Smooth tube
Smooth barrel is a term used in weapons technology. From today's point of view, it describes a peculiarity with regard to the interior of the barrel of a firearm. In the case of smooth barrel weapons , the barrel is not provided with lines and fields on the inside , in order to put the projectile in a stabilizing twist , but rather smooth.
Weapons technology
Up until around 1850 smooth barrels were the state of the art in war weapons and were then increasingly replaced by rifled barrels. With these the bullet receives a rotation during the launch, which increases the precision. First of all, the rifled barrels made loading times much longer, which turned out to be disadvantageous in line combat . Nevertheless, from the Napoleonic Wars (1792–1815) at the latest, the military recognized the usefulness of rifles with rifled barrels, as opposed to smooth-barreled muskets. With the development of the Minié bullet it became possible to use rifled muzzle-loaders , which could be loaded just as quickly as smooth- barreled weapons . Later the first breech loaders , such as B. Winchester carabiners , the rifled barrel finally standard.
In certain areas of application, however, weapons with smooth tubes have been newly developed. Nowadays, large-caliber tank guns are usually equipped with smooth-barreled guns. In addition, it was found that with the acceleration and force relationships prevailing in tank cannons today, drawn tubes wear out very quickly and have a service life of only a few dozen rounds. For example, the trains are simply torn off or flushed out. The principle has been tried out with smaller weapons, but is rarely used in practice. With the exception of shotguns and the Steyr IWS 2000 , for example , only shooting range rifles have a significant number of smooth- barreled guns. The smooth- barreled cannons primarily fire wing-stabilized arrow projectiles with sabot or cage or multi-purpose hollow charge projectiles ; a twist transfer is not useful with both types of ammunition.
Gun Law
In gun law, a distinction is made between smooth barrels and profiled (drawn or polygonal ) barrels. In the “Allg. Administrative regulation "of the German Weapons Act (WaffG) is set out in WaffVwV Annex 1 Section 1 Subsection 1 Number 1.3.4:" Barrel blanks, barrel sections or running pieces provided with trains or other internal profiles that do not yet contain a cartridge or cartridge chamber are then essential parts if they are intended for a firearm that requires a license. Barrels without rifles and without cartridge or cartridge bearings are only essential parts if they can be built into a weapon or connected to a weapon without significant reworking, thus creating a usable weapon. "