“1st. The alleged increased accuracy has been by some attributed to the supposition that the revolutions of the bullet round its own axis increase in rapidity while passing through the air, in consequence of having acquired that motion when passing through the barrel, under the influence of the grooves; but it is difficult to imagine how a leaden bullet can carry within itself, after leaving the muzzle, any power of increasing its own rotatory or progressive motion.
“2nd. That there should be less recoil is natural, as the bullet meets with less opposition when first started from a state of rest; but the amount of recoil in all rifles now made for expanding projectiles is quite inconsiderable, and not worth noticing.
“3rd. The tendency of a bullet to twist the rifle on one side is now avoided by reducing the spirality of the grooves. Instead of[408] being one turn in three or four feet as formerly, it is now one turn in six feet six inches, and sometimes only one turn in eight or nine feet.
“4th. The advocates of this system maintain that a bullet is less likely to ‘strip,’ or pass out of the barrel without rifling itself, when conducted gradually into the required degree of spirality. But the question is, whether in a well-constructed rifle, the bullet does strip? and if not, then a gaining-twist is unnecessary and objectionable, as it offers to the ball’s progress a continually increasing opposition, while the ball itself is subjected to a continually increasing urging force from the inflamed gunpowder in the barrel, so that, as the velocity of the ball increases, so also does the resistance to its escape. A projectile is set in motion gradually, and is (or should be, if the quality and quantity of the powder, and the barrel, have a right proportion to each other) at its greatest velocity just before leaving the muzzle; consequently the tendency of a ball would be to yield to the increasing force of the powder and pass straight out of the barrel without following the grooves; and this more especially in a smooth bore, which has no clearly defined edges to hold and guide the ball to its proper degree of spirality, but where the lead may be compressed along the smooth surface so as to pass straight along the barrel.”
So much for the gaining twist; it requires no further argument. The oval bore is not an invention of Mr. Lancaster: it is older than Captain Beaufoy’s book, “Scloppetaria,” published in 1808, for in it you will find a description how to rifle a smooth bore; and he gives drawings of the tools to do it with.
If these statements are facts—and I defy them being gainsaid—what connection has this gentleman with it at all? for what purpose is it pompously announced that the Lancaster elliptical bored rifle shoots superior to the Enfield, when there is not such a thing? The superior shooting of one man over another is more than sufficient explanation. The highly unscientific theory of putting a bullet into excessive spiral motion at the instant it has acquired a maximum of velocity is untenable, admitting of no lucid explanation. The Enfield rifle has evidently many enemies, who do not hesitate in injuring her reputation, nor hesitate about the means of doing it. All elliptical bores are but the two-grooved rifle in disguise: an idea fast exploding.
The truth of my opinion about the two-grooved or Brunswick rifle, introduced into the service in 1840, is now proved. Many of my readers will recollect that in my books of 1842 and 1846 I termed this “an abortion of science:” it has since died with that cognomen; though it was puffed up, as my readers will remember, by many high authorities, and amongst the rest by Dr. Ure, who said nearly as much for it as is now advanced in favour of the hexagonal rifle. On referring to the report of the Select Committee on Small Arms, published in 1852, I find the following account of it:—
“At all distances above 400 yards the shooting was so wild as to be unrecorded. The Brunswick rifle has shown itself to be much inferior in point of range to every other arm hitherto noticed.
“The loading of this rifle is so difficult that it is wonderful how the rifle regiments have continued to use it so long—the force required to ram down the ball being so great as to render any man’s hand unsteady for accurate shooting. Comment is unnecessary.”