when he went and saw a job at springfield armory, instead of a resume, he brought in this rifle. he was hired on the spot. one of the great leaps forward in the design of firearms began to take place in the 1880's when we transitioned from black powder to smokeless powder. most of the guns had been muzzleloading. that was with black powder, which left a thick oily residue. with a rifle, after some he shots, that would tended to restrict the aperture of the barrel. it became hard to ram a round from the muzzle to the breach. that is why breach loaders were so important. tokeless powder allows you fire more rapidly because the inner workings of the gun are not being gummed up with that residue. an american living in london developed the machine gun. with one pull of a trigger, it firing of multiple rounds. rates of fire go anywhere from 400-1200 rounds a minute. development of smokeless powder, america finds itself involved in the first world war in 1917 with new types of firearms that they had not used before. by world war ii, through the efforts of the springfield armory, the m1