Dovetail joint joint technique probably pre-dates written history. Some of the earliest known examples of the dovetail joint are in ancient Egyptian furniture entombed with mummies dating from First Dynasty, as well as the tombs of Chinese emperors. The dovetail design is an important method of distinguishing various periods of furniture. In Europe the dovetail joint is sometimes called a swallowtail joint, a culvertail joint, or a fantail joint. The dovetail joint is very strong because of the way the 'tails' and 'pins' are shaped. This makes it difficult to pull the joint apart and virtually impossible when glue is added. This
Dovetail rail Dovetails come in several different types and sizes depending on manufacturer, but the most common are the 11 mm and inch (9.5 mm). Some other less known, but currently commercially available dovetail mounts, are 12, 13, 13.5, 14, 14.5, 16, 16.5, 17 and 19 mm. While the well standardized picatinny rail mount (and its less standardized predecessor the Weaver rail) is most known in the U.S., many European gun manufacturers offer proprietary scope base receiver mounting systems for their guns, for example Sako has tapered dovetails, Tikka use a 16 mm dovetail, and there are other solutions such as the