It is evident, that for actual service, the practice cannot be rendered too simple. So I only just mention, en passant, that in my own cartridge pouch, twelve cartridges, to be used first, are made with thicker cotton, which, for distinction’s sake, is red or blue. So, as the barrel becomes foul, I get to the other cartridges, of somewhat easier introduction. I have found it very pleasant even to divide my cartridges into three different fits—red, blue, and white. A rifle, however, deteriorates in accuracy of shooting, in proportion to the number of shots fired without cleaning the barrel. For the foulness accumulating mostly towards the breech, forms there a certain degree of constriction and obliteration of the grooves, into which part the bullet being forced, no longer fits the other and greater portion of the barrel, so to ensure its spinning upon its axis to the end of a long range. After twenty-five shots, without cleaning, at 315 yards, in very dry weather, I have found the bullets begin to deviate a little; as they no longer struck the target on the side which had come foremost from the barrel.
With respect to the rifleman’s cartridge-pouch, it should certainly be placed in front, buckling round the waist with a broad strap. The great thickness or projection which is given to the English rifle-pouches has many inconveniences; one of which is, that the weight, being concentrated into one almost cubic mass, causes great fatigue and annoyance, and perhaps injury, to the bearer. So far from having any such shape, I have found that the pouch ought to be so flat, as only to contain one row of tin tubes for cartridges, twenty-four of which occupy a space of about fourteen inches from hip to hip. The tubes being about five inches long, open at each end, but divided in the middle by a diaphragm, contain two cartridges each. When the uppermost row is consumed, to get at the others, it is only required to draw out the tubes, and reverse them in the pouch. If the cartridges are closed up, according to the method recommended in another part of this Treatise, they may, from the increased diameter of the folded end, be made to stick more or less firmly in the reversed half of the tubes, when these are drawn out to be turned. The pouch covers up with a flap of flexible leather, saturated with linseed oil, and secured at pleasure with a round button and loop. At one or both ends of the pouch is a little leathern bag, which may contain one or more packets of spare cartridges. I prefer, however, the method I have observed amongst the Calabrians and Corsicans, who, had they rifles, would be the most formidable skirmishers in the world. Their pouches go all round the body; though sometimes it is, as it were, a double pouch, with only small intervals at each hip, occupied by a bayonet on one side, and a middling-sized pistol on the other. From having only one row of tubes, these pouches are so little protuberant, as to be scarcely more perceptible, under or over the jacket, than a simple belt would be. When the cartridges are exhausted in front, the pouch is easily slipped round as much as required. Moreover, the weight being so distributed all round the body, gives scarcely any incumbrance; and I have found it a further improvement to partially support it by braces, worn under the jacket or waistcoat. Slips from the usual trouser suspenders will answer the purpose.
I must yet add a few words, by way of recommending some essential alterations in the method of exercising the troops to the use of that weapon, which will in most respects apply to the musket, carbine, and pistol.
In all the rifle or musket practice that I have ever seen or heard of, the men are made to fire at a target of about three feet diameter, placed before a bank or mound of earth, which receives all the missing bullets. Nothing can be more ineffectual in the way of instruction than this method! Every shot which misses the target, might as well have been fired vertically in the air, for any instruction it can have afforded to the firer! Even those bullets which do strike the target, will furnish no precise criteria of experience, unless the actual mark of each be immediately pointed out to the man who fired it.
The butt, or rather wall, for teaching rifle or musket shooting, should be at least twelve feet square, or rather twelve feet broad and twenty high. It should be covered entirely with cast-iron plates, of about three quarters of an inch thick. A convenient movable butt may be composed of a rectangular frame of wood, traversed like a window-frame, by pieces of wood at right angles or diagonally, having holes at the intersections for the admission of flat-headed bolts, by which the four corners of the cast-iron plates, corresponding to the size of the square divisions, will be secured to the frame, in close connexion with each other. Such a butt being set up endways, need only be connected, by a pulley at the top, to a couple of poles fixed in the earth, or to the top of a movable triangle. Any inclination, either forwards or backwards, may be given to it by means of the pulley. If it be inclined backwards at an angle of eighty to eighty-five degrees, the bullets, at medium and short ranges, will be reflected upwards nearly perpendicularly in the air.
The ground in front of the butt should be well levelled to the distance of about thirty yards, and covered with sifted road-scrapings, in preference to turf, gravel, or sand.
As unnecessary waste should in all cases be avoided, there is no reason why the recovery of the bullets should not be attended to. The best way to insure this, is to give the surface of the butt an inclination forward, of about ten degrees upon the horizontal line, which will cause the bullets to be reflected downwards upon the smooth ground in front. The recovered lead might be given as the perquisite of the marker, or to the best shot at the drill.
A little on one side, and about five yards in advance of the butt, there should be a little screen, or epaulement, behind which a man might safely stand to perform the office of marker. This marker must be provided with a pot of lamp-black and water, with a brush affixed to a long stick, and a pot of whitewash. He must also have a bit of chalk, or a box of various coloured wafers, to mark the shots. To prepare the butt for shooting, it must be blackened all over. An object is then to be designated in the middle, either with whitewash, or with one or more sheets of white paper, according to the distance, and to the proficiency of the men who are to practise.
Instead of a circular object or target, I recommend, for military practice, a perpendicular parallelogram of two, four, six, twelve, or more inches broad, and one, two, three, or five feet high. If such a figure be made with whiting on the black butt, the bullets will make very distinct marks upon it, while those which miss it will leave white ones on the butt. If paper be used, care must be taken that it be not moved about by the wind. Pieces of thick wrought iron, of the shape and dimensions last described, to suit the different distances, &c., whitened and hung up against the butt, form excellent targets, especially for distant shooting. A loud gong-like clang announces the stroke of a bullet, while the marker may pretty well indicate, with a stick blackened at the end, its precise situation. He will also point out the site of those unresponsive shots which do not hit the mark. The presiding officer should use a telescope. This method will obviate the necessity of perpetually walking up to the target, which occasions much loss of time, confusion, and danger.
As I have always observed that it gives most satisfaction to the firer, when he sees the object fired at actually knocked down from its situation, this result might easily be obtained either with plates of plaster of Paris, or with metal ones. It may be also well to observe, that a bright red is undoubtedly the colour which can be seen at the greatest distance, and consequently the properest for a bull’s-eye.