grapeshot, cannon charge consisting of small round balls, usually of lead or iron, and used primarily as an antipersonnel weapon. Typically, the small iron balls were held in clusters of three by iron rings and combined in three tiers by cast-iron plates and a central connecting rod. This assembly, which reminded gunners of a cluster of grapes (hence the name), broke up when the gun was fired, spread out in flight like a shotgun charge, and sprayed the target area. Grapeshot was widely used in wars of the 18th and 19th centuries at short range against massed troops.
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Henri-Gustave Delvigne
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Henri-Gustave Delvigne
French officer and inventor
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Henri-Gustave Delvigne, (born 1799, Hamburg [Germany]—died Oct. 18, 1876, Toulon, France), French army officer and inventor who designed innovative rifles and helped introduce the cylindrical bullet.
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Born: 1799, Hamburg [Germany]
Died: Oct. 18, 1876, Toulon, France (aged 77)
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Delvigne joined the French army as a youth and attained the rank of captain of the royal guard. In 1826 he introduced the Delvigne rifle, the powder chamber of which was narrower than the barrel. When the rifle ball was dropped down the barrel against the chamber, a few blows of the ramrod expanded the ball to fit the rifled grooves snugly. Although this system had several drawbacks, it performed well in Algeria and was used extensively.
Delvigne began experimenting with elongated bullets as early as 1830. He designed a cylindro-conical bullet with a hollow base that would expand to fit the rifling grooves when fired. Although he did little to further develop the bullet, the basic idea was adopted by the French inventor Claude-Étienne Minié in the widely used Minié ball.
Delvigne designed a chambered breech rifle that was adopted by France in 1842. His experiments and developments were essential to later advances in firearms. He also introduced new grenade designs.
bullet
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Oct. 4, 2023, 5:59 PM ET (AP)
What to do with 1.1 million bullets seized from Iran? US ships them to Ukraine
bullet, an elongated metal projectile that is fired by a pistol, rifle, or machine gun. Bullets are measured by their calibre, which indicates the interior diameter, or bore, of a gun barrel. (See bore.)
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Key People: William Greener Henri-Gustave Delvigne Claude-Étienne Minié
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Early bullets were round lead balls that were loaded down the muzzle of smoothbore weapons and propelled by the ignition of a physically separate charge of black powder. Modern bullets developed in the 19th century for use in small arms that had rifled barrels. In these rifles, a system of helical grooves cut into the interior surface of the gun’s bore imparts spin to the bullet during its passage. The spin enables a bullet to maintain a point-forward attitude in flight, and under these conditions, an elongated bullet with a pointed tip is aerodynamically much superior to a round ball; it sustains its velocity much better in flight, thereby gaining in both accuracy and range.