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Back to the drawing board: The worst firearms ever made

See the most ill-conceived weapons of ever made.

The pepper-box revolver (also "pepper-pot", from its resemblance to the household pepper grinder) is a multiple-barrel repeating firearm that has three or more barrels grouped around a central axis. It mostly appears in the form of a multi-shot handheld firearm. Pepperboxes exist in all ammunition systems: matchlock, wheellock, flintlock, percussion, pinfire, rimfire and centerfire. The flaw with the pepperbox is that it becomes more front-heavy if the length and number of barrels is increased, making accurate aiming difficult. With most types, in particular those with rotating barrel-clusters, it is almost impossible to aim beyond close range because the hammer is in the line of sight (some pepperboxes have a slot in the hammer through which one is supposed to aim), there is no place to put a frontsight (putting one for each barrel would only increase the weight of the front end and likely make drawing the weapon awkward), and the gun is too front-heavy to permit quick and steady aiming.
The pepper-box revolver (also "pepper-pot", from its resemblance to the household pepper grinder) is a multiple-barrel repeating firearm that has three or more barrels grouped around a central axis. It mostly appears in the form of a multi-shot handheld firearm. Pepperboxes exist in all ammunition systems: matchlock, wheellock, flintlock, percussion, pinfire, rimfire and centerfire. The flaw with the pepperbox is that it becomes more front-heavy if the length and number of barrels is increased, making accurate aiming difficult. With most types, in particular those with rotating barrel-clusters, it is almost impossible to aim beyond close range because the hammer is in the line of sight (some pepperboxes have a slot in the hammer through which one is supposed to aim), there is no place to put a frontsight (putting one for each barrel would only increase the weight of the front end and likely make drawing the weapon awkward), and the gun is too front-heavy to permit quick and steady aiming.

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