The 11 Most Important Guns in History (2024)

Dr. Richard Gatling's invention was one of the first real machine guns, with a practical rate of fire of more than 700 .50-caliber rounds per minute. The Gatling gun is a rotating six-barreled weapon driven by a hand crank. Each barrel was loaded and fired mechanically in turn as the barrel rotated, with ammunition fed from a clip by gravity. The gun made a brief appearance in the American Civil War but proved more effective in the Spanish-American War. The British used Gatling guns to deadly effect in colonial wars against massed Zulus in South Africa, Mahdists in the Sudan, and many other wars of this period.

Samuel Colt did not invent the revolver, but he was the first to introduce an assembly-line system to make them rather than relying on skilled gunsmiths to handcraft each weapon. Colt's company mass-produced weapons like the Single Action Army, better known as the Peacemaker or Colt 45. Originally designed for the U.S. Cavalry, it became the most widely used handgun during the Wild West years. One version, the Colt Frontier Six Shooter, used the .44-40 Winchester caliber so cowboys could use the same ammunition in their handguns and rifles.

Sir Hiram Maxim was an American inventor who emigrated to Europe. His creations included fire sprinklers and steam-powered aircraft, but his most successful invention was the Maxim fully automatic machine gun. The weapon was recoil-operated, meaning that it didn't need to be cranked by hand to load new cartridges, as the Gatling gun did. Instead, the force of the recoil ejects the spent cartridge and loads a fresh one. The Maxim proved far more effective and reliable than competing weapons. Both sides of combatants in World War I used versions of the gun; it stayed in service into the 1960s.

John Browning developed a new .45 cartridge with improved stopping power in 1904. Later, he built a gun around it. Adopted in 1911, the M1911 earned plenty of respect and caused plenty of fear during decades of service, through two world wars and in Korea and Vietnam before it was replaced by the 9-mm M9 Beretta. The M1911 earned a reputation for accuracy and reliability. Although its replacement has twice the magazine capacity and is less prone to accidental discharge many still prefer the M1911.

Browning's other lasting contribution to weaponry was one of the most formidable machine guns ever made. Designed toward the end of World War I, the M2 began as a water-cooled design but shifted to air-cooled, requiring a heavy barrel. At more than 80 pounds the "Ma Deuce" is a cumbersome weapon, but the .50-caliber round fires with about four times the energy of a typical rifle bullet. It will go through an inch of steel armor and is lethal at two thousand yards. The M2 is still in service with a design that is fundamentally unchanged.

Canadian John Garand of the Springfield Armory developed the first semiautomatic rifle to be adopted by a major nation. Technically known as just Rifle, Caliber .30, M1, the gun has always been called a Garand. The gun uses some of the energy from the high-pressure gas generated during firing to eject the spent cartridge and chamber a fresh round. This gives a higher rate of fire than earlier bolt-action weapons, although the clip of just eight rounds reduces ammunition use. About 4 million were produced in World War II; Gen. Patton pronounced the Garand "the greatest battle implement ever devised."

Major Uziel Gal developed his new 9-mm submachine-gun for the Israeli Army by incorporating a telescoping bolt that wraps around the breech end of the barrel. This reduces the overall length of the weapon. Combined with an extending stock, this breakthrough makes for a compact, lightweight weapon, and the Uzi proved popular from the outset. Vehicle crews adopted it in place of the handgun; Special Forces adopted it because they needed something light and handy in confined spaces. More than 10 million have been made, including a micro-Uzi version the size of a large handgun.

When Mikhail Kalashnikov set out to design an assault rifle for the Soviet Red Army in the 1940s, he knew it had to be simple, cheap, and reliable, with accuracy taking second place to firepower. His design, the 7.62-mm AK-47, is arguably the most effective and popular weapon in history, with over 75 million made. Large clearances between moving parts make the AK-47 easy to manufacture and resistant to fouling by mud, sand, or dirt. This ruggedness, and the ease of maintenance and training, has made it the favored weapon of guerrillas, freedom fighters, and terrorists the world over.

Perhaps the most innovative small arm of recent years is the XM-25 "Punisher" 25-mm grenade launcher. A laser measures the range to the target, so the grenade can be set to explode midair at the exact point it passes over a foxhole or a wall to target enemies behind cover. Five weapons were issued in Afghanistan on a trial basis in 2010 and they have had good reports. However, the XM25's estimated cost of over $30,000 may prove to be something of a limitation for now.