Mitrailleuse
A mitrailleuse (; from French "mitraille", "grapeshot") is a type of volley gun with multiple barrels of rifle calibre that can fire either multiple rounds at once or several rounds in rapid succession. The earliest true mitrailleuse was invented in 1851 by Belgian Army captain Fafschamps, 10 years before the advent of the Gatling gun. It was followed by the Belgian Montigny mitrailleuse in 1863. Then the French 25 barrel ""Canon à Balles"", better known as the Reffye "mitrailleuse", was adopted in great secrecy in 1866. It became the first rapid-firing weapon deployed as standard equipment by any army in a major conflict when it was used during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. A steel block containing twenty-five 13 mm (.51 calibre) centre-fire cartridges was locked against the breech before firing. With the rotation of a crank, the 25 rounds were discharged in rapid succession. The sustainable firing rate of the Reffye mitrailleuse was 100 rounds per minute. The maximum effective range of the Reffye "mitrailleuse" was about 2000 yards; a distance which placed their batteries beyond the reach of Prussian Dreyse needle rifle fire. Reffye mitrailleuses were deployed in six gun batteries and were manned by artillery personnel. They were not infantry support weapons, but rather a form of special artillery.
.44 Henry
Both the cartridge and the Henry rifle are named for Benjamin Tyler Henry, the 19th-century American gunsmith who invented it. Henry designed both in his spare time while he was the foreman of the New Haven Arms Company, and was granted a US patent for his creations on October 16, 1860. While it was not the first repeating rifle, it was one of the first successful designs (alongside the Spencer rifle), and it provided the basis for the iconic Winchester rifle. Part of the Henry rifle's great success was due to the relatively novel self-contained metallic cartridge, which allowed a repeating mechanism to work. Other breechloaders of the time often relied on a simple, separate percussion cap for ignition, just like a typical muzzleloader of the era, and often used paper or linen cartridge cases, which provided no obturation, or sealing of the breech against the expanding gases (such as the Sharps rifle). Some utilized self-contained primers, but still lacked metallic cases (the Dreyse "Needle Gun"). While these one-shot breechloading weapons were great improvements over the muzzleloader, it required the adoption of the self-contained metallic case before repeaters could become viable weapons. The .44 Henry was an early self-contained metallic cartridge, and was one of the great reasons for the ultimate success of the Henry rifle.