Bullet (firearm)

“ You then discover that although you can see the dim shadow of your game, your bullet will have to cut its way through at least twenty twigs before it can reach its goal. A solid bullet may deflect slightly, but it will generally deliver its message direct, unless the opposing objects are more formidable than ordinary small branches. A hollow bullet from an Express rifle will fly into fragments should it strike a twig the size of the little finger. This is quite sufficient to condemn the hollow projectile without any further argument. ”

“ The bullet is the bold—fearless—and often cruel companion of the report of the gun, and loses in its velocity the farther it flies, being impeded and resisted by the air, and at last is left flattened and out of shape, a dead weight, while the report of the gun passes on very swiftly, and dies away in the distance to be heard no more. I have often heard the reports of guns very plainly that were fired at ducks on Detroit River, six or seven miles away. ”

“ Common sense will suggest that although such a bullet will kill, it is not the sort of weapon to stop a dangerous animal when in full charge. Weak men generally prefer the hollow Express because the rifle is lighter and handier than the more formidable weapon, and the recoil is not so severe, owing to the lightness of the bullet. ”

“ In our own opinion, a single ball of tolerable size is not only more manageable, but more effective. The mode of producing the bullet also varies. Some, instead of producing it in the mouth, hold up a china plate by way of target, the bullet being held under the two first fingers against the front of the plate. When the pistol is fired, the plate is turned horizontally, and the bullet released from the fingers. ”

“ However, there exist dum-dum bullets, as I mentioned before. They are manufactured by the soldiers themselves. If the point is filed or cut off a German infantry bullet, so that the nickel case is cut through and the lead core is laid bare, the bullet explodes when striking or penetrating an object. Should a man be hit in the upper arm by such a projectile the latter, by its explosive force, can mangle the arm to such an extent that it only hangs by a piece of skin. ”

“ The eccentricities of bullets, too, are not a little interesting. There was a case in Asia Minor of a bullet which made six distinct holes of entry and exit in a man's body, without materially injuring him, before it passed away into the open. ”

“ The problem, then, seems to be to combine the shock, or killing power, of the old, big, lead bullet with the high velocity and extreme accuracy of the modern military rifle. With the Mauser and the Lee-Enfield one can hit his man or his beast at a great distance, but the shock of the bullet is much less than that of the old, round, lead one. The military bullet simply drills a little clean hole which disables the soldier, but does not bring down the beast, unless it passes accurately through some vital spot. ”

“ The dum-dum bullet is a soft-nosed missile which, when it strikes a bone, flattens out and splatters, creating a jagged wound which it is almost impossible to treat or heal. The Germans, in ordinary, use a steel jacketed bullet which possesses high penetrative powers, while the French at the beginning of the war were using the ordinary lead bullet. ”

“ The tremendous range of the modern rifle, single arm, or rapid-fire gun, and the development of more powerful explosives for ammunition have wrought this change. The bullet will travel a longer distance at a horizontal position than in the old days when ordinary black powder and a smooth-bore gun were used, and so at hundreds of yards distance the soldiers can aim direct to kill, without making elevation allowances. ”

“ A gun fired in the direction of the earth, or in the line of the centre of gravity, would recoil much less (perhaps fifty per cent. less) than when fired vertically; from the very obvious fact, that if the bullet was not kept in position by its friction on the sides of the barrel, it would fall to the ground of itself.
“The recoil of a gun is inseparable from a discharge of its contents—on the broad principle that action begets reaction; it is, therefore, only when the ‘kick,’ as it is called, becomes painful, that it is essential to avoid or lessen it. ”

“ Nowadays, with the wax bullets driven by fulminate out of a duelling pistol, shooting off the heads of assistants can be done with very little risk except to the eyes, whereas with a leaden bullet a bad shot means the death of the assistant unless provided with a steel skull cap under a wig. ”

“ The public think that a bullet goes only where the shooter wants it to go, “You pull the trigger and the bullet does the rest” sort of idea.
They believe the bullet goes direct of itself to that object and stops there, when the trigger is pulled. They have no idea that the bullet may miss that object and hit someone beyond.
People will stand in the direct line of fire to watch a wounded buck in a park being shot, and are indignant if asked to move to one side. ”

“ A hollow bullet fired from an express rifle will double up a deer, but it will be certain to expand upon the hard skin of elephants, rhinoceros, hippopotami, buffaloes, &c.; in which case it will lose all power of penetration. When a hollow bullet strikes a large bone, it absolutely disappears into minute particles of lead,—and of course it becomes worthless. ”

“ Here Kennedy took up a piece of fine batiste and fired another bullet through it.
“Every leaden bullet, as I have said, which has struck such a fabric bears an impression of the threads which is recognisable even when the bullet has penetrated deeply into the body. It is only obliterated partially or entirely when the bullet has been flattened by striking a bone or other hard object. ”

“ If the bullet shall have struck fair upon the shoulder-joint, it will be observed that although it has retained its substance, the momentum has been conveyed to every fragment of crushed bone, which will have been driven forward through the lungs like a charge of buckshot, in addition to the havoc created by the large diameter of an expanded '577 bullet. ”

“ A wave of the curious spectators rushed across the street and gathered around the injured man. They found that he had been shot through the fleshy part of the thumb, and the bullet, ranging down the arm, had sliced a furrow to the bone all the way to the elbow. ”

“ Then came the crack of a rifle to prove that it was a bullet.
If I had not happened to lean over, and to lean over pretty far, that bullet would have finished me—sure! My first instinct was to start the car and get away: then I checked the impulse and slid out to terra firma. Some one not very far off was shooting recklessly, and it made me angry. ”

“ When a champion rifle shot fires blindfolded at a wedding-ring, or a penny held between his wife's thumb and finger, or, seated back to her, shoots, by means of a mirror, at an apple upon her head or on a fork held in her teeth, the danger of using a bullet is obvious. ”

“ A pistol of the aforesaid length, and being of the petronel bore, or a bore higher, having eight gutters somewhat deep in the inside of the barrel, and the bullet a thought bigger than the bore, and so rammed in at the first three or four inches at the least, and after driven down with the scouring stick, will deliver his bullet at such distance. ”

“ The Express rifle is a term signifying velocity, and this is generally accompanied by a hollow bullet which is intended to serve two purposes— to lighten the bullet, and therefore to reduce the work of the powder, and to secure an expansion and smash-up of the lead upon impact with the animal. ”

“ Any bullet is considered an expanding bullet if it be so made as to spread or mushroom on impact with its objective. But it is more usual to restrict the term to bullets having some special provision artificially to assist or facilitate their expansion, and, generally speaking, the objective is assumed to be game or other living quarry of some description. Evidently, if the target be hard enough, every bullet will expand to some degree. The means usually adopted in the case of the solid-lead bullet is to drill or form a hollow in the nose, as familiar to all who have used the sporting rifle. ”

“ A full charge automatic pistol should not be used for this—a duelling pistol, having a smooth [Pg 279] bore barrel, and shooting No. 8 shot is good practice and can be shot where shooting a bullet would be dangerous. I have killed 44 out of 80 live pigeons in this way.
It is dangerous to shoot bullets at hard substances. To shoot at a stone thrown up, a ginger beer, or a soda water bottle, may cause very dangerous ricochets. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Also, the mark of the cross, rightly applied to the steel-jacketed nose of the bullet, can turn that bullet into a dumdum that makes a small hold on entering a man's body and a hole the size of a soup plate on leaving. It requires no intelligence thus to notch a bullet. ”

“ I prefer a big-calibre pistol in competition, as it gives a better chance to score; a shot which would be just out of the bull with a small bullet, may just cut the bull with a large ball. The bullet-hole is also more easily seen, but the bullet must be spherical, or you will have to use too heavy a charge of powder to propel it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ More than twice the size of the service rifle .30 calibre bullet, more than three times as heavy, and with a tendency to flatten out and hit still harder, the single ball for the shotgun, while not high in accuracy, is capable of knocking a man flat on his back if it hits him fairly. Five such huge pills, slung rapidly into an opposing aircraft, at a range of one hundred yards or less, would be like throwing five half-bricks into the machine with the velocity a half-brick never attained in this world. ”

“ But the question is, whether in a well-constructed rifle, the bullet does strip? and if not, then a gaining-twist is unnecessary and objectionable, as it offers to the ball’s progress a continually increasing opposition, while the ball itself is subjected to a continually increasing urging force from the inflamed gunpowder in the barrel, so that, as the velocity of the ball increases, so also does the resistance to its escape. ”

“ The lubricant for the patched bullet is a greased wad or disk of wax, placed between powder and bullet. The grooved bullet, carrying its own lubricant, is best adapted to shallow lands and grooves. The patched [79] bullet to sharp lands. The grooved bullet would seem to be the best for military service, as the cartridge-case can be tightly crimped upon it, making the case waterproof. For very long range the best shooting has been done with patched bullets. ”

“ I stooped to take it up, and while stooping he fired one of the pistols at me; and on examining my person, I found the mark of a bullet and twenty-seven grains of shot in my side, just under my left arm. ”

“ The great defect in the hexagonal-bored rifle is the extreme amount of friction, and the consequent useless expenditure of means.
The bullet is produced in the most accurate manner in a lathe, and is composed of an alloy of lead, tin, [373] and manganese, so as to render it hard enough to resist the tendency to squash or swage; which is the case in General Jacob’s principle. The angles on the bullet are cut with the greatest precision, in order to fit the groove of the barrel; constituting, in fact, a female screw of two turns in every thirty-nine inches of length. ”

“ As the head of the first man appeared my companion raised his pistol and pulled the trigger. The bullet struck the poor wretch exactly on the bridge of the nose, making a clear round hole from which, an instant later, a jet of blood spurted forth. A second bullet carried another man to his account, and by this time the remaining four were upon us. ”

“ The small-calibre rifle shoots straighter and hits harder than the large bore one, and the recoil is less, and so is the weight of the weapon. Lead is found to be too soft a material for the bullet of the small-bore rifles, as it does not keep in the rifling, which has a sharper turn than that in the older weapon; hence the bullets are now cased in steel or nickel. These bullets have remarkable power of penetration. Some will go through a steel plate 11⁄4 inch thick, making a clean hole in it, and the Lebel bullet penetrates 15 inches of solid oak, at a distance of 220 yards. ”

“ This accuracy may be obtained to 30 or 40 yards provided that the bullet is sufficiently large to enter the chamber, but a size too large for the muzzle. It will accordingly squeeze its way through without the slightest windage, and will shoot with great precision, with a charge of 4 1/2 drams of powder and a ball of pure soft lead. A No. 12 is exceedingly powerful, and if 7 lbs. in weight, it can be fired with one hand like a pistol. This is an immense advantage, as the shooter can hold tight by the howdah rail with his left hand, while he uses his gun with the right. ”