Dreyse needle gun) was a single-shot breech-loading rifle using a rotating bolt to seal the breech. It was so called because of its .5-inch needle-like firing pin, which passed through a paper cartridge case to impact a percussion cap at the bullet base. It began development in the 1830s under Johann Nicolaus von Dreyse and eventually an improved version of it was adopted by Prussia in the late 1840s. The paper cartridge and the gun had numerous deficiencies; specifically, serious problems with gas leaking. However, the rifle was used to great success in the Prussian army in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. This, and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, eventually caused much interest in Europe for breech-loaders and the Prussian military system in general.
In 1860, the New Zealand government petitioned the Colonial Office for more soldiers to defend Auckland.Belich, James (1986). The New Zealand Wars. Auckland: Penguin, pp. 119–125. . The bid was unsuccessful and the government began instead making inquiries to Britain to obtain modern weapons. In 1861 they placed orders for the Calisher and Terry carbine, which used a breech-loading system using a bullet consisting of a standard Minié lead bullet in .54 calibre backed by a charge and tallowed wad, wrapped in nitrated paper to keep it waterproof. The carbine had been issued in small numbers to English cavalry () from 1857. About 3–4,000 carbines were brought into New Zealand a few years later. The carbine was used extensively by the Forest Rangers, an irregular force led by Gustavus von Tempsky that specialized in bush warfare and reconnaissance. Von Tempsky liked the short carbine, which could be loaded while lying down. The waterproofed cartridge was easier to keep dry in the New Zealand bush. Museums in New Zealand hold a small number of these carbines in good condition.Te Awamutu Museum, Te Awamutu, Waikato, New Zealand. Research notes and a C and T carbine "Terry Carbines", Te Papa During the American Civil War, at least nineteen types of breech-loaders were fielded. American Breech-loading Small Arms: A Description of Late Inventions, Including the Gatling Gun, and a Chapter on Cartridges. 1 January 1872, p. 14. The Sharps rifle used a successful dropping block design. The Greene rifle used rotating bolt-action, and was fed from the breech. The Spencer, which used lever-actuated bolt-action, was fed from a seven-round detachable tube magazine. The Henry rifle and Volcanic rifle used rimfire metallic cartridges fed from a tube magazine under the barrel. These held a significant advantage over muzzle-loaders. The improvements in breech-loaders had spelled the end of muzzle-loaders. To make use of the enormous number of war surplus muzzle-loaders, the Allin conversion Springfield was adopted in 1866. General Burnside invented a breech-loading rifle before the war, the Burnside carbine.
The French adopted the new Chassepot rifle in 1866, which was much improved over the Dreyse needle gun as it had dramatically fewer gas leaks due to its de Bange sealing system. The British initially took the existing Enfield and fitted it with a Snider-Enfield (solid block, hinged parallel to the barrel) firing the Boxer cartridge. Following a competitive examination of 104 guns in 1866, the British decided to adopt the Peabody action-derived Martini-Henry with trap-door loading in 1871. Single-shot breech-loaders would be used throughout the latter half of the 19th Century, but were slowly replaced by various designs for , first used in the American Civil War. Manual breech-loaders gave way to manual magazine feed and then to Automatic rifle.
The M1867 naval guns produced in Russian Empire at the Obukhov State Plant used Krupp technology.
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