REVOLVERS AND MINIE RIFLES.
"Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us."18 This observation of Solomon, the correctness of which we have often seen verified in this History of Inventions, is applicable even to that great apparent novelty the formidable "Revolver"—that death-dealing weapon, which will fire six shots in rapid succession by merely pulling the trigger so many times, as fast as it is possible.
The Revolver was almost unknown in this country until 1851, when it was brought prominently into notice at the Great Exhibition, by the specimens shown there by Colonel Colt, of the United States. Pistols with six barrels, which might be fired successively with the same lock, by turning them round, were, indeed, previously seen in gun-shops; but their clumsy form and their great weight prevented them from being used. Nor was Colonel Colt much more successful in his earlier attempts to bring his Revolver into public notice. He obtained his first patent in America in 1835, and established a manufactory for the pistols at Paterson, United States, where he expended £35,000 in attempting to bring the fire-arm to perfection, but with no beneficial result to himself beyond gaining costly experience. He made further improvements in 1849, and so far perfected the weapon that it had been used extensively in America before it was brought into notice in this country.
When Colonel Colt came to England, he undertook to investigate the origin of repeating fire-arms, with a view to ascertain how far he had been anticipated; and the result of his researches was, that repeating fire-arms, similar in principle to his own Revolver, had been invented four centuries before.
He found in the Armoury of the Tower of London a matchlock gun, supposed to have been made as early as the fifteenth century, which very closely resembles, in the principle of its construction, the Revolver of the present day. It has a revolving breech with four chambers, mounted on an axis fixed parallel to the barrel, and on that axis it may be turned round, to bring any one of the four loaded chambers in succession in a line with the barrel, to be discharged through it. There are notches in a flange at the fore end of the revolving breech to receive the end of a spring, which is fixed to the stock of the gun, for the purpose of locking the breech when a chamber is brought round into the proper position. The hammer is split at the end, so as to clasp a match, and to carry its ignited end down to the priming powder when the trigger is pulled. Each chamber is provided with a priming pan that is covered by a swing lid, and, before firing, the lid is pushed aside by the finger, to expose the priming powder to the action of the lighted match. If the date of this gun be correctly stated, a very rapid advance in the art of gunnery must have been made after the invention of gunpowder, which took place only one hundred years previously. The want of a better mode of discharging the gun than a lighted match was one of the chief obstacles to the introduction of the Revolver four centuries ago.
There is also in the Tower Armoury a specimen of a repeating fire-arm of a more recent date, though still very ancient, that presents considerable improvement on the preceding one. It has six chambers in the rotating breech, and is furnished with a barytes lock and one priming pan, to fire all the chambers. The priming pan is fitted with a sliding cover, and a vertical wheel with a serrated edge projects into it, nearly in contact with the powder in the pan. To this wheel a rapid motion is given by means of a trigger-spring, acting upon a lever attached to the axis of the wheel; and the teeth of the wheel strike against the barytes, which is brought down, previously to firing, into contact with it, and the sparks thus emitted set fire to the powder in the priming pan, and discharge the piece. In this instance, also, the breech is rotated by hand.
A still further advance towards perfection in repeating fire-arms is to be seen in the United Service Museum, where there is a pistol, supposed to have been made in the time of Charles I., with the breech rotated by mechanical means. In this pistol, the act of pulling back the hammer turns the breech, containing six chambers, one-sixth part of a revolution, and the priming powder is ignited by a flint hammer striking against steel.
The manufacture of these fire-arms presented some practical difficulties which could only be overcome by great care and skill in the construction; and from the failure in this respect they were not patronized. It was necessary, in the first place, that the loaded chambers should be brought into an exact line with the barrel, and be firmly retained there during the discharge. It also required great nicety in the fitting of the breech to the barrel, to prevent the fire from communicating to the other chambers. A further difficulty was to prevent the spindle, whereon the breech revolved, from becoming foul by the explosion of the powder; otherwise, after firing a few times it would stick fast, and the gun would become useless.
The earliest patent for repeating fire-arms in this country was obtained by James Puckle, in 1718, for a gun with a rotating breech. There were six chambers in the breech, which was turned round by a winch, and, when the six were fired, there was an arrangement by which the chambered breech could be removed, and another loaded one substituted for it. Mr. Puckle appears to have been of a poetical turn of mind, and the specification of his patent is enlivened by the following loyal couplet, which deserves to be quoted as a novelty in patent records:—
"Defending King George, our country and laws,
Is defending yourselves and the Protestant cause."
The invention of percussion priming in 1800, by the Rev. A. J. Forsyth, was an important step towards the perfection of fire-arms generally, and of Revolvers in particular; for until the chambered breech could carry round with it in a compact form the priming for each chamber, the construction must have been clumsy, and the action uncertain.
Colonel Colt, as already stated, took out his first patent in 1835, and in 1849 he patented the improved Revolver, which he has brought into general use. It has six chambers in the rotating breech, and the nipples to hold the percussion caps are sunk into a recess, so that the lateral fire, if any, cannot reach them; and at the other end, the chambers are protected from lateral fire by chamfering their mouths. By these means, the danger of firing the gunpowder in the other chambers is effectually provided against.
The demand for Colt's Revolvers became so great after the last improvements were made, that at his manufactory, at Hartford, in America, he made 53,000 of them in 1853; and at his manufactory at Vauxhall, near London, he employs upwards of 300 workmen, though by far the largest portion of the work is done by machinery.
Several improvements have been introduced in Revolvers since Mr. Colt's patent of 1849, among which is the arrangement, made by Mr. Adams in 1851, for causing the chambered breech to turn by the action of pulling the trigger, which at the same time draws back the hammer. By this arrangement, the whole of the six loaded chambers may be discharged in three seconds, whilst the pistol continues presented.
The latest improvements in Revolvers were contrived by Mr. Josiah Ells, of Pittsburg, North America, as specified in a patent obtained for him by the author, in his own name, in 1855. The annexed woodcuts show the figure of this Revolver, with the working parts round the lock exposed to view, together with the shape of the revolving chambered breech.
In this improved Revolver, the force required to pull back the hammer, a, is regulated by a double spring, w, so as to diminish as the hammer is drawn back; and at the moment of firing a slight pull of the trigger is sufficient. Another improvement consists in the addition to the chambered breech, d, of a projecting tube, which prevents the spindle on which it turns from becoming foul; and there is also a safety bolt added, as a protection against accidental firing.
The plan of making the mere action of drawing the trigger turn the chambered breech and pull back the hammer, as originally contrived by Mr. Adams, required so much force to pull the trigger as to interfere materially with the accuracy of aim. There was danger, also, in that mode of turning the chambered breech, arising from premature firing. In Mr. Ells's Revolver these objections are in a great measure obviated; first, by the action of the double spring, by which the force required is diminished as the trigger is pulled farther back; and in the second place, by making the shoulder of the hammer catch into a small notch, which holds it at full cock, until, by a further pull of the trigger, the pistol is fired.
An improvement in the art of war, no less important than the Revolver, was introduced nearly at the same time. The Revolver affords a formidable means for attack or defence at short distances, whilst the Minié Rifle extends the destructive range of fire-arms far beyond the distance to which the ordinary musket ball could reach. The principle of rifling gun barrels was first made known in the specification of an invention patented in 1789, by Mr. Wilkinson, the improvement he effected being thus described:—
"The gun, or piece of ordnance, after being bored in the usual method, hath cut therein two spiral grooves, which run the whole length of the bore. These curves, according to their curvature, will give a circular motion to the shot during its flight."
The spiral grooves, when the bullets are rammed down, cause the ball to offer greater resistance, therefore the explosive force of the gunpowder is brought to act upon them more completely before they leave the gun barrel; and the rotary motion imparts greater steadiness to the ball. Rifled barrels, therefore, carry the balls farther, and increase the accuracy of the aim. They, however, require increased power and longer time to ram down the ball in loading, and the risk of bursting the gun is increased if the ball be not rammed close upon the powder. For these reasons, they were considered unfit to be employed generally by soldiers, and they were entrusted only to select corps of rifle shooters. The object of Captain Minié's invention was to facilitate the loading of rifles, by contriving a bullet which might be easily rammed in, and would expand in the act of firing, so as to fill up the grooves. What is commonly called the Minié Rifle is, in fact, only a Minié Rifle Ball, for the barrels of the guns are nearly the same as the ordinary grooved rifles.
The ball is an elongated one, with a hollow cone at the bottom, into which is fixed an iron button. When the gun is fired, the button is forced into the cone, and expands the lead, which thus fills up the grooves and gives a spiral direction to the bullet.
The Minié ball serves the purpose excellently for a short time, but after firing several rounds the iron button is forced through the lead, leaving a portion of it behind, which clogs up the barrel, and renders it unfit for use.
Several substitutes for iron were tried, to remove that inconvenience, and it was at length found that the button might be dispensed with altogether, for the hollow cone is of itself sufficient to expand the lead. The balls are, therefore, now made in that manner at the Government gun manufactory at Enfield, and the rifled guns now used in the army, which carry bullets to the distance of a mile and more, are called the Enfield Rifle. The cost of each of these rifles to the Government is stated to be £3 4s. 7½d. As the balls are made to slip into the barrels easily, they can be loaded as readily as the common musket: and they will carry three times the distance, with much more certainty.