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Nobody can tell for sure who the inventor of guns was. However, they seem to have come about when the European armies began looking for ways to use Chinese powder. As a matter of fact, the history of hunting with rifles begins with turning military technology into practical peacetime uses.

The very first guns were in fact miniature cannons as they were made out of metal tubes that used gunpowder in order to force a ball-shaped lead projectile forward. They fired with fuses rather than triggers. The first attempts to make these guns more practical go way back into the 16th century during the English Civil War when they tried to make them more convenient for foot soldiers, which led to the development of the trigger and a series of firing devices, like the matchlock, the flintlock and the Wheelock. As you might have expected, these rudimentary guns had a lot of problems as far as accuracy is concerned and is some cases (more often than you would think) the soldiers gave up and threw the firearm at the enemy.

Another development for which no single person takes credit is rifling – cutting grooves into the barrel in order to improve accuracy. The practice became popular during the American Revolutionary War and it became well established in the hunting environment.

A significant problem during those times regarding the rifle was that the gunpowder had the tendency to accumulate in the grooves and hunters had big problems while cleaning the barrel. Another issue was with the speed of loading the bullets and even a trained marksman could only fire three times in a minute.

In France, in the early 1800s, the integrated cartridge was developed, combining bullet, primer, powder and the firing charge within a casing. The loading times necessary for rifles were significantly reduced. As for the rest of the century is concerned, further improvements were made for loading and firing the rifles including here the development of the breech-loading mechanisms and refinements to cartridge design. As you might have expected, most of these improvements were made on the battlefield and after that they were introduced into other aspects of life, like hunting.

In North America, rifles were important not only for self-defense purposes, but also for obtaining food. A powerful culture of hunting and marksmanship flourished among the American colonies and continued until the close of the frontier, which happed in the late 1800s.

The bolt-action rifles were introduced in the 1890s and used magazine cartridges. It remains a favorite even today as it is efficient, trusty as well as easy to load and maintain.

Regarding the techniques of rifle hunting, they haven’t changed significantly since World War II, when the German Sturmgewehr-44 was introduced – the very first assault rifle. However, today, for all purposes and intents, most of the modern rifle hunters use the aforementioned bolt-action technology.

As you can see, the history of hunting rifles goes way back a few centuries and most of the developments in this area were achieved during times of war and later on introduced for recreational use.