Firing Mechanisms
The earliest combination guns were called swivel guns (not to be confused with the more widely known small cannon), which used a set of barrels designed to rotate to allow either the rifled or smoothbore barrel to line up with a flintlock mechanism. Modern combination guns tend to resemble double-barreled shotguns and double rifles, and are almost universally break open designs. Unlike double-barrelled shotguns and double rifles, where single selective or double triggers are used to allow rapid firing of both barrels, combination guns generally have a selector that allows the user to choose which barrel will fire. Drillings with two shotgun barrels and one rifle barrel may have two triggers, one for each shotgun barrel, and a selector that will allow one trigger to fire the rifle barrel. Vierlings generally have two triggers, and selectors to switch each between shotgun and rifle.
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Famous quotes containing the word firing:
“Slowly, and in spite of anything we Americans do or do not do, it looks a little as if you and some other good people are going to have to answer the old question of whether you want to keep your country unshackled by taking even more definite steps to do so—even firing shots—or, on the other hand, submitting to be shackled for the sake of not losing one American life.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)