Reference library
Guides to rifles, shotguns, handguns, ammunition, optics and archery, plus hunting know-how by species for the United States and Canada. Every page lists the sources behind it.
Guide · Firearm Safety and Storage
Loaded chamber indicators are chamber status aids. They may show or let you feel that a cartridge is chambered, but they do not replace opening the action and checking the chamber.
Guide · Shotguns
Shotgun beads and ribs are alignment aids, not rifle type sights that guarantee point of impact. For clay and wing shooting, coaching material emphasizes pointing the shotgun, keeping visual focus on the target, and confirming results on a patterning board.
Comparison · Bows and Archery
Crossbow bolts and vertical-bow arrows share basic parts, but they are not interchangeable. Crossbow setups may have model specific requirements for length, finished weight, spine and nock style, while vertical-bow arrows are usually selected with arrow length, draw weight, point weight and spine charts.
Article · Firearms History and Technology
A flintlock is a muzzleloading ignition system that uses a flint striking steel to make sparks, ignite priming powder in a pan, and carry flame through a touch hole to the main charge. It improved on the matchlock by removing the constantly burning match, but percussion ignition later replaced flint, steel, and loose priming powder in many nineteenth-century arms.
Guide · Rifles
A single-shot rifle holds one cartridge in the chamber and must be loaded manually for each shot. The main types differ in how they open the breech: break actions hinge open, falling blocks move a breechblock down and up, and rolling blocks rotate a breechblock to expose the chamber.
Guide · Rifles
Gas-operated semi-automatic rifles use propellant gas to unlock, extract, eject, feed and lock the action after each shot. The main concepts are internal gas systems such as the AR-15/M16 family, short-stroke piston systems such as the FN SCAR, and long-stroke piston systems such as the Galil ACE.
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