_Zündnadel Guns_ (Vol. ii., p. 247.).--JARLTZBERG "would like to know when
and by whom they were invented, and their mechanism."
To describe mechanism without diagrams is both tedious and difficult; but I
shall be happy to show JARLTZBRG one of them in my possession, if he will
favour me with a call,--for which purpose I inclose my address, to be had
at your office. The principle is, to load at the breach, and the cartridge
contains the priming, which is ignited by the action of a pin striking
against it. It is one of the worst of many methods of loading at the
breach; and the same principle was patented in England by A.A. Moser, a
German, more than ten years ago. {344}
It has already received the attention of our Ordnance department, and has
been tried at Woolwich. The letter to which JARTZBERG refers, dated Berlin,
Sept. 11., merely shows the extreme ignorance of the writer on such
subjects, as the range he mentions has nothing whatever to do with the
principle or mechanism of the gun in question. He ought also, before he
expressed himself so strongly, to have known, that the extreme range of an
English percussion musket is nearer _one mile_ than _150 yards_ (which
latter distance, he says, they do not exceed) and he would not have been so
astonished at the range of the Zündnadel guns being 800 yards, if he had
seen, as I have, a plain English two-grooved rifle range 1200 yards, with a
proper elevation for the distance, and a conical projectile instead of a
ball.
The form and weight of the projectile fired from rifle, at a considerable
elevation, say 25º to 30º, with sufficient charge of gunpowder, is the
cause of the range and of the accuracy, and has nothing whatever to do with
the construction or means by which it is fired, whether flint or
percussion. The discussion of this subject is probably unsuited to your
publication, or I could have considerably enlarged this communication. I
will, however, simply add, that the Zündnadel is very liable to get out of
order, much exposed to wet, and that it does not in reality possess any of
the wonderful advantages that have been ascribed to it, except a facility
of loading, _while clean_, which is more than counterbalanced by its
defects.