Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1914-08-30
About Old and New
Mwsk@ts and Rifles

in 1890 and at that time there were fifty
of these small caliber rifles of nearly as
many makes submitted for trial. since
then while the type and the principle oil
the gun have been adhered to- consider
able Improvement has been made in the
length or the ShortneSs of the rifle bar
rel, in the velocity of the bullet and the
ease of handling and the rapidity of tlr-
ing the weapon.
DO you know that in the war with
Mexico some of the American troops
We're armed with fntlock muskets be-
cause the army had not been supplied
with the requisite number of percussion
cap guns? Well 1t is a fact. The Union
won the civil war with Misunderstanding
Springfield muskets having a caliber of
IS. though some of the Union troops
were armed in the nature of an expert
ment. with breech-loadins guns, among
them the Spencer carbine and the Henry
carbine. | think that scattered through
the armies of the Union Were about fifty
patterns of breech-loading muskets.
hreech-loading rifles and some of the lat
ter were magazine rifles. In spite of this
the great bulk of the troops fought with
muzzle- loading, smooth-bore muskets.
1t was in 1865. the year after the close
Of the war that the government of the
United States adopted for the use of the
army the Springfield hreech-loading rifle
of 20 caliber with metallic cartridge.
and then in the practice of economy it
converted large number of the civil
war IS caliber muskets by inserting a
rifle tube in the barrel. The government
of the United States has not been Won
derfully alert in Quitting its troops with
up-to-date appliances for war.
The PruSSian needle gun. the terror
of Europe. was invented by man
named Dreyse in 1898. and was adopted
was a heavy caliber gun, 60 caliber.
and was called the needle gun because
in firing it pin or needle" struck a
pellet of illuminate of mercury. exploding
the charge of powder and ball made up
in paper cartridge 1t was the first
self-primed gun.
The idea of a breech-loading gun is
an old one, but the greatest difficulty
encountered by inventors and makers
was in checking or preventing escape oil
loader is old the effective gas-check is
modern. There We're some breech-load-
ing muskets used by British troops IN
the American revolution, but there is no
record that they We're of greater effec-
tiveness than the flintlocks or the match
locks of the other troops. Maj. William
II. Sage of the infantry, in an article IN
the Journal of the Infantry Association
in 1905. recorded that in the Artillery
Museum at Paris there is q breech-ioad-
some of the troopers of Charles | Of
England carried a revolving cylinder
carbine with seven chambers.
Though the percussion cap was in
vented in 1918. the manufacture of flint
lock guns was continued in the United
States up to 1913, but the arming of the
military forces with the percussion
cap and tube guns began about 1872.
1.-The greater range and accuracy of the
rihed gun has long been known to most
persons and hunters used them in the
American colonies. They figured in the
American revolution. and some troops had
them especially backwoods volunteers
during the second war with England.
At first the rifling had no twist, but con-
sisted of straight grooves. This did not
work well because of the lost energy due
to escape of explosive gases. When the
twist rif1ing came in the trouble was in