Omaha daily bee., 1896-03-21
MAKING RIFLE CARTRIDGES.
The Process of Manufacture. nv Seen
at FrnnLford Arsenal.

The Process of Manufacture. ns Seen
at Frnnlsford Arsenal.
When, in 1916, the government bought a
small piece Of land on the Delaware river,
then about ten miles from the heart of Phil
adelphia, the shops there created answered
very well for a time, says the New York
Tribune, but the plant has been added to until
now the grounds cover sixty-fve acres and
contain numerous buildings, including officers
quarters, barracks, factories, a proof house,
a hospital, a photograph gallery and a labo-
ratory, with other equipments Of various
sorts.
Lieutenant Colonel Farley commands at
Frankford. Under his direction has been
conducted the manufacture of the 30-caliber
smokeless powder cartridges for the modified
Krag-Jorgensen magazine rifle for the United
States army. This new rifle, which dis
places the 45-caliber Springfield, is called
the United States magazine rifle" Its de-
sign is not generally known, and it has
never been tested abroad. It's weight, eight
and a half pounds, carries five cartridges in
the magazine, and ran be reloaded with such
rapidly as to fire forty times a minute, with
a range of 1000 yards.
The cartridge for this rife is a peculiar
one, and its manufacture at frankfort is
an extremely interesting one. Several of the
progressive stages are illustrated herewith.
In brief, a little disk of sheet metal is cut
out by a plung!ng die one and one-eighth
inches in diameter. and this disk is then
stamped into the shape of a cup, and is then
drawn by pressure in other stamping ma
chimes, and headed up in others, until, after
going through fifteen different and beauti-
full machines. it comes out a finished shell.
Tho sixteenth process is to trim off about a
quarter of an inch of the uneven end. The
shell is then timed, in order to prevent
galvanic action between the powder and
naked brass. The primers are inserted and
Theoretically sealed with a drop of varnish,
and the shells are taken to the loading ma
chine. If this were an ordinary 45-caliber
cartridge, an ordinary naked lead bullet,
grooved and fabricated, would be used; but
the new cartridge of only 30-caliber the in
creased velocity and sharper twist would
cause a lead bullet to Strip without ac-
curing the revolution necessary for direct
flight. 1t has been necessary, therefore, to
give the bullet a jacket of German silver,
and this is accomplished by eleven separate
mechanical processes.
When the shells, powder and bullet are
led into the loading machine, something
takes place so like the operations of human
intelligence that when the car of Russia
saw a counterpart of this machine loading
shells In Russia he took off his hat to it. A
horizontal steel plate, looking like a buzz
saw without any teeth, slowly revolves in a
horizontal plane, and the operator stands
the brass shells, open end upward, on this
plate, like files of little brass soldiers, and
the never-ending procession makes its way
slowly out Of sight into the depths of the
machine. up at the top of the ma
chine there is a huge, faring funnel, look
ing like the smokestack of an old-fashionad
woodworking locomotive. This funnel is full
OF gunpoWder, and is open at the top, so
that II the powder eXplodes 1t will fly off
harmlessly. AS each shell comes under the
FUNNEL the shell receives it's charge of DOW
der, and as it energies a little plunger, like
a human finger, goes down into it to meas
ure the powder. If there be too much or too
little, an alarm bell signifies the defect and
the cartridge is removed. Otherwise 1t
passes inward in the slow procession, re-
ceives a bullet, which Is fastened in by
squeezing (r crimping) the neck of the
ridge is in the shape represented in the
drawings. Every cartridge is tested me-
Chemically to make sure that the head is
neither too large nor too small, and the
itself neither too heavy nor too
Experiments made at the Frankfort ar
senal indicate that the small bullet of this
new cartridge travels further, penetrates
deeper, has a flatter trajectory and is Less
deadly than the old-fashioned 45-caliber bull
let, to say nothing of its Weighing only 220
grains, against the 500-grain ball now in use,
and its requiring only 81 grains of smokeless
powder, against 10 In the soon-to-be obsolete
black powder cartridge. Thus 175 of the new
cartridges impose no more burden than 100
of the old, and the initial velocity is 1000
feet a second, compared with 300 feet in the
case of the 45-caliDe".
Military reasons forbid a complete recital
of all the experiments carried on at Frank
ford arsenal under Lieutenant Colonel Farley,
but many Of them are exceedingly interesting
and have revealed many new ideas to the
officers of the army, and will form the basis
of much of the small practice of the immedi-
ate future.
There 10 one word used with reference to
rifles, Trajectory" which seems quite for
midable to men unacquainted with weapons.
1t sounds like "~trigonometry," and vaguely
suggets mathematics and other things pro-
found and abstruse. A bullet, like a stone,
when sent a long distance, has to be sent up
In the air at an angle, and 1t curves gradually
again just enough to hit the OBJ
aimed at, The trajectory is this curved
path OF flight. When a Springfield rife is
fired at a man 1000 yards away the bullet
has to rise In the air over forty-three feet
above the line Of sight; otherwise II will fall
short Of the mark, and II there should be the
branch OF a tree just forty-three
between the soldier and his foe, the
branch would receive the bullet and the
soldier escape. Both In the army and out
In the woods while hunting 1t is desirable to
know how high a bullet will rise when fired
At a mark 300, 500, 1000 or any number Of
Yards away. 1t was for the purpose of sup
the United States army with the
for ascertaining trajectories that, |
BY ommand Of Secretary Lamont, Lieuten- |
ant Colonel Farley created at frankfort
arsenal one Of the latest additions to it's
equipment. A private inquiry ad-
iressed to Secretary Lamont by a resident
of New York City who wished to ascertain
he trajectory of a Remington single-shot
rife. forty-sixty-fve-33O, awoke the sec
'etary TO the fact that the army should
facilities for obtaining facts of this
sort, and, with prompt. public spirit, he
.ook the action stated.