Richmond daily times. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1853, 1852-06-26

Iuite hoise enough, but shot nothing; light being
thus thrown on the secret by which certain Gun
nng persons successfully pretended to be inyul
nerable. 1t was also ascertained that of all rare
things the rarest was, to find ball and bo,
that SO accurately fitted each other, as that the
ball went where it was meant to co. 1t followed
that the thing to be attended to was to make
the bore and the ball fit each other Ont of tb;s
question arose the rifle, of which at present we
are hearing so much talk. 1t was known that an
arrow feathered in spiral line, whirls as if f1;es
and goes straight and strong to it's mark 1t was
considered that if this quality of the arrow cou1d
be impaired to the balls of firearms, such wea.
pom would be the best ever devised for warfare
with an enemy anywhere within sight. This has
been done; not to perfection, by any means. but
so Tar as to change essentially the character O,
| warfare. What the method is, will appear in the
course of our account of what we have Just been
seeing OF the manufacture and proving of firearms
| al Blrmlngham;-at Birmingham, where during
| the last war; muskets were made at the rate OF
more than one in minute, every working day.
The rate of manufacture was thousand day Of
| finished muskets, and two thousand week OF
inuskets made in parts, and sent to be finished in
| LONDON aud Dublin.
| One day last week we took shelter from q
shower, under the gateway of timber-yard
winch at once struck US as being unlike any 9TH
! er timber yard we remembered to have seen.--
There were some few squared trunks of trees. but
most of the wood was cut into odd-shaped blocks
for seasoning. Carrying our eye down from the
larger to the smaller blocks, it struck US. that
these last were gun-stocks, set on end, or piled
| IN airy heaps, to season. The value of such
stocks, when brought to the gunmaker's, is from
twenty-one shillings to thirty-fve shillings
apiece. We saw piles Of them at the manufac-
turer's, mounting up to the value of many thou
sands of pounds. They are of walnut, almost
exclusively; and, when possible, of English wal
mt The stock of p0 hoor cut
out the slightest spntering or cracking; and wal
nut, grown in England, is almost the only wood
which answers to this condition. It seems al
most pity that it should be so, when one thinks
of the numbers of walnut-trees in the Kentucky
and Canadian woods, and how the people of Da-
mascuS lived upon walnutS more than on any
other food; and how thousands upon thousands of
the tree overshadow the Pharpar and ALBANIA
the streams beloved by Nasman the leper.- But
the foreign wood is not of so good grain as is
necessary for such close fittings as those of the
furniture of guns to the stocks. A little ash is
used, and also maple. They are harder than the
walnut, but not so tough. Perhaps more Ameri-
spoiled in the telling as it is. The back wood
men hack and hew away with their axes, without
any idea OF prime custom. Beech is nsed
only for an inferior articefor the African trade:
that Isl for the arms ordered by the Kaffirs, the
rifles which are now picking off our soldiers. tits
an inferior article from Birmingham which has
been Strengthening our soldiers at the Cape for |
months past One wonders whether they know |
the fact,and whether it aggravates the pain their
wounds and their shame. Traders on the African |
Coast ascertain the wants of the inhabitants, in |
regard to firearms among other things: they send I
their orders to London merchants; London mer-
chants order the article of the Birmingham man.
ufacturers, and, after time, ifa Kafiris disarm-
ed, his piece is found to bear the name or mark
of a Birmingham gun-maker. 'We make fire.
arms for both parties, in all wars said manu-
facturer to us yesterday. AS such is and must
be the fact we like the plain ayowaI of it; but it
is strange-sounding truth.
The stock is bought in rough; merely hewn
into resemblance to what it is to be- 1t is
dressed smooth, as we see it finally; and work
man cuts in it, with anxious care, the recesses
and holes where the steel "furnture'' is to be in
serted Then it is ''chequered' by the steady
chisel of specialized old man, who pores over his
work, dividing theSwrought part of the stock into
the minutest squares; at once ornamenting it, and
affording hold rougher than the vanished part.
Then it is vanished and polished by the
hands of girls; and then the finisher inlays it
with any little plates of silver or carved steel
with which it is to be adorned. So much for the
stock "a much less important affair than the
barrel.
The barrel is made from stub nails, the refuse |
of the farriers' shops, and of sscraps, "-the re-
is very finely tempered. A ball of ssbloom" is |
curious affair "a handful of nails fused togeth-
Ell, In preparation for being melted down for the |
barrel After the steel and iron are rolled into |
thin plates in the rolling mill, the plates are cut
into strips and alternate strips of iron and steel
compose the bar of which the barrel is 70 be made
They welded together by heat and DOW
erful steam hammer; They are beaten and twist
ed, and melted and tortured, till they mix tho
roughly; and then they coiled in a spiral
line round ''core, as closely as possible, and
the edges of the coil are welded together The
outside of the barrel is afterwards carefully treat
ed but infinitely greater is the required for
the inside. The outside has to be corroded by
a diluted acid latter being hammered and filed as
smooth as hammer and file can make it,) and
then polished to the brightness which attracts the
eye of the youthful sportsman. The acid brings
out pattern which indicates pretty accurately,
the value of the article. The iron and steel are
marbled,--vened very beautifully, when proper
~ wrought together; and so much is this veined
appearance priced, that inferior barrels are actu-
ally stained to look like the better Sort AS for
the inside OF the barrel, it requires more care
than any other part of the gun. 1t must be
mathematically straight, and it must be of the
most perfect smoothness throughout, or the ball
will go in some wrong direction or other. The
execution done by balls of all sorts in action is
said to be only one in eighty five; and yet our
muskets have been considered as nearly perfect
as the weapon could be made. If there was any
relaxation from the great condition of the straight
ness and smoothness of the bore, there would be
an end to all encouragement to use the gun. The
price of barrel rises from twelve shillngs to six
guineas but all will be found to be straight and
smooth in the inside. What firearms could do
before there was machinery to render these pro-
cesses unerring, it is difficult to imagine. The
finest machinery and the EXTREMIST care will not
content us now. We must have rifles; and our
muskets and our cannon must be rifed.
We looked closely into this rifing. We
saw barrel grooved in the inside with two
shallow grooves running the whole length.