Discoveries and Inventions of the Nineteenth Century

Fig. 82.—Muzzle-loading Musket and Rifles (obsolete patterns).A. Brown Bess and Bayonet; B. Brunswick Rifle; C. Enfield Rifle and Bayonet. In Fig. 82 are represented the muzzle-loading musket and muzzle-loading rifles which formed the regulation weapons of the British infantry from the beginning of the century up to the year 1864. Somewhat slow in its earlier stages was the development of the modern military rifle from the old smooth bore musket with its flint-lock, which was the ordinary weapon of the British and other armies up to nearly the middle of this century. Partly, perhaps, owing to the inherent conservatism of government departments, and partly to the very serious outlay involved in arming all the troops of a nation with a new weapon, it has happened that many improvements in small arms were in use as applied to sporting guns, long before they were adopted in the regulation weapons of armies. The advance towards the modern arm of precision has been made along all the several directions that converge in the latest product, and it may be said that the most obvious of these are spiral rifling, breech-loading, and improved ammunition. The improvements in any one of these particulars would have been of little advantage unless the others had been kept in line with it. How long antiquated systems may continue in use may be illustrated by the case of the flint-lock, which was retained in the British army from the time it superseded the old match-lock, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, down to almost the middle of this present nineteenth. It is quite possible that not a few readers still in their fifties may never have seen a flint-lock outside of a museum, yet this was the firing apparatus of the weapon that used to be affectionately known to our soldiers as “Brown Bess,” and that for a century and a half continued the regulation arm of British troops helping Wellington 180to win his victories, and superseded by the percussion musket only in 1842. The “Brown Bess” of the earlier part of the century had a smooth-bore barrel of three-quarters of an inch diameter (0·753 inch), and 39 inches long; this musket weighed, with its bayonet, 11 lbs., 2 oz. The bullet was spherical, and made of lead, in weight a little over one ounce. The diameter of the bullet was slightly smaller than the bore of the barrel, because a closely fitting ball could not be used, on account of the great force required to push it home with a ram-rod. The bullet was therefore wrapped in loosely fitting material, called a “patch,” and this made the gun easy to load, even when the barrel was “fouled” by the solid residues that always remain after the explosion of gunpowder. “Brown Bess” was credited with a range of 200 yards, but its want of accuracy was such that the soldier was directed not to fire until he could see the whites of the enemies’ eyes. But in 1800 one or two British regiments were armed with the muzzle-loading rifle known as Baker’s, and again in 1835 these were provided with the Brunswick rifle. These regiments afterwards became known as the Rifle Brigade. The bullets in both cases were spherical, and as the earlier pattern had a seven-grooved barrel, there was so much difficulty in introducing the bullets into the muzzles that mallets had to be used. The bullet of the Brunswick rifle was encircled by a projecting band, which fitted into two rather deep grooves diametrically opposite to each other in the barrel. This bullet, wrapped in some slightly greased material, could be readily dropped into the muzzle, and rammed home without difficulty. Moreover, whereas in Baker’s rifle the grooves made only a quarter of a turn in the length of the barrel, the grooves of the Brunswick rifle made more than one complete turn. This was so much an improvement on “Brown Bess” that the effective range was more than doubled. For the rank and file of the infantry regiments the flint-lock smooth-bore musket was, however, the regulation weapon until 1842, when it was superseded by the percussion musket. The percussion-cap is now comparatively little used, as, since the introduction of cartridges containing their own means of ignition, it is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. The copper percussion-cap, in the form it still retains, was invented about 1816, and was universally adopted for sporting-guns a long time before it was used for the military weapon. In 1842 the percussion musket was definitely adopted as the weapon of the British army, but up to that date the flint-locks still continued to be made at Birmingham. The barrel of the percussion musket then issued was shortly afterwards rifled, when about the year 1852 the Minié system was adopted, and the Government awarded to M. Minié, a Frenchman, the sum of £20,000 for the bullet he had invented. What the meaning of this improvement was may now be explained, and we must begin by mentioning the various forms of grooving, or, at least, such forms as found some approval during the present century, for grooved barrels had been tried long before. At first the grooves appear to have been intended merely to receive the fouling, and these were often made without any twist or spiral, but parallel to the axis of the barrel. The grooves are hollow channels of greater or less depth, and of various forms; square, triangular, rounded, or of such a form that the inner line of a section of the barrel would present the form of a ratchet wheel. The numbers of the grooves made use of have varied between two and twelve, or more, and different rates of twist, or numbers of turns of the spiral in the length of the barrel have been resorted to, 181these ranging from half a turn to twelve turns. The Brunswick rifle had been found wanting in accuracy, when at length in 1846 General Jacobs proposed the adoption of the conical bullet with projecting spiral ridges which fitted into grooves cut in the rifle barrel. The difficulty in using muzzle-loading rifles consisted in the force required to ram down the bullet, which had to adapt itself to the grooves, and fill them up so that the gases due to the explosion of the powder should not escape. If the bullet simply dropped into the bore of the rifle easily, it did not effectually fill the grooves, which then became channels of this windage, and if, on the other hand, the leaden bullet was made to fill the grooves from the muzzle, great force was required, and the time and effort expended in ramming the missile home, detracted enormously from the efficiency of the rifle as a military weapon. Mr. Lancaster produced rifles having a slightly oval, instead of a circular, bore, making, of course, the necessary twist within the barrel. A bullet of the corresponding section, but nearly globular, much as if the projecting belt of the Brunswick bullet had been laterally extended to its opposite poles, could be easily dropped in at the muzzle, without force being required to make it take grooves, the barrel being internally smooth throughout. It was, however, soon found that this easy-fitting ball allowed a considerable amount of windage, and the Minié system was definitely adopted, in which advantage was taken of a fact observed some years before by a French artillery officer, who found that an elongated leaden bullet, if hollowed out at the base, was so expanded by the pressure of the powder gases that the material was forced into the grooves of a rifle. Minié made his bullet elongated, pointed in front, and hollowed out part of its length by a conical space, the widest part of which was at the base, and was covered by a small iron cup, that, when driven inwards by the pressure of the gases, caused an expansion of the bullet by which the lead was forced into the grooves of the rifling. But the forces operating on the base of the bullet would at times cause the iron cup to cut the bullet in two, and propel the anterior portion only, leaving the base in the form of a ring clinging to the rifling. The military authorities had many comparative trials carried out between the smooth-bore percussion musket and the Minié rifle. The greater accuracy of the latter may be inferred from the results of practice made by men firing at a target 6 feet high and 20 feet broad; when at 100 yards distance, 74 hits out of 100 shots were made from the musket, against 94 from the rifle; and the superiority of the latter, at longer ranges, was increasingly marked. Thus at 260, 300, and 400 yards the respective percentages of hits were for the musket 42, 16, 4½, but for the same ranges the rifle gave 80, 55, 52. Fig. 83.—The Minié Bullet. Curiously enough, the principle of the expanding bullet had been brought forward by the late Mr. W. Greener seventeen years before the government prize was awarded to M. Minié. Mr. Greener’s bullets were of an oval form, being half as long again as their diameter, with one end flattened where the lead was excavated in a narrowing hollow nearly through the bullet. In this opening was inserted the end of a tapering plug of hard metal, and when the rifle was fired this plug was driven home, and the lead thus expanded took the grooves, so preventing windage, and giving range and accuracy; while allowing the piece to be loaded with as 182much ease as the smooth-bore musket. The invention, though favourably reported on by the military authorities at the time, did not receive the attention it would seem to have deserved. However, in 1857, Mr. Greener’s claim of priority for the first suggestion of the expanding bullet was acknowledged by a government award of £1,000. Fig. 84.—Greener’s Expanding Bullet. Sir Joseph Whitworth, having been invited by the British military authorities to institute experiments with a view to producing the best type of rifle, with the help of the most perfect machinery, constructed the barrels with a polygonal bore, a plan which he had before adopted for large guns. The barrels were accurately bored out to a hexagonal section, and experiments were made to find what number of turns in the twist would give the projectile a sufficient rapidity of rotation to maintain it during its flight parallel to its axis. It was found that one turn in 20 inches was sufficient, and the projectile was made by machinery to fit accurately but easily into the rifled bore, so that it dropped into its place, and the loading could be expeditiously performed. The bullet was long, compared with the bore, which was made smaller than before, and it was found that the explosion caused it to expand sufficiently to fill up the corners of the hexagon, so that there was no loss from windage. The accuracy of aim of the Whitworth rifle was superior to that of any weapon of the kind that had, up to that time, been produced. When officially tried against the Enfield, its mean deviation at 500 yards range was only 4½ inches, while that of the Enfield at the same range was 27 inches. Mr. Whitworth had proved the advantages of using a small bore, an elongated bullet, and a sharp twist in the rifling; and it was acknowledged that as a military weapon his rifle was superior to all other arms of similar calibre that had before been produced. Some doubt appears to have been entertained, however, as to whether the mechanical perfection of the trial rifles could be maintained if they came to be manufactured on the large scale, and also as whether an adequate supply of the polygonal ammunition would be procurable when required. The Whitworth rifle was never adopted into the government service, and soon after these trials in 1857, the adoption of another type of weapon became imperative, as the results obtained by the Germans with their needle-gun, demonstrated the enormous advantages of a breech-loading rifle. Fig. 85.—The Chassepot Rifle.—Section of the Breech.