The times., 1898-06-04
Seth Street Terminus.
Take Green FIST. or
Green Capital Traction
Cars and no other.

direction The old Springfield rife with
.45-inch caliber, had right-hand twist,
and its drift was TO the right. 1t is now
believed that the soldiers who had used
1t took 1t for granted that the new 30
inch Army rife would behave in the same
way. This gun has right-handed rifllng.
too. But 1t now appears that their reas-
oning was unsound. At least the facts do
not fit their theory. The drift OF the
modified Krag-Jorgensen rifle bullets Is
TO the left.
At short range the deviation in per-
fectly calm weather Is greater with the
new gun than with the old. AT 100 yards
the drift is 2.5 inches for the former and
only 1.3 for the latter; at 800 yards, 81
for the former and 80 for the latter; 800
yards, the deviation Is the same in
amount, 81 inches. though in opposite di-
rections. From that point onward the
drift is less for the Krag-Jorgensen than
for the old 45-caliber rife. At LOCO yards.
for instance, the former showed a mean
deviation of "a inches, and the latter 1872
inches.
The DETECTING influence of the wind has
been found TO be less with the new arm
than the old. for two very good reasons.
The bullet is smaller and it flies faster.
The wind has less area to work on and
less time in which TO operate. At 1,0O0
yards q wind blowing at the rate of one
mile an hour Ian exceedingly light breeze
would defect the .45-caliber ball twenty
two inches and the .30-caliber ball only
seventeen.
One series Of tests was made with the
new gun, conducted by good markesmen
but not by "sharpshooters, TO ascertain
the general accuracy of the piece. 1t
may be presumed that these persons had
been enlightened in regard to drift and
DETECTION before entering upon this par
ticular task. The Springfield Republic
an which gives an extended account of
these trials defines accuracy" as used
by ordnance experts, to be "the radius
of a circle that viii include ten successive
shots fired by a good marksman." The
published figures show that at all dis
tances the modified Krag-Jorgensen gives
better accuracy. in this sense, than the
Springfield rife. At 1000 yards the bound
ing circle has a radius of 14.9 inches for
the new gun, while that for the old is
2l.4 inches.
The partisans of the Army rife are en-
deavoring to convey the impression that
the Lee gun. adopted by the Navy, has
too small a caliber (.236 inch) for good ex-
ecution. Two stories are now being cir
culated to strengthen that opinion. It
is related that some tests were made at
Fort Riley, Kan, year or two ago, IN
which both weapons were tried on the
same dead bodies. 1t is alleged that the
Lee bullets did not show sufficient power
of penetration at long range. Besides,
they were less humane in their action,
for they would shatter bone into frag-
ments. instead of piercing it. The other
story is that the Abyssinians won a vic
tory over the Italians not long ago. not
because of greater courage, but be-
cause the Italians had such smaIl-bore
rifles that the bullets went through the
Abyssinians without being noticed, or, at
least, without doing serious harm. The
Italian (Cracano) rifle has a caliber of
256, which is greater than that of the
Lee gun