The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859

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We remember once to have met an old hunter who was one of the volunteers
at Hattsburg, (another rifle battle, fought by militiamen mainly,) a man
who never spoiled his furs by shooting his game in the body, and who
carried into the battle his hunting-rifle. Being much questioned as to
his share in the day's deeds, he told us that he, with a body of men,
all volunteers, and mainly hunters like himself, was stationed at a ford
on the Saranac, where a British column attempted to cross. Their captain
ordered no one to fire until the enemy were half-way across; "and then,"
said he, "none of 'em ever got across, and not many of them that got
into the water got out again. They found out it wa'n't of any kind of
use to try to get across there, and after a while they give it up and
went farther down the river; and by-and-by an officer come and told
us to go to the other ford, and we went there, and so they didn't get
across there either." We were desirous of getting the estimate of an
expert as to the effect of such firing, and asked him directly how many
men he had killed. "I don't know," said he, modestly; "I rather guess I
killed one fellow, _certain_; but how many more I can't say. I was going
down to the river with another volunteer to get some water, and I heerd
a shot right across the river, and I peeked out of the bushes, and see
a red-coat sticking his head out of the bushes on the other side, and
looking down the river, as if he'd been firing at somebody on our side,
and pretty soon he stuck his head out agin, and took aim at something
in that way; and I thought, of course, it must be some of our folks. I
couldn't stand that, so I just drawed up and fired at him. He dropped
his gun, and pitched head-first into the water. I guess I hit him
amongst the waistcoat-buttons; but then, you know, if I hadn't shot
him, he might have killed somebody on our side." We put the question in
another form, asking how many shots he fired that day. "About sixteen,
I guess, or maybe twenty." "And how far off were the enemy?" "Well, I
should think about twenty rod." We suggested that he did not waste many
of his bullets; to which he replied, that "he didn't often miss a deer
at that distance."

But these were the exploits of fifty years ago; the weapon, the old
heavy-metalled, long-barrelled "Kentucky" rifle; and the missile, the
old round bullet, sent home with a linen patch. It is a form of the
rifled gun not got up by any board of ordnance or theoretic engineers,
but which, as is generally the case with excellent tools, was the result
of the trials and experience of a race of practical men, something which
had grown up to supply the needs of hunters; and with the improvements
which greater mechanical perfection in gun-making has effected, it
stands at this day the king of weapons, unapproached for accuracy by the
work of any nation beside our own, very little surpassed in its range by
any of the newly invented modifications of the rifle. The Kentucky[1]
[Footnote 1: The technical name for the long, heavy, small-calibred
rifle, in which the thickness of the metal outside the bore is about
equal to the diameter of the bore.] rifle is to American mechanism what
the chronometer is to English, a speciality in which rivalry by any
other nation is at this moment out of the question. An English board of
ordnance may make a series of experiments, and in a year or two
contrive an Enfield rifle, which, to men who know of nothing better,
is wonderful; but here we have the result of experiments of nearly a
hundred years, by generations whose daily subsistence depended on the
accuracy and excellence of their rifles, and who all experimented
on the value of an inch in the length of the barrel, an ounce in its
weight, or a grain in the weight of the ball. They tried all methods of
creasing, all variations of the spiral of the groove; every town had
its gunsmith, who experimented in almost every gun he made, and who was
generally one of the best shots and hunters in the neighborhood; and
often the hunter, despairing of getting a gun to suit him in any other
way, went to work himself, and wrought out a clumsy, but unerring gun,
in which, perhaps, was the germ of some of the latest improvements in
scientific gunnery. The different gun-makers had shooting-matches, at
which the excellence of the work of each was put to the severest tests,
and by which their reputations were established. The result is a rifle,
compared with which, as manufactured by a dozen rifle-makers in the
United States, the Minie, the Enfield, the Lancaster, or even the
Sharpe's, and more recent breech-loaders, are bungling muskets. The last
adopted form of missile, the sugar-loaf-shaped, of which the Minie,
Enfieid, Colonel Jacob's, and all the conical forms are partial
adaptations, has been, to our personal knowledge, in use among our
riflemen more than twenty years. In one of our earliest visits to that
most fascinating of _ateliers_ to most American youth, a gunsmith's
shop, a collection of "slugs" was shown to us, in which the varieties of
forms, ovate, conical, elliptical, and all nameless forms in which the
length is greater than the diameter, had been exhausted in the effort to
find that shape which would range farthest; and the shape (very nearly)
which Colonel (late General) Jacob alludes to, writing in 1854, in these
terms, "This shape, after hundreds of thousands of experiments,
proves to be quite perfect," had been adopted by this unorganized
ordnance-board, composed of hundreds of gun-makers, stimulated by the
most powerful incentives to exertion. The experiments by which they
arrived at their conclusion not only anticipated by years the trials
of the European experimenters, but far surpass, in laboriousness and
nicety, all the experiments of Hythe, Vincennes, and Jacobabad. The
resulting curve, which the longitudinal section of the perfect "slug"
shows, is as subtile and incapable of modification, without loss, as
that of the boomerang; no hair's thickness could be taken away or added
without injury to its range. Such a weapon and such a missile, in their
perfection, could never have come into existence except in answer to the
demand of a nation of hunters to whom a shade of greater accuracy is
the means of subsistence. No man who is not a first-rate shot can judge
justly of the value of a rifle; and one of our backwoodsmen would never
use any rifle but the Kentucky _of American manufacture_, if it were
given him. An Adirondack hunter would not thank the best English
rifle-maker for one of his guns any more warmly than a sea-captain in
want of a chronometer would thank his owners for a Swiss lepine watch.

The gun which we thus eulogize we shall describe, and compare the
results which its use shows with those shown by the other known
varieties of rifle, and this without any consideration of the powers of
American marksmen as compared with European. The world is full of fables
of shooting-exploits as absurd as those told of Robin Hood. Cooper tells
of Leatherstocking's driving the nail with unfailing aim at a hundred
paces,--a degree of skill no man out of romance has ever been _reported_
to possess amongst riflemen. We have seen the best marksmen the
continent holds attempt to drive the nail at fifty yards, and take
fifty balls to drive one nail. A story is current of a French rifleman
shooting an Arab chief a mile distant, which, if true, was only a chance
shot; for no human vision will serve the truest rifle ever made and the
steadiest nerves ever strung to perform such a feat with any certainty.
Lieutenant Busk informs us that Captain Minie "will undertake to hit a
man at a distance of 1420 yards three times out of five shots,"--a
feat Captain Minie or any other man will "undertake" many times before
accomplishing, for the simple reason, that, supposing the rifle
_perfect_, at _that_ distance a man is too small a mark to be found in
the sights of a rifle, except by the aid of the telescope.[1] [Footnote
1: A man, five feet ten inches high, at 1450 yards, will, in the
buck-sight of the Minie rifle, at fourteen inches from the eye, appear
1/53 of an inch in height and 1/185 in breadth of shoulders. If the
reader will look at these measures on a finely divided scale, he will
appreciate the absurdity of such a boast. A man at that distance could
hardly be found in the sights.] We could fill a page with marvellous
shots _quos nidi et quorum pars_, etc. We have seen a bird no larger
than a half-grown chicken killed off-hand at eighty rods (nearly
fourteen hundred feet); have known a deer to be killed at a good half
mile; have shot off the skull-cap of a duck at thirty rods; at twenty
rods have shot a loon through the head, putting the ball in at one eye
and out at the other, without breaking the skin;--but such shooting,
ordinarily, is a physical impossibility, as any experienced rifleman
knows. These were chance shots, or so nearly so that they could not be
repeated in a hundred shots. The impossibility lies in the marksman and
in human vision.

In comparing the effects of rifles, then, we shall suppose them, as in
government trials and long-range shooting-matches, to be fired from a
"dead rest,"--the only way in which the absolute power of a rifle can be
shown. First, for the gun itself. There are two laws of gunnery which
must be kept in sight in comparing the results of such trials:--1st,
that the shape and material of two missiles being the same, the heavier
will range the farther, because in proportion to its momentum it meets
less resistance from the atmosphere; 2d, that the less the recoil of the
gun, the greater will be the initial velocity of the ball, since the
motion lost in recoil is taken from the velocity of the ball. Of course,
then, the larger the bore of the rifle, the greater will be its range,
supposing always the best form of missile and a proportionate weight of
gun. As the result of these two laws, we see that of two guns throwing
the same weight and description of missile, the heavier will throw its
missile the farther; while of two guns of the same weight, that one
which throws the smaller missile will give it the greater initial
velocity,--supposing the gun free to recoil, as it must, fired from the
shoulder. But the smaller ball will yield the sooner to the resistance
of the atmosphere, owing to its greater proportional surface presented.
Suppose, then, two balls of different weights to be fired from guns of
the same weight;--the smaller ball will start with the higher rate of
speed, but will finally be overtaken and passed by the larger ball; and
the great problem of rifle-gauge is to ascertain that relation of weight
of gun to weight of projectile which will give the greatest velocity at
the longest range at which the object fired at can be seen distinctly
enough to give a reasonable chance of hitting it. This problem the maker
of the Kentucky rifle solves, by accepting, as a starting-point, the
greatest weight of gun which a man may reasonably be expected to
carry,--say, ten to twelve pounds,--and giving to that weight the
heaviest ball it will throw, without serious recoil,--for no matter what
the proportion, there will be _some_ recoil. This proportion of the
weight of gun to that of projectile, as found by experience, is about
five hundred to one; so that if a gun weigh ten pounds, the ball should
weigh about 19/500 of a pound. Of course, none of these gun-makers have
ever made a mathematical formula expressing this relation; but hundreds
of thousands of shots have pretty well determined it to be the most
effective for all hunting needs (and the best hunting-rifles are the
best for a rifle-corps, acting as sharp-shooters). By putting this
weight of ball into a conical form of good proportions, the calibre
of the gun may be made about ninety gauge. which, for a range of four
hundred yards, cannot be excelled in accuracy with that weight of gun.

But in a rifle the grooving is of the utmost importance; for velocity
without accuracy is useless. To determine the best kind of groove has
been, accordingly, the object of the most laborious investigations. The
ball requires an initial rotary motion sufficient to keep it "spinning"
up to its required range, and is found to gain in accuracy by increasing
this rotatory speed; but if the pitch of the grooves be too great,
the ball will refuse to follow them; but, being driven across them,
"strips,"--that is, the lead in the grooves is torn off, and the ball
goes out without rotation. The English gunsmiths have avoided the
dilemma by giving the requisite pitch and making the grooves very deep,
and even by having wings cast on the ball to keep it in the grooves,
expedients which increase the friction in the barrel and the resistance
of the air enormously.

The American gun-makers have solved the problem by adopting the "gaining
twist," in which the grooves start from the breech nearly parallel to
the axis of the barrel, and gradually increase the spiral, until, at the
muzzle, it has the pitch of one revolution in three to four; _the pitch
being greater as the bore is less_. This gives, as a result, safety from
stripping, and a rapid revolution at the exit, with comparatively little
friction and shallow groove-marks on the ball,--accomplishing what is
demanded of a rifled barrel, to a degree that no other combination of
groove and form of missile ever has.

English makers have experimented somewhat on the rifling of barrels, but
with no results which compare with those shown by the improved Kentucky.
English hunting-rifles, and _all_ military rifles, are made with
complete disregard of the law of relation between the weights of ball
and barrel. The former seems to be determined by dividing the weight of
ammunition a soldier may carry in his cartridge-box by the number of
charges he is required to have, and then the gun is made as light as
will stand the test of firing,--blunders all the way through; for we
never want a rifle-ball to range much farther than it is possible to hit
a single man with it; and a missile of the proper shape from a barrel of
sixty gauge will kill a man at a mile's distance, if it strike a vital
part. The consequence is, that the rifles are so light in proportion to
their load that the recoil seriously diminishes the force of the ball,
and entirely prevents accuracy of aim; and at the same time their
elastic metal springs so much under the pressure of the gas generated
by the explosion of the powder that anything like exactitude becomes
impossible.[1][Footnote 1: Experiments have shown, that, with a barrel
about the thickness of that of our "regulation rifles," the spring will
throw a ball nearly two feet from the aim in a range of six hundred
yards, if the barrel be firmly held in a machine.] This the English
gunsmiths do not seem to have learned, since their best authorities
recommend a gun of sixty-four gauge to have a barrel of four pounds
weight, and that is considered heavy,--while ours, of sixty gauge, would
weigh at least twice that. To get the best possible shooting, we find
not only weight of barrel requisite, but a thickness of the metal nearly
or quite equal to the diameter of the bore.

Mr. Whitworth, of Manchester, revived the old polygonal bore, and, by
a far more perfect boring of barrel than was ever before attained in
England, has succeeded in doing some very accurate shooting; but the
pitch of his grooves requisite to give sufficient rotation to his
polygonal missile to enable it to rotate to the end of its flight is so
great, that the friction and recoil are enormous, and the liability
to burst very great, Mr. Whitworth's missile is a twisted prism,
corresponding to the bore, of two and a half diameters, with a cone at
the front of one half the diameter. Such a gun, in a firing-machine,
with powder enough to overcome all the friction, and heavy enough to
counteract torsion and springing, would give very great accuracy, if
perfectly made, or as well made as American rifles generally; but no
maker in England, not even Mr. Whitworth, has attained _that_ point
yet; and even so made, they would never be available as service--or
hunting-guns.

The Lancaster rifle avoids grooves (nominally) altogether, and
substitutes an elliptical bore, twisted to Mr. Whitworth's pitch (twenty
inches). General Jacob says, very justly, of this gun: "The mode of
rifling is the _very worst possible. It is only the two-grooved rifle in
disguise_. Let the shoulders of the grooves of a two-grooved rifle be
removed, and you have the Lancaster rifle. But by the removal of
these shoulders, the friction, if the twist be considerable, becomes
enormous." To compare this twist with the rifled bore, one has only to
take a lead tube, made slightly elliptical in its cross-section, and,
fitting a plug to its ellipse, turn the plug round, and he will see that
the result is to enlarge the whole bore to the longest diameter of the
ellipse, which, if it were a gun-barrel, unelastic, would be equivalent
to bursting it. But this is exactly the action which the ball has on the
barrel, so that, to use General Jacob's words, "the heat developed by
the friction must be very great, and the tendency of the gun to burst
also very great." Lieutenant Busk--who seems, if we may judge from the
internal evidence of his book, to know little or nothing of good rifles
or rifle-practice, and to have no greater qualification for writing the
book than the reading of what has been written on the subject and an
acquaintance of great extent with gunsmiths--remarks, in reply to the
veteran of English riflemen: "Having given the matter the very closest
attention, I am enabled confidently to state that the whole of this
supposition [quoted above] is founded in error.... So far from the
friction being enormous, it is less than that generated in any other
kind of rifle. It is also utterly impossible for the bullet to act
destructively on the barrel in the way suggested." Such cool assurance,
in an unsupported contradiction of experience and the dictates of the
simplest mechanical common-sense, would seem to promise little real
value in the book, and promises no less than it really has.

The same objection which lies against the Lancaster rifle (?) applies
to the Whitworth in a less degree. If the reader, having tried the
lead-pipe experiment above, will next hammer the tube hexagonal and try
the plug again, he will find the same result; but if he will try it with
a round bore grooved, and with a plug fitting the grooves, he will see
that the pressure is against the wall of the groove, and acts at right
angles to the radius of the bore, having only a tendency to twist the
barrel in order to straighten the grooves,--a tendency which the barrel
meets in the direction of its greatest stability. We may see, then,
that, in theory at least, there is no way of rifling so secure as that
in which the walls of the grooves are parts of radii of the bore. They
should be numerous, that the hold of the lands (the projection left
between the grooves) may divide the friction and resistance as much as
possible, and so permit the grooves to be as shallow as may be. The
figure

[Illustration: ]

represents, on one side of the dotted line, three grooves, 1, 1, 1, cut
in this way, exaggerated to show more clearly their character. In the
Kentucky rifle this law is followed, except that, for convenience in
cutting, the grooves are made of the same width at the bottom and top,
as shown at 2, 2, 2, which is, for grooves of the depth of which they
are made, practically the same, as the dotted circle will show. Our
gun-makers use from six to ten grooves.

To sum up our conditions,--the model rifle will conform to the following
description:--Its weight will be from ten to twelve pounds; the length
of barrel not less than thirty inches,[1] and of calibre from ninety to
sixty gauge; six to ten freed grooves, about .005 inch deep, angular at
bottom and top, with the lands of the same width as the grooves; twist
increasing from six feet to three feet; barrel, of cast steel,[2] fitted
to the stock with a patent breech, with back action set lock, and open
or hunting and globe and peek sights. Mr. Chapman, whose book is the
most interesting and intelligent, by far, of all hitherto published,
recommends a straighter stock than those generally used by American
hunters. Here we differ;--the Swiss stock, crooking, on an average, two
inches more than ours, is preferable for quick shooting, though in a
_light_ rifle much crook in the stock will throw the muzzle up by the
recoil. With such a gun,--the best for hunting that the ingenuity and
skill of man have ever yet contrived and made,--one may depend on
his shot, if he have skill, as he cannot on the Minie, Enfield, or
Lancaster; and whether he be in the field against a foe, or in the
forest against the deer, he holds the life of man or deer in his power
at the range of rifle-sighting.

[Footnote 1: There is much difference of opinion amongst gun-makers as
to the length of barrel most desirable. We believe in a long barrel, for
the following reasons: 1st, a longer distance between sights is given,
and the back sight can be put farther from the eye, so that finer
sighting is possible; 2d, a long barrel is steadier in off-hand
shooting; 3d, it permits a slower powder to be used, so that the ball
starts more slowly and yet allows the full strength of the powder to be
used before it leaves the barrel, getting a high initial velocity with
little recoil, and without "upsetting" the ball, as we shall explain
farther on. The experiments of the United States government show that
the increasing of the length of the barrel from thirty-three to forty
inches (we speak from memory as to numbers) increased the initial
velocity fifty feet per second; but this will, in long ranges, be no
advantage, except with such a shape of missile as will maintain a high
speed.]

[Footnote 2: Hunters still dispute as to iron or steel; and we have used
iron barrels made by Amsden, of Saratoga Springs, which for accuracy and
wear were unexceptionable; though gunsmiths generally take less pains
with iron than steel barrels. But give us steel.]

Of all the variations of the rifle, for the sake of obtaining force of
penetration, nothing yet compares with the Accelerating Rifle, invented
some years since by a New York mechanic. In this the ball was started by
an ordinary charge, and at a certain distance down the barrel received
a new charge, by a side chamber, which produced an almost incredible
effect. An ellipsoidal missile of ninety gauge and several diameters
long, made of brass, was driven through thirty-six inches of oak and
twenty-four inches of green spruce timber, or fifty inches of the most
impenetrable of timbers. The same principle of acceleration has, it is
said, been most successfully applied in Boston by the use of a hollow
_tige_ or tube fixed at the bottom of the bore with the inside of which
the cap-fire communicates,--so that, when the gun is charged, part of
the powder falls into the _tige_, and the remainder into the barrel
outside of it. The ball being driven down until it rests on the top of
the _tige_, receives its first impulse from the small charge contained
in it,--after which, the fire, flashing back, communicates to the powder
outside the _tige_, producing an enormous accelerating effect. But it is
doubtful if the gun can be brought into actual service, from being so
difficult to clean.

It is questionable if any greater range in rifles will be found
desirable. With a good Kentucky rifle, we are even now obliged to use
telescope sights to avail ourselves of its full range and accuracy of
fire. The accelerating inventions may be made use of in artillery, for
throwing shells, and for siege trains, but promise nothing for small
arms.

Then, as the secondary point, comes the form of projectile, that in
which the greatest weight (and thence momentum) combines with least
resistance from the atmosphere. In the pursuit of this result every
experimenter since the fifteenth century has worked. Lautmann, writing
in 1729, recommends an elliptical missile, hollow behind, from a
notion that the hollow gathered the explosive force, Robins recommends
elongated balls; and they were used in many varieties of form. Theory
would assign, as the shape of highest rapidity, one like that which
would be made by the revolution of the waterline section of a fast
ship on its longitudinal axis; and supposing the force _to have been_
applied, this would doubtless be capable of the greatest speed; but the
rifle-missile must first be fitted to receive the action of the powder
in the most effective way. An ellipsoid cone would leave the air behind
it most smoothly, but it would not receive the pressure of the gas in a
line with its direction of motion; and so of the hollow butt; the gas,
acting and reacting in every way perpendicularly to the surface it acts
on, wastes its force in straining outwardly. The perfectly flat butt
would take as much forward impetus at the edge of the cone base, where
the soft lead would yield slightly. And so we find the best form to be
a base which receives the force of the powder in such a way that the
resultant of the forces acting on each point in the base would be
coincident with the axis of the missile. And this, in practice, was the
shape which the American experiments gave to the butt of the ball, the
condition in which it left the air being found of minor importance,
compared with its capacity of receiving the force of the powder. The
point of the cone was found objectionable in practice, and was gradually
brought to the curve of the now universally used sugar-loaf missile or
flat-ended picket shown in fig. 1.

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