Volley gun
The Ribauldequin was a medieval version of the volley gun. It had its barrels set up in parallel. This early version was first employed during the Hundred Years' War by the army of Edward III of England, in 1339. Later on, the late Swiss army employed it.
Rook rifle
The rook rifle was designed to be light enough to be carried for a walk in the country, accurate and powerful enough to take small game and usually elegant in balance, fit and finish. Almost always single shot, various actions were used including break-open actions, but the miniature Martini, a scaled-down version of the military Martini-Henry, was a favourite due to its strength and accuracy.
The first rook rifles fired calibre bullets, although subsequently a number of cartridges were developed for this purpose ranging in calibre from and firing bullets at the usual black powder velocities of .
The rook rifle was developed in 1883 by the gun-makers Holland & Holland as a breech-loading equivalent of the muzzleloading pea rifle. Holland & Holland made a particular speciality of producing rook rifles, reportedly selling around 5,000 of them in the late 1800s. Westley Richards and W.W. Greener were also noted for their rook rifles.
Rook rifles was used extensively both in Britain and throughout the British Empire with large numbers being exported to many Commonwealth countries and colonial territories.
The rise in popularity of the .22 Long Rifle cartridge in the United Kingdom spelled the end of the rook rifle and its cartridges; due to its combination of accuracy, lower noise, and economy, .22 LR superseded the various English centrefire rook rifle rounds in the early 1900s. Over the same period miniature rifle target shooting moved towards shorter ranges and indoor competitions, again being better suited to the .22 Long Rifle round.
Due to the increasing scarcity of rook rifle cartridges, many rook rifles were converted to smoothbore shotguns, usually to .410 bores, and many others were sleeved down to calibre.