Why did it take so long for rifling to catch on?

its like asking why the 2 even sized wheels on a bicycle took so long, the materials and tools werent up to the task 200 years ago

rifling was pretty crap on old guns because fouling from black powder made it impossible to ram bullets down the muzzle after 2 or 3 shots, minute men carried a hammer just to get that sucker down
and tolerances between bullet and barrel had to be tight to engage rifling, which made the "ram your bullet down" thing much harder, and given that tools in the day werent very standarized, you had to hope your .43 calibre musket ball was exactly .43
and machining a rifled barrel was much harder than a smooth one, especially before the industrial revolution

and it was mostly iron back then, steel wasnt common place until the bessmer converter in the middle of the industrial revolution
so using black iron made precision anything expensive and difficult

Short answer, yes.

I suspect you'll run into issues with barrel wear, mismatched calibers, reduced muzzle velocity, and mockery from your peers but I don't see a lead round being a critical issue.

Yes, you can, assuming the ball is the correct size of course. That's standard for many muzzleloaders. People who shoot them have a tool called a "shot starter" which is used to press the lead ball into the rifling, then the ramrod is used to push it all the way down on top of the powder.

Napoleonic tactics relied on volume of fire, not accuracy. Rifles were more accurate but took more time to load. Only once the minie ball was invented did rifling become useful for military purposes

Technology progresses exponentially. We spent a lot of time poking each other with sharp pieces of stone and wood. Then a millenia poking each other with sharp pieces of metal. But yes, I find it interesting that pretty much the same design of the original Chinese gun didnt change really until the 1700s or so. They added a flintlock instead of having to light with a match, but it was still a muzzle loaded black powder smoothbore just like the first guns. For centuries the basic cannon idea hardly changed.

This, and it wasn't until Whitworth really sat down and figured out the proper twist rate that we saw the full benefit of rifled barrels.

Even then you won't be able to use progressive rifling using the button method.

>don't forget that at some point someone had to figure out that it was even desirable to make a bullet spin in the first place
why did it take so long before this came up? It's not like people in the 1800s were exactly keen on aerodynamics, the concept of making your rounds spinning to stabilize them and make them fly better may seem obvious to us, but it's really not that intuitive of a concept.

lot of people who don't shoot muzzle loaders in here

It's also worth pointing out that rifling sucks when you're shooting black powder because it fouls so easily. There was lots of R&D back in the day about different styles of rifling which were intended to reduce the fouling problem, which was much less of an issue with smoothbores. Those problems went away when smokeless powder was invented--then you could optimize rifling for performance without having to worry about it being fouled up after a handful of shots.

Pay attention to the twist rates on muzzle-loaders. Some, generally with slower twists, are meant to be loaded with a patched round ball. Others, generally with faster twists, were intended for bare lead projectiles (no patch) that were seated into the rifling hard at the muzzle.

Because bullets were spherical so orientation wouldn't change ballistic performance all that much. It wasn't until the Magnus effect was discovered that spinning was considered a good idea (1742, B. Robins)

>why did it take so long before this came up?
>it's really not that intuitive of a concept.
I think ya answered your own question there sempai

>it's really simple to produce and materials
go ahead and reproduce it with 18th century tools and materials
as i understand it it took a lot of skill to make a rifle that was actually worth making., so they were expensive and slow to produce

only enthusiasts really got into them and it was like royalty-tier expensive
plus you can't just melt down some shit and throw it in the barrel to gain the benefits of the rifling.

>It's also worth pointing out that rifling sucks when you're shooting black powder because it fouls so easily
Right, just likesays
>Some, generally with slower twists, are meant to be loaded with a patched round ball. Others, generally with faster twists, were intended for bare lead projectiles (no patch) that were seated into the rifling hard at the muzzle.
Huh, learned something today. Thanks.

I meant
>why did it take so long before this was mentioned in this thread
More of a comment on the state of the board.

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>its like asking why the 2 even sized wheels on a bicycle took so long, the materials and tools werent up to the task 200 years ago

No, the reason that bicycles had differently-sized wheels is because nobody had invented a geared transmission for bicycles yet. The pedals drove the larger wheel which, by virtue of being very large, gave you a decent amount of speed for the torque/effort you put into it. The smaller wheel was just spinning freely and thus did not need to be as large. Then later on someone invented the geared transmission for bikes and we moved to two identically-sized wheels as you could get the same amount of speed out of a smaller wheel. It had nothing to do with materials and tooling, it was literally just the lack of a geared transmission.

>why did it take so long before this came up? It's not like people in the 1800s were exactly keen on aerodynamics
Rifling's been around since the 16th century.

>You need a lathe
wrong.
a rifling button will do just fine
>Modern button rifling involves a hydraulic press of tens of thousands of psi and a ceramic rifle button. THEN you need to heat treat the barrel to de-stress the metal.
yeah that is for actual modern production weapons
youtube.com/watch?v=D43ZeYu9dnM
here's some guy who made a completely functional rifling button with a piece of steel and an angle grinder

rifling was figured out in the 16th century already you dumbasses
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifling

And a hydraulic press, apparently.

Learn how to read, dumbasses. "why did it take so long" meaning "why did it take a weapons board so long to come up with the correct answer?

Irrelevant. The first rifles were trying to mimic arrows and javelins that needed to maintain orientation. However, most firearms weren't rifled well into the 19th century. Because of blackpowder fouling and bad build quality there wasn't a significant benefit to rifled guns for some time.

>a rifling button will do just fine
How do you plan on making a precise rifling button without a lathe?

How will you plan on boring out your barrel without a lathe?

>angle grinder
How will you make that without a lathe? Remember, the thread isn't about a modern hobbist who can buy modern tools, it's about "why wasn't this done before the industrial revolution"?

Facepalm.jpg
Read the OP, user. Read the fucking op.

post weapons

>a mallet, and a rod to pound the button through the barrel
If you want it to be of any quality, you need a large hydraulic ram to continuously push the button through at a steady rate.

> nobody had invented a geared transmission for bicycles yet
fucking idiots, couldn't wrap their head around BASIC gear systems.
damn plebs

>Facepalm.jpg
>Read the OP, user. Read the fucking op.
ufkinwotm80? OP was a question of "why did it take so long for rifling to catch on" and it took a dozen answers before the correct one was given, which was "it took a long time for people to realize that a spinning projectile was better", which is what I was commenting on. "Why did it take so long before this came up?" meaning "Why did it take Jow Forums 10 responses and 20 minutes to actually give the right answer?". If you knew how to parse sentences you'd understand that.

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>post weapons
how many would you like to see?

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rifling was a thing well before rifles existed and was in arty a lot more reliably than anything for over 100 years before it was employed in anything but fancy hunting rifles.

now post your guns mr smartypants

user doesn't care about quality. He's talking about some kind of Fallout-tier DIY.

they had gears as well as belts for centuries before the "safety bicycle" was invented.

>Fallout-tier DIY
>modern day tooling and measuring equipment

Maybe you want a timestamp?

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The baker is so aesthetic.

thank you for being so kind, user, but i'll be honest im just trolling retards itt.
you're not excluded just because you're in the top 1% and own a gun
but again, thanks for your efforts

>ur a retard cuz other people misunderstood your post

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If he wants fallout tier just use ecm. Probably better quality than ghetto hammer rifling.

Using an angle grinder to make a rifling button sounds like "modern day tooling and measuring equipment" to you? Fuck no.

>How do you plan on making a precise rifling button without a lathe?
some cloth, a pen of some sort, and a file

An angle grinder is most definitely a modern tool.

>the correct one was given, which was "it took a long time for people to realize that a spinning projectile was better",
uhh that wasn't the correct one though, rifling was known already in the 16th century but only with the minie ball did it become really practical

>Using an angle grinder to make a rifling button sounds like "modern day tooling and measuring equipment" to you?
Yes, actually.

no that isn't why he's a retard.
He's a retard because he misunderstood OP and then acted like everyone else were the retards.

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that wasn't around in the 18th century

>An angle grinder is most definitely a modern tool.
The state of the art tooling for making rifling buttons is a multi-axis precision grinder holding tolerances well under .0001; you ain't doing that with your handheld harbor freight.

Can you do rifling in the method described? Sure. Can you make it according to modern standard? No.

neither was an angle grinder

my point is that "fallout-tier" is literally just the exact same tools in shittier living conditions.
idk if you've ever been to fallout before, but there's an entire company devoted to building brand new firearms for top dollar.

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>The state of the art tooling for making rifling buttons is a multi-axis precision grinder holding tolerances well under .0001; you ain't doing that with your handheld harbor freight.

Irrelevant. The question is whether or not modern tools are assumed and if you have an angle grinder who's to say you don't have a hydraulic press.

>and if you have an angle grinder who's to say you don't have a hydraulic press.
That's fair.

Fallout tier is using a drill press, angle grinder, and hydraulic press to rifle a barrel.
Modern tier is to use specialized machinery that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.

yeah but files were

Early explosive fuzes were unreliable, so artillery had to rely on cannonballs and grapeshot. Grapeshot didn't work with rifled barrels, and cannonballs were a lot less destructive with rifled barrels because a stabilized ball tended to dig into the ground while an unstabilized ball tended to bounce along the ground.

they literally make and develop new power armor in fallout. they have advanced machinery, it's just more scarce.
just take the fucking joke and shush

Does no one here even know WHY rifling was invented? First, straight cut rifling was made as a way to capture black powder fouling so the gun could shoot longer without needing a cleaning. Then someone had the idea of making twisted rifling in order to maximize surface area and capture more fouling. It just so happened that a side effect of this was an increase in accuracy, which is why we still do it today.

Gotcha. It was a bad choice of words on my part.
Pic related is what I mean by "Fallout Tier"

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technically if spherical bullet CG is off center forward it would stabilize itself like how space reentry capsules work.

>he misunderstood OP
I did not you fucking dumbshit, what are you even getting at? Do you understand English? I was pointing out, after a correct answer was given, that this board is in a sad state because of how long it took for that answer to come up. It was incredibly obvious that OP was asking "why didn't rifling catch on earlier despite it being around for so long" and the answer to that is, "People had to figure out that a spinning bullet is better in flight than one that isn't spinning." Stop eating paint chips, retard. You're losing the very ability to understand words, might want to preserve those last few brain cells you've managed to hang onto.

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be more upset. i'm not the only one who has pointed out your stupid posts and you're acting like everyone else is the retard for reading your posts as presented. if your post needs any followup posts to explain itself, then the post and the poster need to be deleted.
>talks about state of board
>shits up board

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Doesn't follow. A curved grove like that would make it harder to clean and bullets weren't snug enough for a spiral grove to do anything meaningful. A single grove like that would also produce an off-balanced spin, swinging the bullet around like a centrifuge.

No, rifling was an attempt to mimic arrows and javelins that were more accurate when they had a spin to them.

yeah i knew what you meant i was just being an asshole.
though tbf you don't see that stuff until fallout 4. every game before that had either new guns or pre-war guns being still maintained.

>she actually took the bait

It's not my fault you've got a room-temp IQ, negroid. Lern 2 englsh.

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>this board is in a sad state because of how long it took for that answer to come up.

Dude see We answered it in 15 minutes.

and
>"People had to figure out that a spinning bullet is better in flight than one that isn't spinning."
Makes no sense because we see arrows with spiral-angled fletching. We knew that arrows were more accurate when they spun already.

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Oh, OH, you were trying to pull the "Intentionally stupid in order to bait someone" troll. Sorry, that one never works. What happens is that the response gets to look smart by sharing what they know.

>I WAS MERELY PRETENDING

When you have an enemy shooting back at you, the priority is to get lead down range faster than he can. No different than comparing an M14 in Vietnam to an M16.

One has a slower rate of fire than the other.

Also, when you're trying to squeeze a tight-fitting ball down the barrel, it's a pain in the ass. And it's even worse when you have an enemy shooting back at you in combat.

That's why Kentucky Rifles were reserved for snipers.

Not him, but I wanted to add a rebuttal. You could make primitive rifling with a fabricated rifle button. But you would need a metal rod, starter, and something similar to a pipe clamp. Make sure the bore is lubricated, edges sharp, and the metalurgy is correct.

But the longer the barrel is, the more technical it will be.

Everyone here look up electrochemical rifling and be in awe what you can do to a fully hardened and heat-treated barrel with some electricity and salt water.
>One neat trick has has the whole federal govt hating him

wasn't around in the 18th hundreds