The Sun.
London, England, 1855-08-14 00:00:00

IMPROVEMENT IN SMALL ARMS.

(From the New York Journal of Commerce.)

In the spring of 1852 our attention was called to the
Prussian and French improvements in small arms—
both of which had been tested in actual service, and
found to possess an extraordinary advantage in range
and precision of fire over the old ordinary musket—
by the proposed adoption of the Minii rifle into the
British service. We then stated that the British Go-
vernment had contracted with Birmingham manufac-
turers for 23,000 of these rifles ; and that the result
of experiments made by a commission at Woolwich,
under instructions of the Duke of Wellington,
had satisfied the most sceptical of the military
authorities there of the necessity of superseding the old
musket entirely with the new and more efficient arm. In
view of the well-authenticated performance of these wea-
pons in the Schleswig-Holstein campaign and in Algeria
we expressed surprise that nothing was known of them
in the United States, and that the improvement should
have been ignored by the then last report of the Secre-
tary of War, in which there was no allusion to its exis-
tence. It is true there was no great interval between
the invention of the new arms and the application of
them to the equipment of troops in Germany and
France. The apprehension or the exigencies of actual war
stimulated the action of those who felt impelled to avail
themselves of all the instrumentalities for advantage in
the field that modern science and invention could supply.
In this country a different state of things prevailed.
We had but recently "conquered a peace" with the old
weapons, which had therefore been tested by success.
Use had made them familiar and victory dear. Nor
were we in danger of encountering an enemy in any
other field so well equipped as ourselves. The objects
for which the Mexican war was waged having been
fully attained, no hostile collision seemed to impend,
except with the turbulent Indians on the frontier. It
might have been plausibly urged that a wiser consider-
ation would prompt provision against even possible
emergencies, and that the employment in the Indian
campaigns of means which the enemy could neither re-
sist nor obtain the command of would shorten conflict
and insure speedy submission. But military men, obe-
dient to a traditionary discipline and inured to a life of
strict routine, look with distrust upon innovation. We
conversed on the subject with officers old in the ser-
vice, who refused to be convinced of the practical supe-
riority of the new weapon, with all the testimony that
could be adduced to its efficiency. The document ema-
nating from the War Department in the ensuing
winter furnished no evidence that the invention had
ever been brought to its official cognisance. But a year
later, from Col. Huger's report of the operations of the
army at Harper's Ferry up to June the 30th, 185:3, it
appeared that during the year then expired a few experi-
ments had been made there to test the value of the al-
leged improvements, which, however, failed to illustrate
the superiority claimed for them. A result so at vari-
ance with the representations received from abroad was
calculated rather to excite distrust of the thoroughness of
the experiments than of the value of the new weapon; for
its superiority was recognised to be so fully established
that its introduction, to the exclusion of the superseded
arm, was in progress all over Europe as rapidly as it
could be supplied with the means of manufacturing at
command. The tenour of Col. Huger's report tended to
confirm this distrust of the character of the experiments.
It appeared that the rifles used were our service rifles, and
others which had been manufactured experimentally,
and did not conform to the pattern of those adopted by
the inventors to be used with the Minh.; and other bul-
lets. With this disadvantage nothing positive could of
course be ascertained in respect to the capability of those
missiles. Add to this the want of skill incident to the
employment of unpractised hands, and it is easy to
account for the discrepancy in the results here and in
Europe. That discrepancy was very great. At the
short range of 200 yards with the Minis; ball, Colonel
Huger says the average of mean absolute variation from
the centre of the target was 11 inches ; while the ex-
periments previously reported by the London Times
prove that the Minis rifle could be made to deliver "a
far more accurate and deadly fire at 800 yards than the
old Ordnance musket at 750."
Colonel Huger concludes his report with a promise
that the experiments should be resumed at longer ranges
and the result duly announced. The last annual report
of the Secretary of War states that these renewed
experiments were not completed, and had up to then
been confined to our service rifle ; but even with that,
he adds, " they confirm the great superiority claimed
for this invention abroad.' The Secretary thinks it
almost certain that smooth-bored arms will be
superseded as a military weapon, and recommends a
suspension of the manufacture of small arms of our
present patterns, thus following a recommendation
which the Journal of Commerce made early in 1852, and
establishing the soundness of the views we then ex-
pressed. Thisas ee- I---e
- ',Jeannine the great national armories at Springfield
and Harper's Ferry are busily at work increasing the
large stock of small arms on hand, producing yearly
weapons of a better quality at a diminished price, but
with no improvement of pattern except in the adoption of
the percussion lock, which is applied now not only to
arms newly manufactured, but to all the old flint lack
guns in store. ** We submit that, in view of the
probable superiority of the new French and Prussian
guns a thorough examination ought to be undertaken,
with a view to test the merits of these, before any con-
siderable further outlay is made in manufacturing after
the old pattern."
Notwithstanding the results of the new discoveries
thus made public, the Government continued for the en-
suing period of two years and a half to manufacture the
old-fashioned weapons; and according to the Secretary's
report we had, at the commencement of the present year,
a stock on hand in the arsenals of the United States of
more than 500,000 muskets and rifles, besides about
300,000 in possession of the States, the aggregate
cost of which was nearly $10,010,000. We are glad,
however, to learn that the manufacture of this descrip-
tion of arias is at length suspended, and that our expen-
ditures for small arms are for the present to be confined
to the making of such as are required for fully testing
the merits of new inventions, including, no doubt, those
which have been stimulated by the exigencies of the war
now in progress, and which are claimed by their prjec-
tors to possess some advantages over the Minie rifle, the
weapon most in vogue. Still further improvements
may be expected to result from the very elaborate series
of experiments now in progress at Rusholme, England,
by direction of the British Government, under the im-
mediate supervision of Mr. J. Whitworth, of Manchester,
and Mr. Westly Richards, an eminent London gunsmith.
These experiments are directed te ascertain not only the
best form and pattern of military rifles, but also the most
efficient means of manufacturing them. It appears that
the perfection to which Colonel Colt has brought the
manufacture of revolving pistols and rifles at his estab-
lishment in London, chiefly by self-acting machines, at-
tended by women and boys, has satisfied the British
Government of the advantage of availing of mecha-
nical inventions to perform the required processes in the
manufacture over the p:an, so perseveringly persisted in
by the Birmingham gunsmiths, of having them wrought
by the hands of the skilled and expensive workmen
trained in their factories ; and that the Government have
contracted to extend the national armory at Enfield. so
that it may be made to produce 100,000 Minic rifles
per annum. While experiments conducted in our
own armories, at a moderate extent, serve to
employ the machinery we already possess, to sug-
gest new inventions, and to sharpen and keep fresh
the practised skill of the workmen there engaged,
we have also in anticipation the benefit of the larger and
more costly operations tending to the same end in fo-
reign countries; and, while permitted to avail of the
experience of others, it is a matter of just congratulation
that we aro enabled to prosecute deliberately and un
molested the preparations requisite for our defence and
security, remote from the prospect of such sanguinary
fields as those in which the great Powers of Europe are
even now unhappily forced to test the efficacy of war-
like
implements.

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