It has been stated that amongst the different gun makers who assembled at Woolwich, for the carrying on of experiments in 1851, no two agreed upon any one thing; and in 1860, it may still be averred, with almost equal truth, and that it yet remains an unsettled question as to the form, width, depth, number or degree of spirality of the grooves, as also the harmony which should subsist between the grooves, diameter of bore, the form and weight of projectile, and the quality and quantity of charge.
Description of Rifles.
Robins, in 1742, says, “rifles though well known on the continent, being but little used in England, it is necessary to give a short description of their make. The rifle has its cylinder cut with a number of spiral channels, so that it is in reality a female screw, varying from the fabric of common screws, only in this, that its threads or rifles are less deflected and approach more to a straight line.” Advantages of a rifle.The advantage of a rifle (with a round bullet), is that the axis of rotation not being in any accidental position, as in a smooth bore, but coincident with the line of its flight, it follows that the resistance on the fore part of the bullet is equally distributed round the centre of gravity, and acts with an equal force on every side of the line of direction, and also should the resistance be greater on one side of the bullet than the other from irregularities on its surface, as this part continually shifts its position round the line in which it is proceeding, the deflections which this irregularity would occasion are neutralized. With an elongated projectile rifling also prevents it from rotating round its shorter axis.
Rifling invented in Germany.
It is to the artizans of Germany, that the rifle owes its origin, as at the close of the fifteenth century barrels with straight grooves were used by the citizens of Leipsic, at target practice, Rifles used 1498.in 1498, and the invention of grooving or rifling fire-arms is generally supposed to be the result more of accident than theory. In Dean’s Manual of fire-arms, it is stated that, “the idea of grooving arms in the direction of the axis of the barrel to receive the residium of the powder, and thereby, not only facilitate the loading, but increase both the bite or forcing of the ball, by impressing upon it the grooves, and thus maintain it during its passage through the barrel in a direction more in harmony with the line of fire, was doubtless a conception based upon no previous theory or practice now to be traced, but was formed in that suggestiveness which in the individual founds for itself a theory based upon the likelihood of possible result. Straight grooves.Upon trial also of the straight grooves a greater precision for short distances would have been observed than with the smooth bore.” This must of itself therefore have led to the establishment of a certain grade of theory which it was endeavoured to amplify by various means, such as increasing the number of grooves, then of changing the inclination of grooves from the straight line to the spiral.
To deem that the practised crack “shots and armourers of a time when target practice was the constant recreation of the citizen, and his pride to excel in, were so brainless as to conceive no theory, unelaborated though it may have been, and that all their even now admired efforts in Germany, were the products of mere accident, is therefore scarcely a rational supposition.”
Spiral grooves, by Koster, of Nuremberg in 1522.
It is stated that Koster, of Nuremburg, in 1522, first suggested giving a spiral form to the grooves, and experience proved that much greater accuracy of shooting was the result.
Damer of Nuremberg, 1552.