Is it possible to keep your name for centuries?To accomplish the feat so that grateful descendants erect a monument? Or get on the pages of history? But the monuments are destroyed, and history is being rewritten. So really there is no such possibility? It turns out there are even a few. The first is to become a hero of folklore, such as Ilya Muromets, Ivan Susanin or Chapaev. The second possibility is for your own name to become a household name, such as cardan (named after the inventor Gerolamo Cardano) or Kalash (in honor of Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov). So, the American inventor Samuel Colt was able to take advantage of these two possibilities. His name fell into the American proverb, which freely translates as follows: "God created different people, and Colt Colt equalized the chances." In addition, a system of revolvers is named after him, and most of the names of this pistol are spelled with a small letter and without quotes. But before we talk about the invention of the American gunsmith, we will conduct a small educational program on the calibers and systems of manual melee weapons - pistols.
What is caliber
Currently, there are several standardsdesignations of weapons calibers, so there are often situations when they try to compare 45 caliber and 16 (at the same time the 45th is less for some reason) or 5.45 and 3 lines (5.45 turns out to be smaller here). In most European countries, including Russia, the caliber is measured in the metric system. The measurement is made in millimeters in diameter of the trunk. Accordingly, for a rifled weapon, the diameter of the cartridge will be slightly larger (to the depth of the rifling). In the United States, Great Britain and some other countries, mainly within the British Commonwealth, caliber measurement occurs in fractions of an inch, and in the United States in hundredths, and in the United Kingdom - in thousandths. Therefore, 45 US caliber is 450 Britain and 11.43 Russia. In this series stand out smooth-bore hunting rifles. Their caliber means the number of round bullets that can be cast from one pound of lead. Accordingly, the smaller the diameter of the barrel, the greater the bullets. There is also another standard for measuring caliber, which TV is hardly used at present. These are the lines. One line contains one tenth of an inch, respectively, in a Mosin rifle of a sample of 1893, the famous three-line, caliber 3x2.54 = 7.62 millimeters. We now turn to the design of manual melee weapons.
Systems
There are two main schemes:pistol and turret. Both have advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage of modern pistols is the speed and ease of reloading, the possibility of automatic firing (in some models, for example, the Stechkin pistol). The advantage of revolvers is high reliability, there is no need to send a cartridge into the barrel after reloading and there is no automatic extraction of the sleeves, which is good in some cases from the point of view of secrecy, for example, when working with special units.
45 caliber: gun for self defense
In 1911, in the North American UnitedStates (as they were then called the United States) was adopted, probably the most famous gun in the world. It is about the "Colt M1911", which has 45 caliber. This semi-automatic pistol was recognized as the best weapon for self-defense due to the high stopping power of the bullet. Its production with numerous upgrades lasted until 1982. He was in service with the US Army until 1985, and is still popular among private owners. All were released about three million pistols of this model. These pistols, except for the USA, were in service with the army of Great Britain and the USSR (Lend-Lease), Norway, France, Nicaragua and El Salvador. In Estonia and in Haiti, they are in service until now.
Revolver - Colt 45 caliber
Colt Weapon Company in 1872presented her model of a revolver under a unitary pistol cartridge. This year was not chosen by chance, since it was then that the patent for a revolving drum with end-to-end chambers, formerly owned by a competitor, Smith and Wesson, expired. The following year, in 1873, a new model of a revolver was presented, which was adopted by the US Army. For 20 years, about 37,000 copies of these weapons were purchased by the US military. The army revolver had 45 caliber, civilian - 44. For the long 60 years, the release of the army version was stopped, but in the early 50s, mainly due to the US film industry and the popularity of westerns, the demand for the Colt-1873 model grew so much that in 1956 year their release was resumed and continues with small interruptions so far.
Colt Ammunition
In 1905, the most popular in the worldpistol ammunition having 45 caliber. The cartridge is called the 45 ACP, it was developed by the Frankfurt arsenal. This ammunition quickly became a success because of the very effective stopping power of the bullet. It was under this cartridge that such well-known armaments as the Colt M1911 pistol and Thompson submachine gun were designed. Although this munition has a number of drawbacks (due to the low initial speed and large weight of the bullet, the trajectory of its flight is far from flat), its popularity has not yet dropped. Moreover, new bullet models were developed for this cartridge, for example, an expansive, controlled-opening, which “unfolds” when it penetrates to the optimum depth into the victim's body. So for a long time these legendary samples of the company "Colt" will delight fans of weapons.