Mitrailleuse
The first "mitrailleuse" was a manually fired 50-barrel volley gun originally developed in Belgium in 1851 by the Belgian Army Captain Fafschamps, who made a rough prototype and drawings of his invention. The system was improved during the 1850s by Louis Christophe and the Belgian engineer Joseph Montigny, with the completion of the 37-barrel Montigny mitrailleuse in 1863. From 1859, Joseph Montigny proposed his design to Napoleon III, which led to the development of the French Reffye mitrailleuse, designed by Jean-Baptiste Verchère de Reffye with the collaboration of Montigny, and which was adopted by the French Army in 1865. Initially kept under wraps as a secret weapon, it was widely used in battle by French artillery during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71). Smaller numbers of other designs, including the Gatling gun, were also purchased by the French government during the latter part of that conflict. The Reffye model had initially been built in small numbers and in secrecy: only about 200 were available at the beginning of the conflict. This also kept regular French field artillery in a neglected position in the eyes of French emperor Napoleon III, with dire consequences during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71.
.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.