Based largely upon new research, this book explores the history of repeating and multi-fire weapons, beginning with the Chinese repeating crossbow in the 4th century BCE, and ending with the world's most common firearm, the Kalashnikov AK-47.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Introduction
• Glossary
• Section I: Early Repeating Weapons
• One. Repeating Weapons from the Ancient World
• Section II: Without Black Powder
• Two. Perkins’s Steam Gun and Other Oddities
• Section III: The Black Powder Era
• Three. Early Military Rockets
• Four. Early Black Powder Weapons
• Five. Early Repeating Pistols and Colt’s Percussion Revolvers
• Six. The Rimfire Revolver and Rollin White’s Patent
• Seven. Pinfire and Centerfire Revolvers
• Eight. Repeating Rifles and Shotguns
• Nine. Early Machine Guns and Repeating Cannon
• Ten. The Gatling Gun: Gatling’s 150-year-Old Masterpiece
• Section IV: The Smokeless Powder Era
• Eleven. Maxim’s Automatic Machine Gun: “The Devil’s Paintbrush”
• Twelve. Smokeless Powder and Repeating Rifles
• Thirteen. Self-Loading or Semiautomatic Pistols
• Section V: The Machine-Gun Era
• Fourteen. The Development of Repeating and Multi-fire Weapons in the Early 20th Century
• Fifteen. Light Machine Guns in World War I
• Sixteen. Medium and Heavy Machine Guns in World War I
• Seventeen. Submachine Guns, Semiautomatic Rifles and Postwar Changes
• Eighteen. Light Machine Gun Development After World War I
• Nineteen. Heavy Machine Gun and Automatic Cannon Development After World War I
• Twenty. Assault Rifles and the Rise of the “Woolworth’s” Gun
• Twenty-one. Perspectives
• Bibliography