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| Photograph courtesy of Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons |
The Puckle gun was invented by a British lawyer named, coincidentally, James Puckle, who patented it in 1718. It was essentially a 125 caliber eleven-shot flintlock revolver with a three-foot long barrel. The gun was mounted on a tripod and discharged by turning a crank. During one demonstration, it fired an impressive 63 shots over 7 minutes, which was machine-gun speed in an era where the best musketeer was able to shoot only three rounds per minute. Puckle believed that the weapon would be especially effective when used on the deck of a warship to repel boarders.
The gun was equipped with two interchangeable cylinders. One cylinder contained normal round bullets to be used against a Christian adversary. The other had square bullets to be used against Muslim Turks, as the square shot would be more damaging and would show the Turks "the benefits of Christian civilisation." One can only imagine the frustration of the gunner if he encountered a multi-ethnic foe, such as on a pirate ship, and had to constantly switch cylinders to match the target. Ironically, the Turks would have been better off with the gunner using the square shot, as those non-spherical bullets just rattled down the barrel and were totally inaccurate with unpredictable flight patterns.
Puckle was only able to sell a few of the guns and was unable to peddle any to the British Admiralty. There is no record of a Puckle gun seeing actual use in combat.
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