Rifle

In general use, a rifle is an individual weapon used for warfare, hunting, or target shooting. It is characterized by a relatively long barrel, the inside of which has spiral grooves (i.e., rifling) that impart a stabilizing spin to the bullet it fires.

The term is sometimes used for naval guns and artillery with long barrels as well as rifling, but the most common use is for a weapon used by one person.

Rifles can be single-shot, autoloading, semi-automatic, or full-automatic. While each rifle type is designed to fire one caliber, they group generally into smallbore (.22 caliber or smaller, often anything below .30 caliber/7.62 mm), medium, and large-bore (.50 caliber/12.7 mm or larger).