A muzzle-loading rifle (often abbreviated RML) is a gun in which the projectile and propelling charge is loaded through the muzzle (i.e. the front-end of the gun), in contrast to a breech loading rifle, and "rifling" grooves cut on the inside of the barrel cause the projectile to spin rapidly in flight, giving it greater stability and hence range and accuracy than smoothbore guns. The phrase can be applied to both hand held rifles and to artillery. Hand held rifles were well-developed by the 1740s. A recognizable form of the "muzzleloader" is the Kentucky Rifle, which was actually developed in Pennsylvania. The American Longrifle evolved from the German "Jäger" rifle.
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)