The first bullets

Advances in one either resulted beginning or precipitated advances in the other. Originally, bullets were surrounding metallic or stone balls placed in front of an explosive charge of gun powder at the end of a closed tube. As firearms became more scientifically advanced, from 1500 to 1800, bullets changed very little. They remained uncomplicated round lead balls, called rounds, differing only in their diameter.

The development of the hand culverin and matchlock arquebus brought regarding the use of cast lead balls as projectiles. "Bullet" is consequential from the French word "boulette" which roughly means "little ball". The original musket bullet was a spherical lead ball two sizes slighter than the bore, wrapped in a loosely-fitted paper patch which served to hold the bullet in the barrel firmly upon the powder. (Bullets that were not firmly upon the concentrate upon firing risked causing the barrel to explode, with the condition known as a "short start".) The loading of muskets was, therefore, easy with the old smooth-bore Brown Bess and comparable military muskets. The original muzzle-loading rifle, on the other hand, with a more intimately fitting ball to take the rifling grooves, was loaded with difficulty, particularly when the bore of the barrel was dirty from previous firings ("fouled"). For this reason, early rifles were not generally used for military purposes. Early rifle bullets necessary cloth patches to grip the rifling grooves, and to hold the bullet securely against the powder.

The first half of the nineteenth century saw a different change in the shape and function of the bullet. In 1826, Delirque, a French infantry officer, imaginary a breech with abrupt shoulders on which a spherical bullet was rammed down until it caught the rifling grooves..