We know that the previous bullet was shot put. Before firing, black powder is poured into it from the muzzle, and then the shot put is wrapped with pads such as oil paper or linen, and the warhead is stabbed in. Later, people simply wrapped black powder and warheads in paper, which became the most popular paper-wrapped bullets from 18 to 19.

This slightly spicy thing is a paper-wrapped shotgun with more than a dozen small lead bullets in it. Because the early rifles were smooth-bore, they could be used as guest shotguns.

Then the problem is coming. In the early days, both pistols and rifles were loaded from the muzzle. On the one hand, the firing rate is very low, on the other hand, rifles can only be loaded standing, so a considerable number of engineers/inventors began to design weapons with breeches and loads. But breech weapons generally have a problem-air leakage.

It's not that no one has tried to solve the problem of air leakage. As early as 1770s, the British invented the Ferguson rifle. This breech-loaded+line-loaded weapon was put into use in the American War of Independence. The solution to the air leakage of this kind of gun is to seal the breech with a rotary bolt (true and rotary bolt locking). Although it is a bit silly to look at this kind of locking from the present point of view, its firing rate can reach 6- 10 rounds per minute, far exceeding the muzzle gun of the same period.

However, this complicated mechanism is expensive, and this threaded lock is easily contaminated by black powder. After several rounds, it was too dirty to open and close normally, and it went away. Therefore, reliable breech loading still requires a simple structure.

/kloc-At the beginning of the 0/9th century, the Swiss inventor Samuel Pauli bought a French patent, which is a weapon with a breech lock after landing. The solution to the problem of air leakage at the gun tail is to use a metal bottom. Copper with excellent ductility will expand slightly when it is fired and heated, which can play a good role in gas sealing and is a good choice for the bottom.

Samuel Pauli himself was just an inventor with a big brain hole. He served in the Swiss artillery and designed a light field gun, but this is the first time to make bullets. So he invited the French gunsmith Prarat, who was only in his early twenties, and the Prussian gunsmith Dreiser (later the inventor of Dreiser's needle gun). The French are in charge of games and the Prussians are in charge of guns. The bullets finally developed are as follows

Although it is far from modern bullets, it is the origin of metal bullets. This heavy copper bottom is not so much a shell casing as a bottom sleeve that can be easily refilled. When you use it seriously, you have to install a paper shell and a warhead, similar to the picture below. (But this is the work of another French inventor, Li Fuse, but the structure of copper base and paper shell is similar. )

Polymetallic bullets are hollow at the bottom center, and can be filled with mercury (invented in 1800), which is triggered by the impact of a gun needle. This kind of needle trigger mechanism inspired Dreiser greatly, and also contributed to his later invention of the world's first rotary firing pin rifle.

18 12 years, poly applied for the first patent for breech loading and metal bullet bottom, and the finished product was the following shotgun.

Gee, look at this complicated machine, this finely carved grain, and at first glance it is the landlord's child.

Yes, Poly's shotgun didn't cause much trouble in the gun industry because it was too expensive. Moreover, the greatest value in the later period of breech loading is to facilitate the loading of line-bore rifles, so this expensive shotgun can only be used as a toy for noble lords.

But what Paulie didn't expect was that twenty or thirty years later, French Li Fuze carried forward the metal bullets fired by the side needle, and Dreiser's bolt-locked needle rifle completely changed the mode of war.