Home > Rifling

Note that not all guns/ weapons/ arms are rifled. Shotguns, for instance, are smoothbore weapons. Most muzzleloaders (like a flintlock) don't have rifling. Rocket propelled grenades are an aimable launching platform for a small rocket, and have no rifling.

Typically, the inside of the barrel is of a smaller diameter than the bullet. When the cartridge is fired, the bullet is forced into the barrel and the rifling engages the bullet, deforming it somewhat. As the bullet is propelled down the barrel, it begins to spin.

Rifle bullets are typically made of a soft metal for this reason. If a bullet cannot deform easily, it creates high pressures inside the barrel, and might either cause a 'breach' (explosion of the gun barrel) or 'blow-by' (explosive gases leak past the bullet and down the barrel ahead of the bullet.

The spin imparted by rifling significantly improves the stability of the trajectory, improving both range and accuracy.

1 History

The history of rifling a barrel has much better coverage in the wiki article rifleA rifle is any long gun which has a rifled barrel. A rifled barrel incorporates two or more helical grooves in its bore which impart a spin upon the projectile (usually a bullet) as it travels down the barrel. The angular momentum thereby imparted to the.

2 Recent Developments

The grooves most commonly used in modern rifling have fairly sharp edges. More recently, octagonal rifling has become popular, as it seems to produce better accuracy due to the fact that it does not damage the bullet as badly as conventional rifling.