Facility of loading is no doubt to a certain extent an advantage, but doubts exist whether breech-loading guns, if brought to such a state of perfection as to come into general use, would not, from their very facility of loading, become a serious evil.
The difficulty which Commanding Officers have to contend with in war is in restraining their men from firing too rapidly, using two shots where one would suffice; but the process of loading inculcates care of it, takes considerable trouble, and hence men husband their fire the more.
The two different principles of revolvers illustrate this. The self-acting one is apt to be fired more than once; a man in a state of excitement may pull twice before he pauses, and two shots are expended where one would have sufficed. The cocking-lock pistol, in addition to the less pull required in firing, gives time for observation, as the necessity for cocking every time creates a pause, and is an admonition to coolness: this is often very advantageous in shooting game, in which, as in the more serious affair of shooting men, deliberate coolness is required.
Therefore, excepting only the chance—the very remote chance, that may arise, requiring you to fire six shots as rapidly as possible—so rapidly that the cocking pistol would be too slow, I would myself prefer the cocking pistol; from the fact of being able to take much better aim with it, and there being less chance of missing, through the heavy pull necessary to raise the cock and fire the pistol on the self-acting principle. The almost general adoption, in the present day, of the cocking-lock, and its application in both Adams’s and Tranter’s self-acting principles, is proof of the general bias towards the same opinion.
The tendency of all revolving pistols, and of course revolving rifles also, to foul in the barrel after a few shots, is a very serious drawback to their efficiency in use. The following quotation from Lieutenant Symons’ work is one opinion which I select from a number in my possession:—
“Revolving pistols only ought now-a-days, in my opinion, to be made breech-loading; and of these the pistol of Colonel Colt is a very good specimen. I can generally hit a target the size of a man with this pistol at a distance of 150 yards when clean, i. e., with the first shot; and I on one occasion put five out of the six shots into the target successively. When foul, however, the bullets will not fly steadily and on their points. I one day, for the purpose of experiment, fired 60 rounds without cleaning, at planks placed a few yards off only, when latterly the bullets, instead of cutting the circular holes they had been doing, commenced to make marks in the planks as if nails an inch long had struck them sideways. On taking off the barrel to ascertain the cause, I found that it was nearly choked up with lead. The barrel of this pistol rapidly fouls, though the chambers do not.”
It also furnishes a complete answer to the absurd proposition of imparting spiral motion to a bullet, by means of an increasing spiral, after it is put into high velocity. The fouling of the barrel by lead to an extent (as I have seen) of a considerable portion of the bore, is absolute proof that the bullet does not follow the course of the grooving: in its passage through the directing barrel it passes straight out, with the velocity imparted to it in the chamber.
The experience of this fact induced Mr. Tranter to invent his lubricating bullet, the only form of pistol with which many shots can be fired without cleaning. There are, in reality, many defects to be overcome (though it is very doubtful whether they will ever be) before revolvers can in any degree be relied upon for constant operations. I know for a fact that at this moment Government have in store many thousands, disabled for all useful purposes, though by the most trivial circumstances; fouling with lead being one of the most prominent defects, or some trifling disarrangement of the rotating machinery, such as it might be supposed could be repaired: but they are returned to store as hopeless, in the usual course, and thus their fate is sealed as a military weapon.
The double-barrelled under-and-over pistol was entirely discarded for the new toy; but hopes are entertained that the former will soon be restored to the lost preference of all who value their own safety, and would rather depend on two certainly destructive shots than six uncertain ones. For my own personal use in any scene of combat, my reliance would be on a pair of double-barrelled pistols; or what is of more use still, on double carbines. The Emperor of the French, however, is arming his sailors with revolving pistols; and lately, in India, a squadron of Dragoons used the revolver with deadly effect on a body of rebel Sepoys.