As early as 1498 the citizens of Leipsic possessed the germ of the future rifle, for their arms had a grooved bore, but the grooves were straight. Not many years after, in 1520, Augustin Futter (or Koster) of Nuremberg was celebrated for his rose or star grooved barrels, in which the grooves had a spiral form. It took its name from the rose like shape of the bore at the muzzle; and, setting aside superiority of workmanship subsequently developed, Nutter's arm was the veritable rifle, and to him, therefore, so far as history shows, is due the invention of this terrible weapon, which reduces the flight of the projectile to a question of the individual skill of the marksman. The spiral groove gives to the bullet, if it fits into the grooves, a rotation rapid in propor tion to the force of the explosion and the sharpness of the twist in the spiral. This revolution of the bullet on its own axis keeps that axis, gravity excepted, in the line in which it leaves the piece. In 1628 Arnold Rotsiphen patented a new way of " makeing gonnes," which, from a subsequent patent granted him in 1635 appears to have con sisted, among other improvements, in rifling the barrels. It would be tedious to enume rate the various principles of rifling which were tried during the two centuries following Rotsiphen—suflice it to say that searcely.a form of rifling. now prevails but had its prototype among the old inventions. The difficulty of mechanical appliances deferred, making the rifling true,eferred, however, their general introduction, and the cost of rifled arms limited their use to the purposes of the chase. The revolutionary government of France had rifles issued to portions of their troops, but they met with so indifferent a success that Napoleon recalled them soon after he came to power. In the peninsula, however, picked companies of sharpshooters practiced with rifles with deadly effect on both the English and French sides. During the American war, 1812-14, the Americans demonstrated incontestably the value of rifles in warfare; but many years were yet to elapse before they were definitively placed in the hands of soldiers, many of those of every nation in the Crimea having fought wiph the ineffective and almost ridiculous " Brown Bess." Soon after the French invaded Algeria, they had armed the chasseurs d'Orleans with rifles, to counteract the superior range of the Arab guns. The inutility of the old musket was shown in a battle during the Kaffir war, where our men dis charged 80,000 cartridges, and the loss of the enemy was 25 men struck. After experi ments with the old musket, it was found that its aim had no certainty whatever beyond 100 yards. It was soon discovered that a spherical ball was not the best missile; one in which the longer axis coincided with the axis of the gun flying truer—the relative length of the axis and the shape of the head being matters of dispute. The first war-rifle was that of capt. Delvigne, proposed in 1826, and adopted for a few men in the 'French army; but this still included the old and of forcing the leaden ball through the grooves by blows of the ramrod, aiming of course requisite that the projectile should occupy the grooves tightly. In 1842 col. Thouvenin invented a ca•alrine a tige, in which the breech had a small pillar screwed into it, round which the powder lay. and on the end of which the bullet rested, its base being flattened out by the force of the ramrod. Col. Delvigne added a conical bullet to this rifle, and the combined invention was issued to the chasseurs d'Afrique in 1846. But the lige, or pillar, became bent by usage, and was found otherwise objectionable. It was superseded by using with a grooved barrel the mini' bullet, which, being made smaller than the bore of the piece, could be almost dropped into the barrel. It was of lead, and in its base it contained a conical recess, to receive the apex of a smaller iron cup. The force of the explosion drove this cup into the bullet, causing the lead to expand into the grooves of the Niue]. (It is right, however, to stn a that this contrivance is claimed for a Mr. Greener as early as 1836.) The Prussians, meanwhile, had armed their troops with the needle rifle (Ziindnacielgewehr), now superseded by the Dreyse. In England, however, no improvement took place until 1851, when 28,000 rifled muskets to tire the minie bul let were ordered to be issued. Notwithstanding the many advantages of the mime system, it was found defective in practice. Experiments were set on foot in all direc tions, and resulted in 1853 in the production of the Enfield rifle, which had three grooves, taking one complete turn in 78 in., and fired a bullet resembling the minie, except that a wooden cup was substituted for oue of iron. From 1853 to 1865 this Was the weapon of the British army. In 1863 the adoption of arms (q.v.), caused the Enfield to be converted into a breech-loader by fitting the " Slider" breech mechanism to the barrel.
This arrangement was, however, only temporary, and after a most exhaustive series of trials before a special committee on breech-loading rifles, the Henry barrel was in 1871 adopted in conjunction with tile Martini breech for the new small-bore rifle for the British army, now known as the Martini-Henry rifle. No fewer than 104 different kinds of breech-loading small-arms were submitted to this committee, who decided that the Henry 45-in. bore barrel "was the best adapted for the requirements of the service," on account of its "superiority in point of accuracy, trajectory, allowance for wind, and and penetration," and also on account of its great durability. The Henry system of
rifling is the invention of Mr. Alexander Henry, gunmaker, Edinburgh, and its essential peculhnity consists in the form of the rifle bore.
The rifling represents a septilateral figure with angular projections extending inwards from the angles of the planes. In other words, the rifling forms 7 plane sur faces, and the periphery of the projectile touches the planes at the center. In addition to the bearing sufaces thus obtained, there are 7 angular projections which extend inward from the planes, so that the apex of each of the projections is concentric with the center of the surfaces of its contiguous planes. These seven ridges thus afford a further bearing or support to the projectile, and by this means double the points of bear ing are obtained. These angular ridges till up to a great extent the spaces between the angles of the planes and the periphery of the projectile, thus reducing the windage, and from their peculiar construction facilitating the expansion of the bullet to the major diameter of the bore, so that the rotatory or spiral motion of the projectile is obtained with greater certainty; at the same time, the figure of the projectile is so little altered that it traverses through the air with less resistance, and consequently its flight is rendered more accurate.
The length of the Henry barrel is 32i inches. The mean diameter of the bore is .450 of an inch, and the rifling takes one complete turn in 22 inches. Its bullet is solid, with a slight cavity in the rear, and weighs 480 grains, the charge of powder being 85 grains. The range, accuracy, and penetration of the "Henry" barrel is nearly twice that of the present Enfield-Snider barrel, while the highest point of its trajectory at 500 yards is 2 ft. 9 in. lower, or 8 ft. lf- in. as compared with 11 ft. 10 in. The maximum range of the Henry barrel is 3.685 yards at an angle of 28° 15'.
As with small-arms, so with cannon, rifling is no new discovery. In the museum at St. Petersburg is a cannon which was rifled in nine grooves as early as 1615. In 1661 the Prussians experimented with a gun rifled in 13 shallow grooves. By 1696 the Germans had tried elliptical bores. From thence till 1833, many attempts were made to rifle cannon, with more or less success. In 1833 and 1836, M. Montigny of Brussels tried rifled guns with considerable success. In 1845 col. Cavalli of the Sar dinian service commenced experiments with his rifled cannon: two Swedish officers— baron Wahrendorf and lieut. Engstroem—next produced rifled cannon; but none of these systems were permanently adopted. The Crimean war set inventors vigorously at work, and many admirable guns have resulted from their attempts, the great diffi culty' of the day being to decide which is most effectual. The first point was the metal; and here cast-iron was found quite useless, being incapable of resisting the explosion of the large charges necessary to force closely fitting projectiles through rifled barrels. Several plans were resorted to. Sir William Armstrong welds coils of wrought iron round a mandrel into one homogeneous mass of extraordinary tenacity, which he again strengthens by similar rings round the breech. Mr. Whitworth forces rings of wrought-iron over the barrel by hydraulic pressure; capt. Blakely strengthens a barrel of longitudinal bars welded together hy shrinking wrought-iron bands over it. The French rifle brass guns, and use small charges; having also guns of wrought-iron. The Austrians have made a new bronze alloy, which has proved extremely strong; the Bel gians have tried Bessemer's steel. The system of rifling was the next important matter. Mr. Lancaster adhered to his oval bore; sir William Armstrong produced a bore rifled in a great number of small sharp grooves (this gun was adopted by the British govern ment); 31r. Whitworth retained a hexagonal bore; and the French government adopted a bore with two, and subsequently three rather deep spiral grooves. After careful experiments, the Austrian, Spanish, Dutch, and Italian governments have concurred in the French system. In the Armstrong the rotation is communicated to the projectile by tile latter being cased with lead, which the explosion forces into the grooves. The numerous fine grooves impart a very correct centering to the shot, and give extreme accuracy of range; but they render the gun a delicate weapon, and they preclude the occasional firing of round shot or canister, which would destroy the grooves. In the Whitworth the shot is constructed to pass freely through the spiral hexagonal bore, windage being prevented by a greased wad, which is said to foul the piece consider ably. Lancaster's shot are elliptical, to correspond with the bore; they aro simple and accurate; but there is some danger that they will jam in the gun, and cause it to burst. The French projectiles have ribs of projecting metal to correspond to the grooves, and are very effective, the system having the concomitant advantage of being able to fire ordinary shot without material injury to the gun. 'l'o sum up: the Armstrong gun is the most accurate, that and the Whitworth have the longest range, each having attained m.; the Lancaster fouls least; the French is simplest, and can fire ordinary cannon balls, canister, or case.
The Armstrong gun was officially adopted into the British service in 1859, as the best weapon then known, but it has been superseded by an improved version known as the Woolwich gun.
The projectiles used with the various guns will be described under SHELL and SHOT.