THE FRENCH “CRUTCH,” OR BREECH-LOADING SHOT GUN.
Sporting in France has never been brought to the same state of
perfection as in this country. Grouse-shooting on our wild romantic
hills is a very different sport from quail, partridge, or rabbit
shooting in the vales and on the hills of the Continent. Wild game
requires great energy and perseverance on the part of the sportsman,
courage and strength on the part of the dog, and last, though not least,
great capacity on the part of the gun. For many years the superiority of
the English manufactured gun, as well as of the English gunpowder, and
the matchless skill of the English sportsman, have been acknowledged by
all the world. All things, however, have their limits--the longest lane
has a turning, and a very plausible and insidious innovation has been
made to detract from the acquired reputation of the English sportsman,
and render his shooting inferior to that of some of our friends on the
other side of the Channel.
The French system of breech-loading fire-arms is a specious pretence,
the supposed advantages of which have been loudly boasted of; but none
of these advantages have as yet been established by its most strenuous
advocates. How it is that the British sportsman has become the dupe of
certain men who set themselves up for reputable gunmakers I know not. It
is certain, however, that by these acts they have forfeited all claim to
the confidence of their too confiding customers, and that they never
could have tested the shooting properties of their guns. With regard to
the safety of these guns, they display an utter want of the most
ordinary judgment; and this is abundant proof that they considered
neither their safety, nor (what is also of importance) the economy of
the whole arrangement, as regards their manufacture or their use.
Guns are perfect only so long as they possess the power of shooting
strong and close, with the least available charges. The period has
passed when barrels were bored by rule of thumb, without any
well-defined intention; the workman being ignorant as to whether he
would have the bore of the barrel cylindrical, or (as was frequently the
case) in the form of two inverted cones, and thus he continued to bore
at the barrel until it was utterly useless, or until by chance he hit
upon a tidy shooting bore. Barrels are now constructed so nearly alike,
that it is no stretch of truth to assert that ninety-six or ninety-eight
barrels out of a hundred can be made so nearly alike in their shooting,
as to render it very difficult to discover the real difference between
them. Yet, in the face of this high state of perfection certain
English gunmakers introduce, and recommend to their patrons as an
improvement, a description of gun possessing the following negative
qualities:--First, there is no possibility of a breech-loader ever
shooting equal to a well-constructed muzzle loader; secondly, the gun is
unsafe, and becomes more and more unsafe from the first time it is used;
and, thirdly, it is a very costly affair, both as regards the gun and
ammunition. Nor are these negative qualities at all compensated for by
any of the advantages claimed for these guns by their advocates; this
assertion I now proceed to establish.
In the first place recoil has been an important obstacle to contend
with, ever since the invention of fire-arms, and the methods of
lessening recoil have engaged the special attention of all inventors up
to the present day; on this important point, indeed, very much depends.
Gunnery is good only when recoil exists in a minimum degree. Force,
whether it be that of the gentle “zephyr,” or of the mammoth
steam-boiler which is capable of moving thousands of tons, can always be
measured, and the friction of steam against the tube through which it
passes can be measured also.
The time was, when guns were so imperfectly constructed, that the recoil
and friction of the charge against the barrel destroyed more than half
the force generated by the explosion of the gunpowder; and this loss of
force having been obviated, by finely polishing the interior of the
barrel, as well as by improving the metal of the gun, has rendered
English guns superior in their performance to those manufactured in any
other country. Breeches of a conical form offer the greatest resistance
to the action of aëriform bodies in a direct line; this is the principle
of what is best known as “the patent breech:” to speak of which would be
a waste of time, as nothing more is required to support its superiority
than the fact, that in well constructed artillery of every country, the
interior form of the breech or chamber is more or less conical. Thus we
see that by adopting the crutch gun, we have to give up one of the
oldest and most universally acknowledged principles in lessening
recoil--namely, the conical form of the breech--and to adopt the very
reverse of this: namely, the old right-angled, flat-faced breech, upon
which recoil can exert its utmost force with the certainty of its
reaching the shoulder of the unfortunate user.
Secondly, to enable the gun to be loaded with a cartridge which shall
keep its place, a complicated arrangement is necessary. On inspection of
the barrel, it will be perceived that a cavity has been formed larger
than the bore of the barrel, and that this in some cases only tapers
toward the further end. This cavity exactly receives the cartridge, and
the gunpowder is inflamed in a space much larger than the barrel, which
it has afterwards to pass through. The charge of shot is also started in
a larger space than that which it afterwards has to traverse, and the
column must of necessity become contracted and elongated before it can
escape from the barrel. The first consideration is at what cost of force
is all this effected? Thirty per cent. would certainly be a shrewd
guess; and who is there conversant with the nature of gunpowder hardy
enough to gainsay the fact?
I here present the reader with the measurement of a pair of
barrels--bore 12, diameter of the cavity 10, or two sizes
difference,--tried at the celebrated trial of Breech versus
Muzzle-loading fire-arms, which took place in April last, in the court
at Cremorne. The following are the results of the trial:--
Class 1 comprised twelve bore double guns, not exceeding 7-1/2 lbs. in
weight; the charge for the breech-loaders was three drachms of powder,
and one ounce and a quarter of shot; that for the muzzle-loaders, two
and three-quarter drachms of powder, and an ounce and a quarter of shot.
The question will be asked why were both not charged alike? and the
answer is, because the advocates for breech-loaders well knew the loss
of power caused by the enlarged breech end would require a larger
quantity of powder; yet, with this advantage, the result was a verdict
in favour of the muzzle-loaders of nearly two to one. I quote from the
_Field_. The aggregate number of pellets in the targets from
breech-loaders was 170, the penetration 19. The aggregate number of
pellets put in by the muzzle-loaders was 231, the penetration 48; and
this was effected with a quarter of a drachm of powder less.
Few will doubt that this must be the inevitable result. Force cannot be
expended and retained: we “cannot eat our cake and have it.” If force is
destroyed by friction, it is as useless as if it had never been
generated. So much, then, for the shooting qualities of the
breech-loader.
And now comes the question, of much more importance than the shooting
qualities of these guns: namely, can all this force--30 per cent., in
fact, of the whole charge--be thrown away with no worse result than the
mere wasting of the powder? Is there no change taking place in the
barrel of the gun every time it is discharged? Iron and its combinations
are as certainly limited in their duration as is human life itself.
Every bar of iron is capable only of resisting a certain amount of
pressure; every successive strain on its fibres deteriorating it more
rapidly; and whether it be the mainspring of the lock, or a gun-barrel
itself, a certain number of strains will destroy it. This being the
case, how much more rapidly must a breech-loader be destroyed where 30
per cent. of the charge is always “absorbed” on the sides of the barrel
in the cavity alone. This a lengthened experiment will prove; though the
fact is so self-evident, that no experiment is required to demonstrate
it.
Caution in gunnery is absolutely necessary under the most favourable
circumstances, and disregard of perfection in the construction of a gun
is quite unpardonable; then what shall be said of that member of society
who, with all those facts before him, can say to his customers, “I
advise you to have a breech-loader: they are really good guns?” In what
estimation such a tradesman must be held I will not venture to say. Much
more might fairly be said against these guns, but I sum up the whole in
the following damnatory sentence: Breech-loaders do not shoot nearly so
well, and are not half so safe, as muzzle-loading guns.
It is said, and truly, that a breech-loader can be charged more rapidly
than a muzzle-loader; but I hold this to be no advantage, for this
reason: all guns can be loaded more quickly than they are fired, and the
tendency of all barrels to absorb heat, puts a limit to rapidity of
firing; indeed, after ten rapid shots with each barrel, both guns would
be about on an equality. Another question is, can breech-loaders be used
longer than muzzle-loading guns, without cleaning? My opinion is, _they
cannot_. At the trial already spoken of, after twenty-two shots had been
fired from the breech-loaders, the cartridge-cases had to be extracted
from the barrels with a hook, and in several cases it was necessary to
cut them out with a knife; whilst a muzzle-loading gun without friction
would have gone on to a hundred shots without being wiped out. There are
few plans or presumed improvements which have not some redeeming points;
but in the case of breech-loading fire-arms it is quite a task to find
even a resemblance to one. All the advocates for breech-loaders whom I
have ever met with yield, with this acknowledgment: “I must admit that I
never liked them; but so many gentlemen are asking for them that I was
compelled to make them, to keep my customers.” This is, no doubt, the
truth; but it is calculated to lead to serious calamities: for it was
apparent to hundreds, at the Cremorne trials, that even the best and
newest breech-loading guns permitted an escape of gas at the breech to
an extent that I never thought possible; and if this occurs in new guns,
what will happen after a single season’s shooting, should any one be
found sufficiently reckless to use a breech-loader so long?
No fear need be entertained that the use of breech-loaders will become
general; manufactures on false principles soon show themselves
worthless, however pertinaciously they may be puffed off. The number of
accidents arising from the use of breech-loading fire-arms has not been
very great as yet; though I have already heard of several very serious
cases, from the use of well-made guns: let us consider what would be
result if the workmanship was inferior?
There is one other point to which I may briefly allude before dismissing
the breech-loader to the “tomb of all the Capulets.” The majority of
guns on this principle merely abut against a false breech; and, from the
fact of there being no connection either by hook or by cohesion, the
explosion causes a separation between the barrel and the breech to an
extent which would scarcely be credited. This may, however, be
satisfactorily demonstrated by binding a small string of gutta percha
round the joint, when after explosion the string will be found to have
fallen in between the barrel and the breech; thus showing that the
muzzle droops in the act of being discharged, which must must materially
influence the correctness of fire.
The recoil of an ordinary 12-bore gun, loaded at the muzzle, varies from
forty to forty-eight pounds, seldom exceeding the latter; that of a
breech-loader varies from sixty-eight to seventy-six! And this quite
independently of the enormous force which is exerted on the sides of
these enlarged breech guns. The shoulder left in the barrel, too, is a
formidable barrier for the charge to pass by; and, in doing this, the
circle of shot in immediate contact with the barrel becomes disfigured
and misshaped, so as to insure its flight only to a very short distance.
In the muzzle-loader an average of 180 shots strike a target of two feet
six inches diameter; but breech-loaders of the same calibre will rarely
put in 120 shots; showing a clear loss of 60 pellets. This is due to the
enormous jamming they have undergone in passing from the greater to the
lesser area of the barrel. It is said that the paper of the cartridge
fills up this enlargement; but any one who knows what the force of
gunpowder is, must also know that paper intervening between the charge
and the sides of the barrel would be condensed at the moment of
explosion to one-fourth its original thickness.