A Rifleman’s Retrospect (Feb 1905)
American Rifleman, Vol 37, No. 18, Feb 9, 1905, pages 370-371
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A Rifleman’s Retrospect
by “CERVUS”
Looking back over the advance in mechanism of the last thirty years, it seems to the writer that next to the phenomenal inventions in electricity comes the advance in the rifle and the implements connected with its use.
Probably the number is far from being in the majority who can remember when Mr. Winchester bought the rights of the little Henry .44-40 rim-fire and launched out in that enterprise which, like the sea, embraces now the civilized world. While the central-fire .44-40 supplemented rather than supplanted the Henry, yet there are some facts connected with the history of the little rim-fire cartridge that have not as yet passed from remembrance.
The most heroic event that occurs to the writer was the famous feat of Capt. Wilson, of the Kentucky Union Cavalry, in the midst of the Civil War. The side he had taken as a Union man made him obnoxious to the bushwhackers, who, at that time, swarmed throughout the state. Five of these men, armed and mounted, rode into his yard suddenly, as he was at dinner, on furlough from the army. They crowded to the door, with guns leveled, when he said, “My God! gentlemen, don't shoot me before the eyes of my family!”
They agreed that he might come out into the yard to be shot. As he reached the door, he sprang from the porch for a barricade he had erected half-way to the gate, and where he kept his Henry always in readiness. They fired a volley at random, but missed him. Seizing his little arm he shot down the first man in the doorway; another as he came out, another as he came down the steps, another as he was mounting his horse, and the last man from his horse’s back as he was riding away. The five men lay actually dead within the limits of the yard, for he not only shot, but he shot to kill. I well remember how the whole country was thrilled by the heroic deed. I see a Henry once in a. while still, and never with out connecting it with this feat of Capt. Wilson. The Kentucky Legislature ordered his company equipped with the Henry, and it did yeoman’s service in the field
In the corps to which the writer was attached was a regiment armed with the Henry. It was with difficulty that an entire rebel brigade could be induced to assault that quarter of the lines where this regiment was known to be posted. They said that they were shot down like sheep in the attack, and shot down in the same way while in retreat. Oh, yes, the little rim-fire has a history.
The .44-40 central-fire which followed has, no doubt, killed more large game than all other rifles in the country combined. In the mountains l met it everywhere, and it was held as almost a member of the ranchman’s family. One of them said, patting it kindly on the stock: “Oh, yes, the little gun is a good friend! It is always on hand, and always gets in its work. There it stands in the corner day in and day out, without cleaning. I can catch it up any time, and it never fails. My horse stumbles in a badger hole and I go over his head, and the little gun goes over mine. I get up bruised, but the little gun is all right; it has been so for ten years! I get game often with a single cartridge, and it saves me a steer for which I get $30.”
Another ranchman said to me: cow elk yesterday with two cartridges, gun gets in its work every time."
It would be pleasant reading the history, after ten years, of one of the .44-40's, that left the factory on its unknown mission. And it is only just to American honor and workmanship to speak of the quality of their work. These men of the ranches used to say to me: “My Winchester never gets out of order."
A fine mechanic in Texas said to me: “I have many guns brought to me for repair, but hardly ever a Winchester or a Remington.” I have my self used a Parker shotgun assiduously for thirty years; not a pin, screw or spring has ever given way.
And now, take a Winchester catalogue, begin with the Henry and follow up the evolutions. It includes every cartridge, from the tiny .22 short up to the formidable .45-100-450, probably the most deadly black powder rifle in existence, at least, on all soft-skinned animals. Our British cousins leave for a trip to the colonies, with an arsenal of the costly British arms, but always with a number of Winchesters. And they admit that when they get to work, whether on tigers in India, lions in Africa, the ghaur of the jungle, or the buffalo of the Cape, they use mainly their Winchesters.
‘Then a new element came into being, in the shape of smokeless powder. And the ground had to be traveled back to the .30, .33, .35, and finally to the .405-What can remain to a hunter's desire beyond this cartridge it is hard to see. He has caliber for shock and bleeding, with bulk of lead, and can use the black or the smokeless powder in the same arm. What a harmless-looking missile is the .405 by the side of a .50-450; but when the big fellow drops to the ground wholly spent, the little one is traveling on into the next county, with fearful possibilities of harm.
For beautiful result of machinery the brass cartridge, head, pocket, wall of shell, all from one piece of metal, is a marvel; while for delicacy of contrivance and perfection of manipulation in its successive stages, the primer in all its forms stands fairly at the head. So many times has the unfailing ignition of this little element of modern fire arms stood between the writer and actual need and danger, that he has a feeling for it that he has not for any other part of a rifle, its certainty is wonderful, and, were the writer to visit one of the great factories, there is no department that would so engage his interest as that of the primer. He would feel like making an address of gratitude to the operatives, and detail to them instance on instance when the work of their hands in its conscientious accuracy had been his chief reliance in extremity and had never once failed him.
And now comes in the part of the Ideal Manufacturing Company to supplement rifle and cartridge with the bullets and tools for their use. This company's history, too, is one of evolution. The writer well remembers the issuing of the first catalogue. It seemed wholly natural and fitting that a trained soldier of the old army should follow the military instinct on leaving, and engage in matters pertaining to arms; in fact, we men that shoot, I am afraid, do not appreciate having one designing bullets and implements for us, who, in all his devising, still, metaphorically, squints over a gun. It is of very great moment in the invention and mechanism of gun appliances that a man’s very training and life for years has been in the line of ballistics, and that he has not to learn the laws of the science while providing for and teaching others. What a bullet should be, in shape and proportion, what fitness for caliber of shell and rifle, what proportion to the motive proper, what aim in the implement to secure these things—this was in direct line with his military life. He can say: “I was part of the devices; I have been there myself.” The trained soldier had no fear to recall his part as a soldier, for he dedicates his Hand Books to his old comrades, and he does not fear to dedicate his workmanship now to the men who value it; the tools speak for themselves.
I should not fear to say that there is not in our language, in the same compass, more valuable information on: practical rifle ballistics, than in the first forty pages of the Ideal Hand Book. The rifle tyro will find there just what he needs for a beginning, and the veteran rifleman can review his own knowledge and add to it much that he did not possess.
And the array of bullets! We once thought of the .22 caliber bullet as a mere pellet of lead, fitter for diversion of an idle hour than for practical use. When my .45-70 bullet was expressed and I used a .22 short for the filling, making it also an explosive, I felt that, for me, the mission of the .22 was filled. That bullet would shoot a cougar’s head from his body; it would make the viscera of a bear, heart, lungs, liver, one clotted mass, making him think of himself, not of you quite a point, when one has business with a bear -—yet, here the Hand Book starts out with cuts of five different .22‘s, running up to 98 grains, and some of them for a central-tire shell! And, what looks almost diverting, the .22 is itself expressed, and is guaranteed to have fifty per cent more killing power than the solid bullet! My first thought was, killing power for what? And then I remembered the jack rabbits, blue grouse, and even a coyote that had fallen to my pocket rifle, with merely the solid pellet of 40 grains, and here I could have an express of 57 grains! Might really tear game too much! And so on, with a succession of bullets of all weights, for all calibers, up to the .58 Springfield, that fought our war through and saved the nation.
A rifleman pauses and reads the text below, for every bullet. Many of them are connected with some of the best known riflemen in the land: Kephart, Beardslee, Young, Herrick, Gould alas! not with us!-—Barlow, Hudson, who remain to this present, to the pleasure and profit of all. The Hand Book is history—is literature!
It is perhaps a melancholy feature that many favorite bullets in their day have been relegated to the rear, as Mr. Barlow says. by the relentless advance of smokeless powder. Among them is the writer's own chosen bullet for the first shot from the chamber of the .45; namely, the Russell bullet 535 grains, the heaviest bullet in the entire list. The Georgia men won the Sea Girt prize with it. When that bullet strikes elk or deer they go down; there is rarely call for the magazine. It is perhaps too heavy to use with smokeless powder, but the writer is a black powder man, hunting only at times, and this may be thought to relegate him to the rear, as well as the bullet.
If I should ever visit the Ideal factory, my interest would prompt me to first look up the man that makes the cherries for the molds. Let the reader think of it with me for a moment. Mr. Barlow tells us that he has frequent occasion to make a mold a thousandth, two-thousandth, three-thousandths of an inch larger for certain calibers, or enlargements of caliber. Think of it! I look at the top joint of my thumb in an unsophisticated way-—the old time measurement for an inch—and I think of its being whittled away by thousandths to reduce length or diameter, like Patrick cutting his dog’s tail oft by sections to save him the pain of cutting it all off at once. And a shell’s mouth must be reamed a thousandth of an inch for certain bullets to properly fit! What accuracy of caliber and niceness of manipulation to make cherries of such requirement! And then the cherries must be banded to cut the grooves for different lengths of bullet, and all to definite numbers of grains in weight of lead; the eye must require the watch-maker's glass, and the hand must have his steadiness to do work like that! And then, the melting pot and ladle that make a man shrink from the thought of casting bullets in any other way, when he has once used it!
Seventy years ago the writer saw an old hunter chop a hollow in the top of a stump, light a fire in it, get it ablaze, put in his lead, and ladle it into his mold with an iron spoon. Another time when he had lost his spoon, he took his “tom axe,” as he called it, cut a piece of board four inches wide and a foot long, made one end a handle, cut a depression half the thickness of the board, put in his lead, kindled chips on top of it, and poured the lead into his mold from a notch in the side. Half blinded with smoke, the tears running from his eyes, he molded his balls. "The thing makes a fellow cry," he said, “but, boy, it gets the bullets all the same, and they get the deer, see?"
And the boy got them the same way, many a time afterward, always at the cost of tears; but the tears were a part of the interest, like the danger to Dr. Hudson in smokeless powder.
And now the smokeless powder tide pours down on the Ideal Manufacturing Company, too. The tide is met bravely. We are an economical people, wealthy as a nation, but not as individuals. The metal patched smokeless ammunition costs $30 a thousand. We cannot shoot at the target at that, or we cannot well hunt at that the dimes are lacking. The usual bullets will not bear the ten-inch twist, with a load of thunder and lightning. What can be done? There are some men who cannot be daunted. Singly they may not venture, but shoulder to shoulder, like David, they will leap over a wall.
Washington said to General Wayne: “General Wayne, will you undertake the storming of Stony Point?”
“General Washington, I’ll storm hell, if you'll plan it!”
]ust here it is noticeable that the revised version does not meet with favor with military men. General Grant, with a grim humor of his own, tells us in his memoirs, that the day after he had set Sheridan over the cavalry of the Potomac, to report to General Meade, the latter was in his tent. Meade was a staid Pennsylvania Presbyterian, and took all things gravely and seriously.
He said:
“General Grant, that is a strange man you sent to report to me as commander of the cavalry.”
“How so?”
“Why, he said, if I would give him Torbert and Custer and Devens he would knock hell out of Jeb Stuart in ten days."
"Did you tell him he’d better do it?"
Meade had no answer at hand, salaamed, and went out. The grim man of Appomattox was after men, not words, in those days. No revised version for Sheridan! If Sherman had said to the rebel lady at Atlanta, objecting to his orders, “Madam,’ war is hades!” it would have fallen fiat to all men. Uncle Billy would as soon have gone into action with shotguns to spatter the enemy. He and Sheridan plainly regarded words as Webster did the surviving veterans of Bunker Hill: “They had come down to us from a former generation.” The revision might be good literature, but it did not serve for explosion.
We have wandered. Well, Dr. Hudson and Mr. Barlow put their heads together; one experimented and the other invented, and the result was a bullet of lead, tin, and antimony that will bear the quick twist and sufficient smokeless powder for 500 yards. It does finely, and is all any reasonable person can ask. And the cost of ammunition is reduced from $30 a thousand to less than $5.
There are some interesting features in the case. Dr. Hudson says blandly: “There is perhaps some little danger in experimental work in explosives, but it is as interesting as the shooting itself.” All right, Doctor! You can have all the interest undivided. The writer will follow Captain Cuttle and stand by. Besides your profession gives you repairs on the spot; the better part of another might not be there when relief cattle.
Dr. Hudson and Mr. Barlow might not follow Mad Anthony in invasion of unexplored territory, but for action along this line in these present regions, it would be safe to stake on them against the world.
Readers of SHOOTING AND FISHING, it makes one think! Here, in the results attained, is more than this mere material result; here is thought, device, workmanship, beauty, from what is breathed into a human organism by the Maker of the world, the Great Architect of the universe!
Cervus.
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