THE NEEDLE-GUN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume III, Issue 893, 24 September 1866, Page 6

THE NEEDLE-GUN.

' (7-,-6 m the Standard, Jtily Vi ) It is not at all likely that ati invention such aa the :needie - gun should have remained for more tha'ii thirty yearawithout improvements) and the public must not be misled by imputations aa to its roughnoss or cumbrousnoss, the escape of gas and firo at the breech, and sundry other defects and deficiencies, the reports of which it is most charitable to suppose havq emanated frpm those who have only seen the we.ipon in some form or other of its primitive state, and not such arms as our best modern gunmakers, without any exception, could turn out. A Very admirable, well-balanced, ncafc needle rifle, brought for our inspection by Sir. Sears (adapted for deerstalking and other similar sporis), is at once an evidence not only of tlio skill and workmanship of Messrs. Potts and Hunt, the eminent gunmakers at Whitechapol, with whom Mr. Sears is associated, but displays beyond all doubt, the proof that weapons of aiiy degrees of finish or of simplicity, atid suitable for any sort of work, can bo efficiently made on this principle. We take up the subject at this time with muuli interest, not as desiring; at present to recommend any particular modification of this or any other system to the advancement of any individual benefit or gain, but because it is quite certain (whatever may be the motives or the actions, taken by interested parties to throw obstacles in. tho way, or to attempt to deter investigations by personal abuse or general obloquy . upon every kind of interference with ofl'iqiai proceedings) that the merits of the needle-gun must bo thoroughly discussed in England. Tho public should take tlio matter up as well as the Government; and everybody who feels an interest —-and who can avoid tlio deepest ?*—in our national defences, should know what the needle-gun is ; whilst those who have any influence Over the adoption of the means of securing Or of improving the effectiveness of our national armament should examine and Understand its simple 1 principle!!, its capacities, and "the value of the various . methods of using it in warfare. For this needle-gun must hereafter (whether adopted in our Service or not) be a standard of comparison for the amount of effectiveness and a basis of estimation of the qualities of the various competitive systems of breecsli-loading arms.

Something of tho history of this particular weapon as modified by Sir. Sears and Messrs. Potts ant Hunt, iiiay be well gives in this place as confirmatory of what must be regarded as the utter ineapacitj with which the \Var-ofiice authoritios have examined thin'remarkable arm, or as the unjustifiable flight and neglect with which fhoso who have interested themselves in its improvement have been tr.-ated by those whose duty it has been to secure for the nation the best invention and'diacoverieß. • The noedlo-gun was not put before our Government thirty years ago in such a state of perfection as might- hc.ve been desirable, for the patent ol " Abraham Adolf Moser, of No. 2, Canterbury-row, Kennington, in tho county of Surrey, engineer," taken out in 1831, his invention is described to consist; —'First, in causing the charge of powder in fowling-pieces, muskets, carbines, pistols, and other the like Bmall firearms to take fire, by I placing the ordinary fulminating substance used for that purpose, and exploding it Within the barrel, beyond or forward of the powder in the firearm, in such manner as to dxpose the charge of powder to the whole of the fl'imo issuing from the said substance, and without the intervention of any confined passage whersby the flame could only issue as a narrow stream { and secondly, in a mode of holding the cartridge in tho barrel of such firearm as aforesaid in the proper position for being fired out by means of a pin. pressed through the barrel, whereby I am enabled to use a cartridge of such smaller diameter than the barrel as not to .require a ramrod to force it to its place, the mere act of dropping it into the barrel being sufficient for that purpose.' " By a reference to the drawing which accompanies this specification it will be seen that the weapon was a muzzle, and not abroach loader. • Upon this gun, however, Mr, Moser himself made considerable advances, and further improvements were effected sub-, sequent'y by Mr. Droyse, who, after £t laborious and expansive course of experiments, in which he was most .liberally supported by the Prussian Government, at last brought forward a really serviceable military,..needlergun which, haying .a rifled barrel, the power of quick firing,. great, range and accurate shooting, soon acquired much renown. For a considerable time the construction of those needle-guns was kept by tha Prus»iaa Gavarnmsnt u profound

ecret, us was also ilie mode of making .the. cartrilgOß or charging them ; but .thG Prussians, neyertliißloflS,.. •apidly introduced 50,000 of tlioro pieces into their ,rmy, their ; . use' giving: the greatest' puti-faction. The invention, therefore', seems to haye originated h' a desire to do away with percussion caps, the iia;onvenienco and loss of time: id .the' handling of which jy troops, especially in cold weatlior, ia notorious ; irid it cannot bo denied that it is a much more rational plan to hare the priming in the interior of •he harrei, in immediate contact with tho powder, ind to ignite there by an airnoat i fallible means of Friction, than to explode it by a blow at a distance, ind to send the fire to the powder through a narrow irid crooked metallic channel. ..But with bullets and jartridges made small enough to drop down the bitreli and obliged to bo held in the chamber by the dp of .a spring to prevent them dropping out again, the great principles of a rifle Karrtl, and the corresponding twist given to the Jliirht of the. bullet exactly moulded to it, wore entirely sacrificed, whilst tho shooting must necessarily hare been to a very considerable degree erratic. The. gun, besides could not be brought to half-cock after loading, and. might thus liavo been regarded as deficient in safety. But with the addition of the. needle system of a peculiarly simple breech-lfiading apparatus, a weapon was tit once produced which had every claim to consideration tt3 a military arm ; and no one need scruple to regard the various obstructions and abeyances to which the needle gun has in its .improved :f6rms been subjected by past Governments in this country ,as polite taeans of getting rid of ail article which the official authorities had not taken any fancy for, and of shirking a question they had no desire to re-open the consideration of. We are not perfectly certair at this moment as to the exact sequence of event; about this poriod ; but, as has been BtateH. alreadj in a previous article in this journal on our defences, a breech-loader needle gun was Bubmittec to the British Government in 18-16, and, rejectee solely on account of the ammunition for it contain ing its own qualification which is .no* by the same War Office authorities considered an essential condition. -Slither at this time or siibs.e quentlv, previous to 1852. the War Office dhpatehec Mr. iiOvell, the manager of the Government worki at Enfield, to Berl'", to obtain drawings ; and somi needle-guns were soon after' turned out >at the Enfield factory. Tlio same difficulty was then experienced of the escape "f gas from the joints of the chamber as has commonly'been, tho case. with other kinds, o breech - loaders, and which also prevails, in thi Schneider system adopted for the conversion of th; Enfield rifles; Indeed, it is this escape which ha. necessitated the manufacture of the costly bras cartridges of Captain Boxer, of oolwinh, the whicl are ! nothing more than the device of making thi cartridges do duty as brass cylinders within .th chamber to close over tho joints through which th gas of the explosion would otherwise find vent. Thi prevention of this escape was years ago providet against in a .more permanent manner by Mr. Soars and one of the valuable modifications, in thi nfeedle-gun submitted by him for trial to the Britisl Government in 1851, the shortening of the barrel an< the more effective closing up of the breech havini been also at that time accomplished. After a Ver inefficient trial before iiord 0. Paget and the selec committee, and after having been, favourably 6poket of by Major-General box. tliis unfortunate needle gun improver has been left in the sickening state o hope deferred, without any notice whatever, fron that day to this. We cannot, however, conclude these lines witliou a warning as to the necessity of a temperate thougl quick and decisive judgment as to the future arming of our troops, and especially as to the stronj necessity of a cool and searching inquiry into thi respective performances of the needle and the re peater systems. The original. s repeate would fire twenty-five rounds, without recharging at the rate of nine rounds a minute ; and much i at this time being said of the Spencer'; .repeater, which will fire twelve pe minute ; but we very much question if/ with eithe' of these weapons, owing to their peculiar method .o loading, a higher continuous rate of shooting couh be maintained than with the needle-gun. Certainly in no case could .any repeater be repaired, in case o injury, with anything like the same celerity, nor witl any comparably simple means. The needle-gun is. i weapon wjiich must not- be despised, but which mus have every due fairness a.nd consideration. „Its breech-lOading'.and ignition principles can bo appliec to any system of rifling; and stay kind of cartridges; metallic or noh-metaUic, can be used with eoiiai facility. Altogether,, .its qualities arc too ihiporfcinf to be ignored.

Of the needie-guii used by the Prussians, Dr. RuiJ* >ell, the Times special reporter with the Austrian irmy, writes ;— "'the Austrian;} btill believe that man for man they san bent the Prussians, and that it is only tlieneedle»un and -superior- artillery which enables them to obtain, any advantage when th« numbers ate. at all equal. There caii be no doubt of the superiority of the needle-gun to the muzzle-loading rifle- Its range may not bo so long and sure, but its rapidity of fire enables infantry to cheek cavalry and to establish a decided superiority over an equal number of infantry armed 'vrftli muzzle-loading; rifles, indeed the Aus* trians are disposed to Oyetrate the number of the Prussians,, owing to the weight of their musketry and that they have had opportunities of judging cannot bo denied* for some of the reeent encounters have been close and bloody enough to furnish the most ample ba*is for an exact determination of that point. A sergeant of a regiment who was bivouackod by the roadside to-day on our line of march told us that the company to which he belonged went into action on. Wednesday 120 strong, and there were now no officers and only 16 men left.

" Tho very Austrians who stood by two years ago and saw the needle-gun do the same fearful execution upon the Danes as it lias just done upon themselves \wnt home, having learnt Dott ing by their experience. Italy, deairoua above all things of an efficient army, ■ and meditating l from the very .first moment of her united existence a campaign against Austria for. tile recovery of yenetia, neglected this simple means of giving herself a sup'eriprity over her antagonist.' Wo, possessing an army small in numbers, but very choice in quality, and therefore requiring—more, perhaps, than any one else—the appliances needed to multiply the number of our soldiers, have been equally remiss, and have not. found in our vast military expenditure a few hundred thousand pounds to make the troops we raise really effective ; and France, which aspires to bo the first military power of the Continent, finds herself in this moment of trial just as unprovided as the rest of Europe. " One cheery-looking Tyrplese, who spoke a little Italian, told mo there had been a severe encounter with the Prussians yesterday, near Skalitz, higher up on. the railway, arjd that an Austrian corps had been surprised by three times the number of tho enemy, and Had suffered severely:. The needle-guns, he said,' enabled the enemy to fire so. fast there was no getting at them. 'We flre better/ he said, ' but they fire three times, to our once.' Another soldier, who was shot through both hands, asked me for a cigar, but he could not light it, or put it into his mouth . ofhis own accord; Sei said, ■ Prussians were devils, full of cunning, and not fighting fairly.' The breech-loading or Prussian needle gun had hot quite escaped notice in this country. It is stated , that Lord Hartington's last act ns Minister for War .was to order 30,000 JJnfield riflc3 to be converted.j iiito broech-loadera. The conversion of 20,000 rifles had been previously ordered, and by-and-by_we may expect: to find the muzzle-loader entirely laid aside. \ It is also said that other German Governments have attempted to introduce it in their armies, and there was indeed no difficulty in mating th-> fire-arm, but the fulminating matter in their cartridges evaporated after a few weeks, while the composition used by the Prussians, and of which the manufacture is kept a eectet, -remains good for yaarß. ,