Old English Rifles

The Engineer, 20 August 1886

The idea or rifling a musket barrel to improve the accuracy of fire by giving the bullet a spin or rotation is no new one, although the first rifle barrels had straight groves, with the supposed object of decreasing the bad effects of fouling, and causing the bullet to take a straight course down the barrel, instead of impinging from side to side, as in smooth bores. The invention has been attributed to Zoller of Vienna at the end of the fifteenth century, but Koster of Nuremberg is supposed to have adopted the spiral form about 1520. Rifles were not, however, used for military purposes until the next century, and then to a very limited extent. The fact is that the very imperfect state of mechanical science prevented the principle from being applied with advantage. The first instance of their employment in the British army we meet with was the issue in 1680 of eight rifled carbines to each troop of Life Guards, but it was not until 1800 that a hole regiment was armed with rifles, when "Baker's Rifle" was supplied to the old 95th Regiment, now the Rifle Brigade. The details of this weapon are given in Table A below; the bullet was spherical and wrapped in a grease patch, which caused the operation of loading to be so difficult that a wooden mallet was supplied to hammer down the ball. The rifle carried a sword-bayonet.

In France, experiments were carried on continuously with the object of discovering some mode of making the bullet take the rifling; a powder chamber with sharp edges and also a "tige," or cylindrical pin of steel were tried against which the leaden bullet was forced with a rammer so as to expand it into the grooves. Although easy loading and very improved accuracy were the results there were considerable defects in both these methods.

About the year 1836 the Brunswick rifle, with two grooves and firing a belted ball, was introduced for rifle regiments; it was the first arm in our service fitted with a percussion lock, which was not applied to the smooth bore muskets until 1842. The ball was used with a grease patch, which added to the difficulty of placing the belt properly in the grooves, and caused much delay in loading; fouling was also very great and the shooting bad beyond 400 yards. In 1851 the Minié rifle was introduced, and marked a great advance, being the first really practical application of the elongated bullet, the principle of which had been patented by Delvigne, ten years before. An iron cup fitting into a hollow in the base of the bullet expanded the latter into the grooves; the grease patch was discontinued, and the bullet was wrapped in paper lubricated with a mixture of tallow and beeswax. As the Table A will show, this arm, as also its ammunition, was very heavy, and the large bore - 0.703in. - made the retardation very great, and experiments were soon instituted by the late Lord Harding, then Master-General of the Ordnance, which in 1853 resulted in the introduction of the first Enfield rifle.

The bore was reduced to 0.577in., and the weight of the rifle was nearly 1lb. less than that of the Minié, while the shooting was far more accurate; in fact, it was the most efficient firearm ever put into the soldier's hands at the time of its issue to the army in 1855, when it was used, in the Crimea, replacing both the Minié rifle and the old percussion musket of 1842. This position it, maintained until the general introduction of breech-loading arms, when it was converted in 1864 into a breech-loader on the Snider principle, having a block hinged on the right side of the shoe. The cartridge, the determination of which gave great trouble, had the Boxer composite coiled case, with a percussion-cap fixed in its base, which was exploded by means of a pin or striker passing obliquely through the block, and actuated by an ordinary hammer and percussion lock; a light spiral spring drew back the striker after firing. The Snider was merely intended to utilise the large stock of Enfield muzzle-loading rifles, and also to provide a substitute until the best description of breech-loading rifle could be determined.

Table A gives the particulars of the successive rifled firearms in use in our army and navy.