IM- PROVEMENTS IN RIFLING FIRE-ARMS."
Year: 1860

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to The Right Honorable Richard Lord Berwick, of
Attingham Hall, in the County of Salop, for the Invention of "IM-
PROVEMENTS IN RIFLING FIRE-ARMS."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said The Right Honorable
Richard Lord Berwick at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents,
with his Petition, on the 28th April 1860.
I, The Right Honorable RICHARD Lord BERWICK, of Attingham Hall, in
the County of Salop, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN RIFLING FIRE-ARMS," to be as follows:-
This Invention relates to an improved system or mode of rifling the barrels
of such fire-arms as are intended for elongated, expanding, or soft metal bullets
whereby fouling, and consequent difficulty of loading, unless using a projectile
of such a comparatively small diameter as to impair the accuracy of shooting,
is entirely prevented.
According to this Invention, which is applicable either to existing rifles of
the ordinary grooving, or to the rifling of new barrels, it is proposed to cut a
supplementary or additional groove or grooves in each of the bearings or lands
between the ordinary rifle grooves. These supplementary or additional grooves
may be cut from the breech end of the barrel by the usual or other machinery;
they are made deepest at the breech, and gradually diminish in depth as they
proceed, until they die off into the original bore of the gun or surface of the

page_text: bearing or land at a point, the position of which may vary according to the
length of the barrel. By this improved system of rifling, the advantages of
durability arising from the broad bearings or lands at the muzzle, in combina-
tion with facility for loading and absence of fouling due to the presence of
narrow bearings or lands at the breech are obtained.
Any form of groove may be used, but it is preferred to make the edges or
shoulders of such grooves slightly chamfered or bevilled, which chamfering may
also be applied to the ordinary rifle grooves, by which means a smoother edge
is obtained, and one less liable to hold and accumulate foulness, whilst it is at
the same time more easily cleaned.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said The Right Honorable Richard Lord Berwick in the Great
Seal Patent Office on the 27th October 1860.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, The
Right Honorable RICHARD Lord BERWICK, of Attingham Hall, in the County
of Salop, send grecting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Twenty-eighth day of April, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and sixty, in the twenty-third year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her beirs and successors, give and grant unto me
the said Right Honorable Richard Lord Berwick, Her special license that I,
the said Right Honorable Richard Lord Berwick, my executors, adminis-
trators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Right Honorable Richard Lord
time
Berwick, my executors, administrators, or assigns, should at any agrec
with, and no others, from time to time and at all times thereafter during the
term therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and
vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel
Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN RIFLING FIRE-
ARMS," upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said Right Honorable
Richard Lord Berwick, by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal,
should particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention,
and in what manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to
be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and
immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Right Honorable Richard Lord Berwick,
do hereby declare the nature of my said luvention, and in what manner the

page_text: same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and
by the following statement, reference being had to the accompanying Drawings
and to the letters and figures marked thereon, that is to say :-
My said Invention relates to an improved system or mode of rifling the
barrels of such fire-arms as are intended for elongated expanding or soft metal
bullets, whereby fouling and consequent difficulty of loading, unless using a
projectile of such a comparatively small diameter as to impair the accuracy of
shooting, is entirely prevented.
According to this Invention, which is applicable either to existing rifles of
the ordinary grooving, or to the rifling of new barrels, it is proposed to cut a
supplementary or additional groove or grooves in each of the bearings or lands
between the ordinary rifle grooves. These supplementary or additional grooves
may be cut from the breach end of the barrel by the usual or other machinery;
they are made deepest at the breech, and gradually diminish in depth as they
proceed, until they die off' into the original bore of the gun or surface of the
bearing or land at a point, the position of which may vary according to the
length of the barrel. By this improved system of rifling, the advantages of
durability arising from the broad bearings or lands at the muzzle, in combina-
tion with facility for loading and absence of fouling due to the presence of
narrow bearings or lands at the breech are obtained.
Any form of groove may be used, but it is preferred to make the edges or
shoulders of such grooves slightly chamfered or bevelled inwards, so as to make
the groove narrower at its bottom that at the top, which chamfering may also
be applied to the ordinary rifle grooves, whereby a smoother edge is obtained,
and are less liable to hold and accumulate foulness, whilst it is at the same
time more easily cleaned.
And in order that my said Invention may be fully understood, I shall now
proceed more particularly to describe the same, and for that purpose I shall
refer to the several Figures on the Sheet of Drawings bercunto annexed, the
same letters of reference indicating corresponding parts throughout all the
Figures.
Figure 1 represents a transverse section taken near the muzzle of an Enfield
rifle barrel rifled according to my Invention.
Figure 2 is a similar section of the same barrel, taken through the breach,
showing the additional or supplemental grooves made at that part; and
Figure 3 is a plane or flat projection of the barrel above referred to, shewing
the additional or supplemental grooves in connection with the usual rifle
grooves.
a, a, are the rifle grooves proper, which extend from the muzzle to the

page_text: breech; and b, b, are the additional or supplemental grooves, which I propose
to make by any suitable or well known rifling apparatus. These supplemental
grooves are made in the lands or surface of the barrel between the ordinary
grooves, and extend only partially along the barrel from the breech towards the
muzzle, as will be clearly seen on referring to Figure 3. These grooves are
cut deepest at the breech, and are made gradually shallower as they proceed in
the direction of the muzzle until they die away into the surface of the land or
bearing, as shewn in Figure 3 at a point, the position of which will vary with
the length of the barrel, but it may generally be situated midway between the
breech and the muzzle. The grooves may be made of any form, but I prefer
to make them with slightly bevelled or chamfered edges, as shown in
Figures 1 and 2, a correspondingly shaped cutter being employed so that both
the sides and bottom of the rifle grooves are cut in place of having the bottom
only cut, and the metal froin the sides torn out, without being actually cut,
which renders them more or less jagged and more liable to foul that when they
are cut smooth in the manner suggested above.
Having now described and particularly ascertained the nature of my said
Invention, and the manner in which the same is or may be used or carried
into effect, I would observe, in conclusion, that what I consider to be novel
and original, and therefore claim as the Invention secured to me by the
herein-before in part recited Letters Patent, is,―
First, the general system or mode of rifling the barrels of fire-arms, as
herein-before described.
Second, the application and use to and in rifled barrels for fire-arms of
additional or supplemental rifle grooves, extending from the breech towards the
muzzle of the barrel, and dying away into the surface of the bore, at any
intermediate point between the breech and the muzzle, for the purpose herein-
beforo described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Right Honorable Richard Lord Berwick,
have hercunto set my hand and seal, this Twenty-fourth day of October,
One thousand eight hundred and sixty.