IIIODERN IIIILITARY RIFLES. Although the prin ciple of rifling small arms dates from the begin ning of the sixteenth century, it was not till toward the close of the seventeenth that the principle was employed for military weapons. Owing to the fact that the rifle could not be ignited the charge. Owing to its expense, the wheel-lock gun was used almost entirely for sporting purposes, and soon after this the use of firearms in the chase became general.
The flint-lock, which followed the wheel-lock, seems to have been of Spanish origin and to date from early in the seventeenth century; in it the process of igniting the charge was considerably simplified. The hammer or cover-plate was forced backward by the bolt so that the flint, which was screwed in the jaw of the cock, and the priming in the flash-pan were exposed to the sparks caused by the contact of the flint and the hammer, and thus the charge was ignited. The flint-lock was a long time coming into favor, owing to the fact that in its original form the sparks frequently escaped without firing the charge. Flint-lock muskets were first duced into England during the reign of William loaded after a few rounds had been fired, some method had to be found to obviate the difficulty; none, however, proved satisfactory until an Eng lish gunmaker in 1836 devised a bullet of egg shaped construction which had a cavity at one end to receive a conical plug which under pres sure of the gas generated by the discharge ex panded the bullet into the grooves. The Minis rifle of the French was the next improvement on this principle: in that an iron cup was utilized to expand the cone when forced home by the gas. In the three-grooved Enfield rifle (English) of 1855 a wooden plug was used instead of the iron cup. Next followed the Whitworth hexagonal rifling, which made possible the use of a bullet of a more elongated deign and which lowered the trajectory of the bullet by offering a smaller front to the resistance of the air.
The first breech-loading small arm of conse quence was Hall's rifle, invented in 1811, and manufactured in small quantities about 1818 for the United States Army; its chamber rose on a hinge at the rear end for loading. About 1812 Pauly, an officer tinder Napoleon, evolved a breech-loader which is the progenitor of all later guns with swinging block. Dreyse, working adopted the Vetterli gun, which was of the re peater or magazine type, having a tube under the barrel iu which were contained eleven cartridges, which were in turn forced into the breech by the same action which discharged the empty cartridge. Russia adopted the Gorloff
gun with a block hinged in front and rising to under him, developed a discarded model of Pauly's into a successful breech-loading needle gun, which is the forerunner of all bolt-action guns. In 1841 the Prussians adopted their famous needle gun, which earned them many vic tories from 1848 to 1866.
Although crude in construction, this weapon marked a great advance in military rifles. The bullet was conical in shape, and together with the powder was inclosed in strong paper. In the centre of the outer surface of the wad (im mediately behind which was the powder) was a detonator, to explode which the needle fixed in the breech would upon pulling the trigger be released and penetrate the cartridge. The French adopted the Chassepot (q.v.), an improved needle gun. This gun• as well as other weapons em ployed by European armies, had the action now generally used, a bolt containing firing pin and spiral spring and sliding axially with the bore in a metal receiver behind, and fastened to, the barrel. A handle fastened to one side of the bolt engages iu front of a lug when the bolt is run forward and rotated to the right, thus lock ing the breech.
England converted her Enfield rifles, which were of the three-grooved expanding bullet muz zle-loader type, into Snider breech-loaders, by al terations at the breech end of the barrel. A chamber was made by which the cartridge could he inserted in the barrel, after wu•hich the block (worked on a hinge) was then closed and the space completely filled. A needle o• striker pas1sed through the breech block. struck the cap in the base of the cartridge and thus ignited the charge. In 1869 the Alartini-Henry rifle was adopted for the British army. It consisted of a combination of the Martini breech action with the Henry barrel. The Italians and Swiss open. This is the principle of the Springfield breech-loading rifle (calibre .45) adopted for the United States Army in 1S73. and retained until 1892 (see illustration), when it was succeeded by the United States magazine rifle, developed from the Krag,Pirgensen.