The expansive principle now adopted combines such qualities that, however long and loudly it may be condemned, it will again assert its superiority, and hold undisputed the first place for generations to come. It is based on that law of nature which will always tell in mechanical productions; namely, minimum of friction, and hence maximum of propulsion or velocity; the greatest possible range with the least amount of expellant agency. The same law holds, even though the bullet should be elongated and made into an arrow. That which has been introduced to the world as an improvement on my invention, and modestly termed the “Pritchett bullet,” I rejected in 1841 as being inferior to the expansive bullet: any one who is curious, and wishes to be convinced of this fact, will find the following quotation in the Naval and Military Gazette for February, 1842:—“A great improvement may be effected by using plugs of a cylindrical shape, having the upper end round, and the part next the powder flat or concave; for rifles, to be of use, must be constructed for high velocity, and this can be done by a proportionate spiral and the use of a plug similar to that given above. In this case we may load with the greatest facility, and the bullet expanding, forces itself into the grooves of the rifle, and thus receives the modicum of spiral motion required.” A perusal of “Captain Jervis on the Musket Rifle” would lead one to infer that this was a great invention on the part of Mr. Pritchett, and that it would supersede to a certainty the more perfect expansive bullet; but Mr. Pritchett’s so-called invention has sunk into oblivion, from whence it will never emerge.
From practice I found that the most material defect in this bullet was its uncertainty of action: it was driven in upon itself, and thus its diameter was increased. A slight difference in the hardness of the lead, a bullet moulded when the metal was hot, and the reverse, would be such insuperable difficulties as to render their adoption quite impracticable; moreover, when rapid firing became necessary, the enormous friction created by the heat and hardness of the previous deposit from exploded powder, rendered the use of these bullets highly dangerous; as was proved in the Crimean war. I trust they are now for ever abandoned, for their adoption did not show great intelligence on the part of their advocates.
The expansive principle not being adopted in the armies of France and other Continental nations, may be justly attributed to the experimenters of the French school having been led astray; claiming, as they did, the entire merit of the invention. It is but fair that whilst endeavouring to establish my own claim to the invention, I should point out the discrepancies existing in the theory of my opponents.
That considerable imperfections exist in the expansive rifle used in France, is evident from the results of their experiments, and the time which has been wasted in discussing the principles necessary for correcting the flight of the bullet by “annular rings” being applied to its cylindrical part.
Captain Tamissier’s theory is “that an elongated bullet in passing through the air, describing the curve of the trajectory, maintained its axis parallel in its successive positions to the position it had at starting, and that the angle formed by this axis with the element of the trajectory—that is, the direction of the motion—changed every instant. The action of atmospheric resistance would also be altered by the surface presented by the projectile; as the point of application of this force would not always pass through the centre of gravity, but would establish a rotatory motion different from that with which the bullet was originally animated: in different words, the bullet, by preserving its original position, would after a time be pursuing its path with its broadside foremost; that is, with the point of its axis above the line of the trajectory and the near end below.
“To remedy this, and increase the precision of fire with these bullets, Captain Tamissier thought it was necessary to create resistances to the atmosphere as far as possible behind their centre of gravity, in order to bring the point of the bullet back to its original course. For this purpose he formed a number of circular grooves on the cylindrical part of the bullet, in imitation of the feathers of an arrow; which, he says, are placed at the hinder part to engender resistances.”
The folly of such a theory must be very apparent to a practical man. The engraving below of a bullet obtained direct from Captain Minié in December, 1855, and with which the troops were then experimenting at Vincennes, when compared with my bullet of 1843, renders any further argument unnecessary.
| MINIE BULLET, 1855. | GREENERIAN BULLET, 1843. |
With this I contrast my bullet of 1841, at [page 354], and a very slight inspection will be sufficient to satisfy any one of its superiority: every practical rifle-shooter knows that the smoother all the surfaces of the bullet, the more extensive and accurate is the range. That the French experiments should have given unsatisfactory results I am not at all surprised: the flat surface on the point of the bullet must offer a large space for the resistance of the atmosphere, during 1,000 yards of flight. Then to this must be added the effect produced by the rings around the bullet; and when the resistance of the atmosphere and that produced by the friction of the bullet are added together, we need not be surprised that the results of the experiments turned out very unsatisfactory. Surely, if the French school invented the bullet which produced this wonderful revolution in gunnery, they would have rendered it perfect, instead of producing it in a more rude state in 1848 than I had produced it in 1840.