Muzzleloader in the context of "Rocket-propelled grenade"

Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, charcoal (which is mostly carbon), and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). The sulfur and charcoal act as fuels, while the saltpeter is an oxidizer. Gunpowder has been widely used as a propellant in firearms, artillery, rocketry, and pyrotechnics, including use as a blasting agent for explosives in quarrying, mining, building pipelines, tunnels, and roads.

Gunpowder is classified as a low explosive because of its relatively slow decomposition rate, low ignition temperature and consequently low brisance (breaking/shattering). Low explosives deflagrate—burning at subsonic speeds—whereas high explosives detonate, producing a supersonic shockwave. Ignition of gunpowder packed behind a projectile generates enough pressure to force the shot from the muzzle at high speed, but usually not enough force to rupture the gun barrel. It thus makes a good propellant but is less suitable for shattering rock or fortifications with its low-yield explosive power. Nonetheless, it was widely used to fill fused artillery shells (and used in mining and civil engineering projects) until the second half of the 19th century, when the first high explosives were put into use.

"Brown Bess" is a nickname of uncertain origin for the British Army's muzzle-loading smoothbore flintlock Land Pattern Musket and its derivatives. The musket design remained in use for over a hundred years with many incremental changes in its design. These versions include the Long Land Pattern, the Short Land Pattern, the India Pattern, the New Land Pattern Musket, and the Sea Service Musket.

The Long Land Pattern musket and its derivatives, all 0.75 inches calibre flintlock muskets, were the standard long guns of the British Empire's land forces from 1722 until 1838, when they were superseded by a percussion cap smoothbore musket. The British Ordnance System converted many flintlocks into the new percussion system known as the Pattern 1839 Musket. A fire in 1841 at the Tower of London destroyed many muskets before they could be converted. Still, the Brown Bess saw service until the middle of the nineteenth century.

A breechloader is a firearm or artillery piece in which the user loads the ammunition from the breech (rear) end of the barrel. The vast majority of modern firearms are breech-loaders.

Before the mid-19th century, most guns were muzzleloaders, guns loaded from the muzzle (front) end of the barrel.

A touch hole, also known as a cannon vent, is a small hole at the rear (breech) portion of the barrel of a muzzleloading gun or cannon. The hole provides external access of an ignition spark into the breech chamber of the barrel (where the combustion of the propellant occurs), either with a slow match (matchlock), a linstock or a flash pan ignited by some type of pyrite- (wheellock) or flint-based gunlock (snaplock, snaphaunce, and flintlock), which will initiate the combustion of the main gunpowder charge. Without a touch hole, it would be nearly impossible to ignite the powder because the only otherwise access into the barrel is from the front via the muzzle, which is obturated by the projectile.

In the later caplock firearms, the ignition sparks are generated by a shock-sensitive percussion cap placed over a conical "nipple", which has a hollow conduit known as the flash channel, that leads into the barrel and serves the same function as the touch hole.

A mortar today is usually a simple, lightweight, man-portable, muzzle-loaded cannon consisting of a smooth-bore (although some models use a rifled barrel) metal tube fixed to a base plate (to spread out the recoil) with a lightweight bipod mount and a sight. Mortars are typically used as indirect fire weapons for close fire support with a variety of ammunition. Historically, mortars were heavy siege artillery. Mortars launch explosive shells (technically called bombs) in high arching ballistic trajectories.

The Minié ball, or Minie ball, is a type of hollow-based bullet designed by Claude-Étienne Minié for muzzle-loaded, rifled muskets. Invented in 1846 shortly followed by the Minié rifle, the Minié ball came to prominence during the Crimean War and the American Civil War where it was found to inflict significantly more serious wounds than earlier round musket balls. Both the American Springfield Model 1861 and the British Pattern 1853 Enfield rifled muskets, the most common weapons found during the American Civil War, used the Minié ball.

Rifling, the addition of spiral grooves inside a gun barrel, imparts a stabilizing spin to a projectile for better external ballistics, greatly increasing the effective range and accuracy of the gun. Before the introduction of the Minié ball, which themselves needed greasing, balls had to be rammed down the barrel, sometimes with a mallet, because gunpowder residue would foul a rifled bore after a relatively small number of shots, requiring frequent cleaning of the gun. The development of the Minié ball was significant because it was the first projectile type that could be made with a loose enough fit to easily slide down the barrel of a rifled long gun, yet maintain good accuracy during firing due to obturation by expansion of the bullet's base when fired.