Until the splitting of the atom in this century no single invention has had such a profound effect on history and society as the gun. It changed not only the pattern of warfare and destroyed the old concept of chivalry, but altered every aspect of life, law and the boundaries of empires. Man has always been attracted by the concept of striking from afar, but with the coming of gunpowder any man who possessed it became equal to the strongest in the land. From mysterious origins in China this astonishing substance changed itself from a source of wonder into real gun-powder with all that that implied and for the gun to emerge as a device sufficiently important to exercise even the mind of Leonardo da Vinci.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, while the gun was evolving from match-lock through wheel-lock to flint-lock, firearms became a prime vehicle for artistic decoration; the guns of the time are often exquisitely embellished and, naturally enough, worth thousands and thousands of pounds today. In salesrooms, in private collections, in museums, fine guns bear witness to the skill and artistry of their makers in centuries gone by.
An obscure sporting clergyman living on the Scottish coast might seem an unlikely candidate for the title of the greatest benefactor in the history of the development of firearms, yet that is just the accolade which Rev. Alexander Forsyth has rightly earned. By the invention of a system which freed the firer from the tyranny and uncertainty of flint or fire, he directly opened the way for the modern cartridge-loading gun, making possible the evolution of both the revolver, the repeater and the machine gun.
Military men did not look on the rifle with much favour in the 18th and early 19th centuries; they preferred the smooth-bore musket. The Kentucky rifle was one of the first rifles to be employed in warfare, in the American War of Independence, but not by regular soldiers. With the arrival of a French design called the Minie, the rifle was finally adopted by the British Army as the standard arm of the regular soldier - and proved its worth against the Russians in the Crimean War.
The revolver and the automatic pistol are now such commonplace guns that it seems unthinkable there was ever a time when they did not exist. Yet until the middle of the 19th century the pistol was regarded as no fit weapon for a soldier - suitable only for acts of highway robbery or affairs of honour. Its unreliability left many a would-be robber empty-handed and many a duellist unscathed. All this changed with the legendary Colonel Colt and the revolver, but contrary to the stories in the Westerns, he was not alone in bringing about this revolution in the design of what was to become every soldier's close companion.
The development of firearms in the 19th century, like the space-race in the modern world, was closely related to general progress in technology. Standardisation of parts, mass-production and the use of new materials like steel were all pioneered in arms manufacture - and it was a time when the individual inventor could still contribute at the highest level to the progress of his chosen field.
To realise the full potential of the military rifle, breech-loading instead of muzzle-loading and magazine capacity in place of single shot were required. Many a weird-and-wonderful form of breech-loading was tried and when the choice was made, the British found themselves in the 1870s with a rifle - the Martini-Henry - that could not be properly adapted to magazine-loading. But they fought the First World War with one of the finest rifles ever employed - the SMLE that fooled the Germans into believing they were facing machine guns instead of rifles!
'A best English gun' is much more than a mere description of a type of gun. It is a highly prized achievement of modern craftsmen who still work in the traditions established over centuries. Months and sometimes years of patient application to the working of wood and metal elevates such a gun from the realms of ordinary arms manufacture to the true art of the gunmaker - which is the rare ability to combine mechanical perfection with high artistic embellishment.
Of all the forms of shooting, the rarest and most exclusive is the sport of 'Match Rifle'. To achieve accuracy at distances of nearly a mile is the highest test of both marksman and rifle, demanding rigorous intellectual concentration from the firer and mechanical perfection from the gunsmith. It was this rare sport, where absolute accuracy was obtained at the incredible distance of 2,000 yards as early as the 1870s, which bred the Enfield Rifle, familiar to every British serviceman of this century.
In modern times, firearms have distinctly diverged into 'military' and 'leisure' categories. Fine shotguns or hunting-rifles have perhaps never been better made, better finished or more costly; military arms never so cheaply and simply made, so functional and unaesthetic. Developments continue in both fields and some of the features of the firearms of the future can already be glimpsed.
