Sharps rifle

“ Judging from what I have been told by some of my friends, however, it seems not unlikely that the best sporting rifle will ultimately prove to be the very small caliber repeating rifle now found in various forms in the military service of all countries—a caliber of say .256 or .310, with 40 grains of powder and a 200-grain bullet. These rifles possess marvelous accuracy and a very flat trajectory. The speed of the bullet causes it to mushroom if made of lead, and gives it great penetration if hardened. Certain of my friends have used rifles of this type on bears, caribou and deer ”

“ But, still adopting Barber, it is very difficult to lay down particular rules as to what a muzzle-loading rifle of modern style should be, as marksmen and gunmakers are both whimsical, and each has his set ideas and notions concerning the matter. Some advocate a long barrel, while others maintain that anything beyond thirty-three inches militates against good shooting. ”

“ We have cut out too many balls of Sharpe's rifle from the target, which had entered sidewise, not to be certain on this point; and we know of no other breech-loader so little likely to err in this respect, when the ball is crowded down into the grooves, and the powder poured on the ball,—as we always use it. The government reports on breech-loaders are adverse to their adoption, mainly because they are so likely to get out of working order and to get clogged. We have used one of Sharpe's two years in hunting, and found it, with a round ball at short shots, perfectly reliable ”

“ Of the new Henry rifles, repeaters, many had found their way thus far south; and of the heavy Sharpe rifles, such as were used by Berdan’s sharpshooter corps in the Civil War—with the great Minié ball and its parchment cartridge and the lever breech action—a half dozen survived. Most prized by some, execrated by others, were the Spencer repeating carbines, throwing their heavy ball with at least approximate accuracy if one could guess the distance of the shot. The Yager and the Kentucky rifle, which won Texas, now had disappeared. ”

“ The mountings of a rack of firearms, seven or eight in number, attract inquiry as they glimmer in the firelight. They are relics of many years with the exception of one or two. The most ancient is a flint-lock, of immense bore and short barrel, the stock being inlaid with native work of bone. Another is an old muzzle-loading Kentucky rifle standing as high as the hunter himself; and of more recent date is the old reliable Sharp’s, picked up by the present generation in their migrations to the hop fields on Puget Sound or in barter. ”

“ It would be an impertinence for a tyro like myself to offer any remarks on the merits or demerits of any rifle. Not only do the fashions change almost as quickly as in millinery, not only do great shikaris advise, advertise, and adventure with any weapon that could possibly be of service to anyone, but my knowledge, even after the experience gained in our long shoot, is confined to the very few firearms we had with us. They might not have met with unqualified approval from all men ”

“ It is quite plain to any unbiassed person that any grease which might be upon the bullet when it is placed in the chamber of the rifle would be completely wiped off during the passage of the tightly-fitting projectile through the barrel, from which it emerges as clean as when made, and bearing the marks of the grooving. ”

“ High against the chimney, on two dogwood forks, rested the long rifle with its fishtail sight and the brass plate on the stock for the bullets and the "patching." Below it hung the old powder-horn, its wooden plug dangling from a string,—tools of the long ago. Closing one's eyes one could see the tall grandsires fighting in the beech forest, a brown patch of hide sighted over the brass knife-blade bead, and death, and to load again with the flat neck of the bullet set in the palm of the hand and covered with powder. ”

“ This gun is provided with various kinds of projectiles, the ones usually carried being shell, shrapnel and cannister, and are known as Krupp prepared ammunition, which can be used in the same manner as an ordinary rifle cartridge. The shrapnel for this, as well as all field guns, is the projectile mainly depended upon, and like all field guns, the main work for them is to fire at the personnel of the enemy.
It is a common error amongst military men and others not well versed in the use of Artillery, to suppose that a field gun is intended for the purpose of making breaches in walls. ”

“ Some persons prefer the latter to rifles for elephant-shooting, but I cannot myself understand why a decidedly imperfect weapon should be used when the rifle offers such superior advantages. At twenty and even thirty paces a good smooth-bore will carry a ball with nearly the same precision as a rifle; but in a country full of various large game there is no certainty, when the ball is rammed down, at what object it is to be aimed. A buffalo or deer may cross the path at a hundred yards, and the smooth-bore is useless; on the other hand, the rifle is always ready for whatever may appear. ”

“ Cannonading still sounding from the Potomac. There is scarcely a house in Sharpsburg, which shows no marks of our artillery fire. The inhabitants admit that General Burnside gave them a right smart shelling.
Monday, September 22.—Sharpsburg, headquarters of McClellan. Sumner’s corps marched to Harper’s Ferry to-day; but we remained, receiving a new battery of three-inch rifle guns.
Tuesday, September 23.—Sharpsburg. We left the place at two o’clock P. M. Crossed the Antietam, and marched to the foot of Maryland Heights, going to camp for the night. ”

“ The old, smooth-bore field-guns of the enemy would be completely disabled before they could be brought within cannon-shot of the ten thousand. As soon as the enemy came within rifle range, the ten thousand would open on them with their thousand automatic machine-guns and magazine-rifles. As an automatic machine-gun fires at the rate of 600 shots a minute, a thousand would fire at the rate of 600,000 shots a minute. The magazine shoulder-rifles would fire aimed shots at the rate of twenty-five a minute, and the quick-firing field-guns would each fire shrapnel at the rate of forty a minute. ”

“ The most remarkable of them are, 1st, the Horsfall smooth-bore, of 13 inches bore, 44 inches maximum diameter, and 24 tons weight,—price, $12,500; 2d, the "Alfred" rifle, in the recent Exhibition, of 10 inches bore,—price, $5,000; 3d, the 12-inch smooth-bore in the Brooklyn Navy-Yard, which, though very light, has fired a double 224-pound shot with 45 pounds of powder: if properly hooped, it would make the most formidable gun in America. ”

“ The general direction of the improvement in firearms is to lessen the size of the bore and increase the flatness of the trajectory. Thus the high-angled fire of the Snider, converted from the muzzle-loading Enfield, was changed for the Martini-Henry, in every way a more deadly weapon, and this, as has been already remarked, has given way to an even smaller bored rifle. And with the increased rapidity of fire and the larger number of rounds of the lighter ammunition that can be carried, the bayonet, that was lengthened in 1878, was reduced to its present dimensions. ”

“ Shrapnel, especially when handled by the 'Soixante-Quinze,' which, in addition to being the best field-gun in the world, has the best shell with the best time-fuse, is more destructive against advancing troops than machine-gun and rifle-fire [Pg 307] combined, when it is rightly timed. Of course, it is far harder to aim exactly and to time to the second. A shrapnel shell holds 300 bullets and a 'Soixante-Quinze' can fire fifteen shells a minute. That means that one gun can send 4500 bullets a minute into an advancing enemy, the bullets scattering in a fan shape from the burst of the shell. ”

“ He had dropped to his knee, and was firing again and again, his gray eyes looking clear and straight along the barrel, his fingers without jerk or tremor pressing again and again at the trigger, his hands holding the rifle as in a vice. Every nerve and muscle were completely in his command. The distance was far, yet he shot with deadly, amazing accuracy. The wolves were within a few feet of the girl, and a fraction's waver in the gun barrel might have sped his bullet toward her. ”

“ The hunting and sporting rifles of the warehouses—even if the police has not rendered them useless by the removal of a part of the mechanism—are no match for the magazine rifle of the soldier even at close quarters. Up to 1848 one could make his own ammunition out of powder and lead, today the cartridge for each rifle model varies, being similar only in that all of them are the product of large industry and not to be extemporized, which renders most rifles useless unless one has the special ammunition made for them. ”

“ From its warlike aspect it is pleasant to turn to the contributions of the rifle to peaceful amusement, if not peaceful industry. Contemptuously giving the go-by to its minutest phase in this field—the "parlor rifle," with a target against the chimney-piece or meandering, in feline form, along our neighbor's roof-tree—we go forth, with Snider and sunrise, to the forest fastness. ”

“ The military rifle carried a spherical bullet, and, like all others of the period, it necessitated the use of a mallet to strike the ball, which, being a size larger than the bore, required the blow to force it into the rifling of the barrel in order to catch the grooves.
Sporting rifles were of various sizes, but they were constructed upon a principle generally accepted, that extreme accuracy could only be obtained by burning a very small charge of powder. ”

“ The five rose up to sitting positions against the board wall, and everyone held across his knees a long, slender barreled rifle, with the muzzle pointing toward the forest. All accomplished marksmen, it would only be a matter of a moment for the stock to leap to the shoulder, the eye to glance down the barrel, the finger to pull the trigger, and the unerring bullet to leap forth. ”

“ The gun’s narrow frontage in action renders it easy to conceal, and when discovered it presents a very small and difficult target to the enemy’s riflemen; on the other hand, when once discovered if it cannot be moved unseen to another position it is liable to suffer a prolonged and concentrated fire from the widely scattered riflemen of the enemy, to which it cannot effectively reply, and which must in time cause loss. Again, its range being limited, it is powerless against artillery except under special circumstances at effective rifle range. ”

“ A thin spurt of white smoke jets forth; a sharp report echoes "from peak to peak the rattling crags among;" half a dozen chamois whisk around the next rock-buttress, and "one more unfortunate" tumbles from the verge into vacancy. The labor of days is rewarded. Securing the scanty venison if he can, the hunter is off for his hillside burrow, advertising his approach by an exultant jodel of extra nerve-splitting power.
In Great Britain the rifle, ancient or modern, like, indeed, any other firearm, has yet to establish itself as a democratic "institution." ”

“ That meant a trip to the gunsmith's, for a new hatchet and to have the mainspring of the rifle replaced. Nobody could afford to have a rifle that couldn't be trusted, least of all a hunter and prospector. And he'd had words with Alex Barrett, the gunsmith, just the other day. ”

“ Nothing gives such confidence to the gun-bearers as the fact of their rifles being good slayers, and they quickly learn to take a pride in their weapons, and to strive in the race to hand the spare rifles. Dust storms, such as I have constantly witnessed in Africa, would be terrible enemies to breech-loaders, as the hard sand, by grating in the joints, would wear away the metal, and destroy the exactness of the fittings.
A small handy double rifle, such as my little Fletcher 24, not exceeding eight pounds and a half, is very necessary, as it should seldom be out of the hand. ”

“ The hunter has a big cartridge-rifle,—usually a one-hundred-grain Sharpe, or one hundred and twenty grains, which is called a big fifty,—fifty caliber. These guns weigh from twelve to eighteen pounds, and carry from a mile and a half to two miles. He also has a large belt, with loops to hold forty or fifty cartridges, and a good knife. One man usually does the shooting for the outfit, though two sometimes go together. The skinner or skinners, with ammunition, beds, and provisions, follow with the wagon or wagons, and keep just{107} in sight of the hunter. ”

“ But great as the improvements have been in artillery, they are less important than the changes effected in the infantry rifle; for upon the quality of the infantry depends, more than upon anything else, the efficiency of an army. There are many kinds of rifles now in use in the different armies of the world, but in their essential principles they are very similar. All use smokeless powder, and all are provided with a magazine which admits of firing a number of shots without reloading. ”

“ In loading a rifle the powder is first measured in a “charger,” and then poured down the barrel; next comes the patch, which is usually a piece of new and strong cotton cloth, most commonly the kind known as white drilling. This, having been tallowed upon one side, the tallowed side is spread over the muzzle of the gun, and the bullet is pressed upon it into the muzzle, the side from which the “neck,” formed in moulding, has been cut, must be directly downward. Generally with the handle of a knife the bullet is pressed into the bore as far as it can be sent by such means ”