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I doubt if that date can be specific. I believe it was Marco Polo who first brought the recipe for gunpowder back to Europe from his (?initial?) voyage to China although it may have occurred earlier through a land trip to China from eastern Europe. I also recall that the Chinese used the explosive substance for fireworks-type display only, negating their 'invention' of 'gunpowder'.. If that is so, then your answer probably lies 'within the first 50 years that the powder was in Europe', roughly, the latter 13th century to the middle of the 14th century. This, specifically, would have been the original 'blunderbuss' which is considered the predecessor to the shotgun. The shotgun as we know it, today, would have developed in an evolutionary manner from this weapon.

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15y ago

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