A muzzle-loading rifle is a gun in which the projectile and propelling charge is loaded through the muzzle (i.e. the front-end of the gun), in contrast to a breech loading

Breech-loading weapon

A breech-loading weapon is a firearm in which the cartridge or shell is inserted or loaded into a chamber integral to the rear portion of a barrel....

 rifle, and "rifling

Rifling

Rifling is the process of making helical grooves in the barrel of a gun or firearm, which imparts a spin to a projectile around its long axis...

" grooves cut on the inside of the barrel cause the projectile to spin rapidly in flight, giving it greater stability and hence range and accuracy than smoothebore guns. The phrase can be applied to both hand held rifle

Rifle

A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile , imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the...

s and to artillery

Artillery

Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...

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