Colonel Beaufoy, in a work called “Scloppetaria,” 1812, remarks that several experiments have been tried with egg-shaped bullets, recommended by Robins. It was found, however, that these bullets were subject to such occasional random ranges, as completely baffled the judgment of the shooters to counteract their irregularity. Their deviations to windward most likely arose from the effect of the wind on the after part, which, as being the lightest of the two, was driven more to leeward, and consequently acted as a rudder to throw the foremost end up to the wind.
Turpin 1770.
In 1770 Messrs. Turpin tried elongated bullets, at La Fiere, and at Metz.
Rifled guns &c., 1776.
We are informed, in the Annual Register for 1776, and also in the Scots Magazine for the same year, that rifled Ordnance were experimented with at Languard Fort, &c., &c., in 1774. Dr. Lind, one of the inventors, states that to remedy the deflection of shot, “One way is to use bullets that are not round but oblong. But in our common guns that are not rifled, I know no way to prevent deflection, except you choose to shoot with a rifled bullet.”
Elongated projectiles 1789.
Elongated Projectiles were tried in the years 2, 6, and 9 of the Revolution, by Mons. Guitton de Moreau. They were proposed by Mons. Bodeau. 1800 and 1815.In 1800 and 1815 the Prussians tried ellipsodical bullets. Colonel Miller, Colonel Carron, Captain Blois, and others, also experimented with the cylindro-conical form.
Captain Norton 1824.
Captain Norton (late 34th Regt.), the original inventor of the application of the percussion principle to shells for small arms, in 1824, completed an elongated rifle shot and shell, the former precisely of the form of the Minié bullet, with projections to fit the grooves of the barrel.
Mr. Greener 1836.