Firearm Reliability

SINCE THE TIME of the first firearms in the era of flints, and the locks that struck them i pans, through to the latest of today’s modern semi-automatic weapons, the demand for reliable operation has remained consistent. In many applications, handguns and rifles are life-protecting weapons so a trustworthy gun is imperative in this role. In the flint and percussion cap era, the challenge to achieve this was largely through the quality of the workmanship in the simple lock mechanisms of the day.

When revolvers and magazine-fed, repeater-action rifles arrived, the attention shifted to good designs. The parallel requirement of quality remained and was largely met by mass production through the use of patterns, jigs and machine tools which offered high standards of precision. This reduced the over-reliance