Is Rifling 'Boring' - Or A Barrel Of Laughs?

 If the typical effective range for handguns is around 25 foot while the old smooth-bores worked fine out to 100 feet plus - why are handgun barrels rifled?

Well the big issue here is that under U S Regulation NFA34 a smooth bore handgun is classed as a short barrelled CLASS 3* WEAPON that makes life complicated and expensive for the ordinary hard working girl (boys too). So they are made rifled. - Blackpowder 'Muzzle Loading' guns are exempt from this Government ruling.

Is That Thing Rifled? - Don't Question ME Peasant..

So that's all right then eh. - Your actual firearm at it's most basic level is a strong tube of something closed at one end and open at the other to allow truly awful people to drop-in some antique propellant followed by a snug fitting solid object. - Flame is introduced that results in heated gas pushing your pebble up the tube and out of the front end to poke your target in the eye .. hard. - A gun is a HEAT ENGINE.

Obviously if you are competing to shoot at Metallic Silhouette chickens placed at 200 meters distance you likely would want a longish barrel with rifling to help your results.

I believe rifling grooves were initially cut to make it easier to shove your projectile down a filthy fouled sooty bore onto the antique propellant in the heat of battle - but then some genius worked out that if you cut these grooves in a spiral they might cause the lead ball you were firing to SPIN and to throw-off the evil demon that was riding it and laughing at you while causing your round to miss the aimpoint.

Dunno if you've considered this .. but spiral rifling considerably adds to the friction resistance to the projectile accelerating - raising internal pressures and reducing velocities. - Modern smoothbore shotguns can be considered effective out to some 50 meters - twice that range when using slugs.

Consider that homo sapiens sapiens has been using these machines to scare the horses for CENTURIES - since more than 1,000 years ago.

Don't forget that our western discoverer hero, Spanish Government sponsored Italian Christophorus Columbus used his cannon, crossbows & matchlock smoothbores to capture and transport his first 500 Taino SLAVES from the Caribbean islands to Spain in 1495.

The Clovis people & PRE-Clovis people lived in the Americas way earlier - but both Vikings and Polynesians had landed in the States around 500 years before 'Columbus' exploited the locals.

Slaves - from America or to America - like most tradeable stock - were moved in any direction that secured a profit for the avaricious. - Columbus knew a good thing when he saw it eh.

“Those who trade liberty for security have neither. An armed man is a citizen, an unarmed man is a subject.” — John Adams

Marty K.