The period 1850 to 1900 witnessed the most far reaching changes sporting gun and rifle design had ever experienced. Prior to this, changes had been pedestrian and the muzzle-loader still ruled the day in 1850 as it had done for previous centuries.

In this major work the author details the many changes that occurred. He describes at length the pinfire, centre-fire and hammerless developments along with all the ancillary changes made to sporting guns. Likewise with rifles he outlines the many developments such as the superseding of the two groove muzzle-loading Express rifle by the multi-groove, breech-loading rifle of smaller calibre.