It all started with British General John Jacobs, during the British occupation of India. "John Jacob had fought with the Scinda Irregular Horse, which was a detached unit of cavalry in the army of the East India Company," said Evan Brune, American Rifleman executive editor. "At the time, they were using smoothbore double-barreled shotguns, basically. And he thought that the best weapon that the Irregular Horse could use would be a double-barreled, large-bore rifle."
Jacobs went on to design a unique rifle, one that utilized both a new rifling design and a new projectile. "The gun was unique in the fact that it was a double rifle of the military caliber .577, but the neat thing about it was the rifling itself," said Phil Schreier, director of the NRA National Firearms Museum. "It took a bullet that had fins on it that actually threaded itself into the rifling of the gun, and this gave the gun an expanded range and amazing accuracy."
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