That this sum may be lessened by the employment of machinery is not unlikely; but this can only be done to a limited extent, it being essential that mathematical nicety, as well as the right degree of hardness, should be strictly observed, otherwise the power of penetration will be sacrificed: and of this property a great deal has been made. There are few who do not know that a pound hammer will soon drive to the head a fine-pointed slender nail; whilst a short, thick, stumpy nail requires three times the force: again, if fine steel polished nails were constructed, a still smaller amount of force would suffice. If such effects are carefully studied, much may be done with very little means.
Very recently a statement appeared in the press that, owing to some ill-made cartridges being served out to the troops in India, the men found it almost impossible to load their Enfield rifles at all; having to call in the aid of trees and stones against which to butt the ramrod, in order to force the bullet home. The same account attributed this defect to the careless construction of these cartridges by the contractors. This, however, is unjust; all cartridges for the Enfield rifles being alone produced in the laboratory at Woolwich; and hence the defect is the more unpardonable. It is easy to conceive that in India, where the heat is intense, the grease on the cartridge might have disappeared; the unctuous deposit of gunpowder on the interior of the barrel is also rendered more adhesive, and necessarily offers greater obstruction to the ramming down of the bullet. The very slight difference between the diameter of the bullet and that of the bore, or windage, must necessarily add to the difficulty under such circumstances; but if half a size, or a few decimals of diameter, were taken from the sides of the bullet and added to its length, the difficulty would be effectually removed: with increased length, and increasing means of expansion, if necessary, such an occurrence could never take place.
The original expanding bullet was intended to fill up the difference of three sizes of gauge; surely, then, there can be no difficulty in expanding a much less diameter of bullet one half, or even full one size of gauge. Where would be the difficulty in having the bullet 26-bore, or even smaller, and expanding it to 25. The occurrence, indeed, of such a fact as that alluded to is to an intelligent mind quite incomprehensible; it could only arise from gross incompetency—some cobbling with the bullet’s cup in the pressing, or perhaps enlargement by wear, or more likely still from the pulp-made cartridge paper. That this difficulty has been experienced is obvious; and the inference is strong, that the official managers of these affairs are still in the midst of a long experiment: it is clear that they are not perfectly masters of the practice of gunnery, and it is almost time the people of this country had their work better done. It is more than probable that, instead of meeting this difficulty with the proper spirit of improvement, they will fly off at some other tangent, and adopt the nostrum of some “arrant quack;” thus effectually adding to the complication.
Each regiment ought to have moulds, and the means of making their cartridges on such emergencies; a body of provident officials ought to attend to this, that a repetition of it may be avoided.
An ordinary mind would have perceived that, in such lengthened operations as those our soldiers have been engaged in, the cleaning of their arms would be almost impossible; still the men are not instructed that in such a difficulty an oiled rag passed up and down the barrel would diminish it; neither is such a simple remedy provided: let us trust, however, that this misfortune will lead to improvement. If this difficulty is encountered in the Enfield, which is, comparatively speaking, a smooth bore, what would be the difficulty in the hexagonal bore with two turns in 39 inches! The possibility of loading the latter would be very remote indeed, if not quite impracticable, and a total bar to anything like its general adoption.
Pure lead is indispensable for all rifle bullets, but more especially for the expansive, which is in reality useless without it. A lubricating grease, of a given consistency for various climates, is also a desideratum yet to be accomplished; how desirable it would be, is shown by all the accounts of good shooting I have ever received or met with.
A vast number of projectiles have been produced, and strenuously advocated; but from the total want of scientific arrangement in their construction they have had but a very short existence. The vital principle in all elongated projectiles is to have the centre of gravity in the fore end; wanting that, an unnecessary spinning motion must be resorted to, at the cost of immense friction: for the tendency to change position can only be obviated by excessive spiral motion; whilst in a bullet having the centre of gravity in the head, much less spiral motion suffices: its scientific construction admits of no tendency to change; straight forward is its natural inclination, and to this inclination it adheres.
A late writer on projectiles has laboured hard to condemn the expansive principle and the cup; he has even aspired to lecture on it before Royalty, and as an improvement upon it, he recommends the following invention of his own:—
“In my endeavours to remedy the evils which have been so often and justly complained of, I attempted the construction of several bullets, particularly with the view of solving the question—can a cylindro-conoidal bullet be contrived, which will have a flat surface for its base, and the centre of gravity in the fore part? In my attempts from time to time I met with less or more success until I arrived at my last improvement, the principle of which has afforded me so much satisfaction, that I fancy I have only to describe it, to enable any intelligent marksman to perceive at once the utility of the contrivance.
“In the end of the bullet, which is a fair cylinder for half its length, I formed a cavity of a conical form, similar to the inside of a small thimble, which stretches forward somewhat more than half the length of the bullet, and which is wide enough to reduce sufficiently the weight of the hinder end, so as to throw the centre of gravity into the fore part, even after the explosion of the charge takes place. On the edge of the cavity I made an indentation, or shoulder, about a twelfth of an inch in depth, and upon this I placed an iron disc of the same thickness, which closes up the cavity even with the end of the bullet, making a flat surface of that part; so that it may be called a hollow flat-ended bullet, though to all appearance solid.”