_Chaffee-Reece Magazine Rifle_.--We do not insert a drawing of this
arm--one of the three selected by the American board--as it belongs to
the same class and is similar in general construction to the Hotchkiss.
There is, however, an important difference in the magazine, which has no
spiral spring, but is furnished instead with an ingenious system of
ratchet bars. One of these carries forward the cartridge a distance
equal to its own length at each reciprocal motion of the bolt, while a
second bar has no longitudinal motion, but prevents the cartridges from
moving to the rear in the magazine tube after they have been moved
forward by the other bar. The magazine is loaded through an aperture in
the butt plate, the opening of the spring cover of which causes the two
ratchet bars to be depressed, so that the magazine can be filled by
passing the cartridges along a smooth middle bar. The act of closing the
spring cover again brings the two ratchet bars into play.
[Illustration: FIG. 9.--KROPATSCHEK MAGAZINE GUN]
By means of a cut-off the ratchet bars can be prevented from acting, and
the piece used as a single loader.
_Kropatschek Magazine Rifle_.--This rifle, which is the small arm of the
French navy, has a bolt-action rifle resembling the Gras (see Fig. 9).
The magazine is a brass tube underneath the barrel, as in the
Winchester, Vetterli, Mauser, and other rifles of class 1. It contains
six cartridges, while a seventh can be placed in the trough or carrier,
T.
When the breech is opened by pulling back the bolt, a projection on the
latter strikes the carrier at N, causing its front extremity to raise
the cartridge into the position shown in the section. This movement is
accelerated by the spring, A, acting against a knife-edge projection on
the trough, T; in the upper position of the trough, the spring acts upon
one face of the angle, and upon the other face when in the lower
position.
On closing the breech, the bolt pushes the cartridge into the chamber,
and when the handle is locked down to the right, a part of the bolt
presses against a stud, and thus depresses the trough to be ready to
receive another cartridge from the magazine.
The magazine can be cut off and the rifle used as a single loader by
pushing forward a thumb-piece on the right side of the shoe. The effect
of this is that, on turning down the handle to lock the bolt, the latter
does not act on the stud to depress the carrier, so that no fresh
cartridges are fed up from the magazine.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.--LEE MAGAZINE GUN]
There is a projection, Z, on the fore part of the carrier, which keeps
the next cartridge from leaving the magazine while the trough is in the
upper or loading position. A supplementary cartridge stop, R, pivoted at
P and having a spring, L, underneath it, acts in conjunction with Z in
retaining the cartridges in the magazine, and especially in preventing
more than one at a time from passing out into the carrier when the
latter is depressed; it also retains the cartridges in the magazine tube
while the latter is being filled.
_Lee Magazine Rifle_.--This arm (see Fig. 10), which occupied the place
of honor in the report of the American "Board on Magazine Guns,"
embodied two new principles of considerable importance, viz., the
central position of the magazine, and having it detachable with ease, so
that two or more magazines can be carried by the soldier.
The breech action of the Lee does not materially differ in design from
other bolt rifles, except that the bolt is in two pieces only--the body,
or bolt proper, and the hammer or cocking-piece. The firing pin, or
striker, is screwed into the hammer; the spiral main spring, which
surrounds the striker, is contained in a hollow in the body. The handle
is placed at the rear end of the bolt, and bent down toward the stock,
so as to allow the trigger to be reached without wholly quitting hold of
the bolt. The extractor is so connected with the bolt head as not to
share the rotation of the latter when the handle is turned down into the
locking position. When the handle is turned up to unlock the bolt, the
hammer is cammed slightly to the rear, by means of oblique bearings on
the bolt and hammer, so as to withdraw the point of the striker within
the face of the bolt. This oblique cam action also gives great power to
the extractor at first starting the empty cartridge case out of the
chamber.
The magazine, M, is simply a sheet iron or steel box of a size to hold
five cartridges, but there seems no reason why it should not be of
larger dimensions. It is detachable from the rifle, and is inserted from
underneath into a slot or mortise in the stock and in the shoe, in front
of the trigger guard. A magazine catch, C, just above the trigger guard,
engages in a notch, N, in the rear of the magazine, the projection, L,
first entering a recess prepared for it in the shoe. There is a magazine
spring, D, at the bottom of the magazine box which pushes the cartridges
up into the shoe. The point of the top cartridge is pushed into the
projection, L, and this keeps the lower cartridges in their places in
the box while the latter is detached; when the magazine is inserted in
the rifle, the withdrawal of the bolt causes the top cartridge to be
slightly drawn back, so that it is now free to be fed up into the shoe
by the magazine spring, D.
There is a later pattern of magazine, which has its front face quite
plain, with no projection, L, as the magazine catch was found sufficient
to hold the box in its place. To prevent the cartridges being pressed
out of the magazine before the latter is inserted in the rifle, there is
a strong spring placed vertically in one side of this box, the curved
upper end of which bears upon the top cartridge; when the magazine is in
its place in the shoe, this side spring is so acted upon that it ceases
to hold down the cartridges in the box.
To use the rifle as a single loader, formerly the magazine had to be
detached, when a spring plate in the shoe, which is pushed aside by the
insertion of the magazine, starts back into its place and nearly fills
the magazine slot, so as to prevent cartridges falling through to the
ground when fed into the chamber by hand. The later pattern, however,
has two notches on the magazine for the catch, C, to engage in. When the
magazine is inserted in the slot only as far as the upper notch, the
rifle can be used only as a single loader, but on pressing the box home
to the second notch, the magazine immediately comes into play.
The magazine can be released from the slot by an upward pressure on the
lower projecting end of the magazine catch, C, which is covered by the
trigger guard.
_Improved Lee_.--This rifle is precisely similar in principle to the
Lee, the chief difference being that the magazine is permanently fixed
in its slot underneath the shoe, and in front of the trigger guard. The
cartridges are inserted from above. There is a stop by means of which
the cartridges can be prevented rising up into the shoe, and which forms
a sort of false bottom to the slot in the latter, so that the arm can be
used as a single loader.
_Lee-Burton_.--The bolt action is the same as the Lee, but the box
magazine is attached to the right side of the shoe, instead of being
underneath, as in that rifle. When the magazine is raised to its higher
position, the cartridges pass successively into the shoe by the action
of gravity alone, and are thus pressed home into the chamber by the
closing of the bolt.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.]
A number of the Lee-Burton and improved Lee rifles are now being
manufactured for issue to the troops, in order to undergo experimental
trials on an extended scale.
Several other magazine rifles have the box central magazine, but placed
in different positions as regards the shoe and the axis of the bore. In
the original pattern of the Jarman (Sweden and Norway), the magazine is
affixed to the upper part of the shoe, inclined at a considerable angle
to the right hand (see vertical cross section, Fig. 11). Here the
operation of gravity obviates the necessity of a magazine spring, but
the magazine was found to be very much in the way and liable to be
injured. It has therefore been replaced by a magazine underneath the
barrel, as in the Kropatschek and other rifles.--_Engineering_.
(_To be continued_.)
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