How ‘new’ models go back to the future

Arguably, all new gun designs are evolutionary. They retain the essential parts of lock, stock and barrel that have been with us since the first hand cannons emerged.

Subsequent development has been the process of making each of those components better and making the gun perform its function faster and more efficiently.

In the 19th century, there were huge changes from the firearms carried by our sporting forebears and they ran alongside developments in ammunition.

So while we can argue all developments are evolutionary, some step changes affected the trade sufficiently to surpass anything made to that point, rendering the previous methods obsolete. We can point to some of these important points and trace from them the emergence and consolidation of the guns we use today. A brief list of such British guns