The modifications of the preceding forms, shown in Figs. 8 and 9 were used in the Crimea by the Sardinian army which also used a smoothbore musket with solid ball as per Fig. 10. The French army Zouaves used a solid cylindro-conical grooved ball, as in Fig. 11, in a tige rifle.
The 1856 Austrian rifle used a solid cylindro-conical ball, "with two deep grooves cut in the cylindrical part such that the parts between the grooves are forced together and outwards, or upset by the explosion of the powder, to fill the bore and the rifle grooves," as in Fig. 12. Fig. 13 illustrates the same principle as used by the Saxon army.
| Fig. 14 | Fig. 15 | Fig. 16 | Fig. 17 | Fig. 18 |
Other forms used at the time by the various Powers are illustrated in Figs. 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18. But it was an open question as to which was the best form, no Power being fully satisfied.
It may be noted here that as the breech-loading rifle had not up to this time been sufficiently perfected, all the above bullets were for muzzle loading rifles. Breech-loading arms had been known for over two centuries but were as yet unreliable, clumsy, and generally imperfect.
Fig. 19. The Lancaster Gun.
The early methods adopted in the construction of cannon to impart to the projectile the desired rotary motion are as interesting as the early methods adopted in the construction of the projectile. Heavy rifled artillery was introduced in 1856 against Cronstadt. The English artillery at Sebastopol used the Lancaster Gun, illustrated in Fig. 19. The form of the bore section of this gun was that of an ellipse of 8" and 85/8" diameters, the bore being generated by the section of such an elipse making a revolution of about one-quarter turn in the length of the bore, the center of the section always co-incident with the longitudinal axis of the gun, forming thereby a continuous elliptical cylinder, the greater axis at the muzzle lying in the vertical plane and gradually becoming horizontal at the breech section, or in other words, the whole length and section of the bore was a rifle twist of one quarter of a turn in its length.
The projectile was a wrought iron shell of the form and size indicated in Fig. 20, as ascertained by measurement of one found in the trenches at Sebastopol.