SIR GEORGE BULLER, G.C.B. (vice Smith), October 13, 1860.
SIR CHARLES YORKE, G.C.B. (vice Brown), April 1, 1863.
⁂ The names in italics are those of officers who had not served in the Regiment.
[APPENDIX II.]
ON THE ARMAMENT OF THE REGIMENT.
On the presentation of the report of Colonels Manningham and Stewart (see [p. 1]), a committee of field officers was directed to assemble at Woolwich on February 1, 1800, in order to select a rifle to be used by the Rifle Corps. The principal gun-makers in England were invited to attend; and rifles from America, France, Germany, Spain, and Holland were produced and tried. This committee reported in favour of a rifle submitted by Ezekiel Baker, a gun-maker in London, which was adopted for the Rifle Corps, and was known as the ‘Baker rifle.’ This arm was 2 feet 6 inches long in the barrel; seven-grooved, and rifled one quarter turn; the balls were 20 to the pound, and the weight of the arm was 9½ pounds. It had, of course, a flint lock. It was sighted to 100 yards, and by a folding sight to 200 yards. This rifle was loaded with some difficulty, and at first small wooden mallets were supplied to the Riflemen to assist in ramming down the ball. These were found inconvenient and an incumbrance to the soldier, and were soon discontinued. The Rifle Corps originally carried a horn for powder, as well as the pouch. The Baker rifle had a brass box in the stock to contain the greased rag in which the ball was wrapped.[343] A picker to clear the touch-hole and a brush were also carried by the Riflemen, suspended by brass chains to the waist-belt.
Ezekiel Baker, the inventor of this rifle, published in 1803 a book entitled ‘Twenty-two Years’ Practice with Rifle Guns;’ a tenth edition of which, expanded from 8 pages of the original brochure to 238, appeared in 1829. His coloured prints of Riflemen aiming standing, kneeling, lying down on the face, and on the back, are curious, though the costume is rather fanciful. He gives diagrams showing that out of 34 shots at 100 yards with this rifle, 32 penetrated a human figure painted on a 6-ft. target; and of 24 shots at 200 yards, 22 penetrated a similar figure. Baker does not mention whether these were fired from the shoulder, or from a fixed rest.
To this rifle a triangular sword bayonet, 17 inches long in the blade, was affixed by a spring.