44 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



NEW NEEDLE-GUN. 



EXPERIMENTS were made at Woolwich on Tuesday last with an 

 improved construction of guns, patented by Mr. Sears. The invention 

 is on the principle of a needle-gun, and is applicable to military mus- 

 kets, carbines, rifles, pistols, arid fowling-pieces, on the using of a 

 cartridge of peculiar arrangement and composition. By this plan, the 

 difficulty of furnishing troops with ammunition, so prominent an ob- 

 jection - to the Prussian military musket used by the Fusileers in the 

 Prussian army, is entirely obviated, and the soldiers are enabled to 

 carry a greater quantity of cartridges, and are also able to make them 

 for themselves with the greatest ease and safety, and effect a saving of 

 upwards of twenty-five per cent, compared with the cost when percus- 

 sion guns are used. A musket-stand was placed at a distance of four 

 hundred yards from the butt where the target was put up, and a rifle, 

 fitted on Mr. Sears's plan, was taken, and the mode in which it is 

 loaded minutely explained to the officers who were present. The 

 loading is a very important feature in the invention, as it can be effect- 

 ed without the least difficulty in any position of the body, whether ly- 

 ing flat on the ground, on foot, on horseback, or in the rigging of a 

 ship, as it does not require that the gun should be turned, as is the 

 case when a ramrod is used to drive home the cartridges with the 

 common muskets of the service and with fowling-pieces. The car- 

 tridges used are very small, the great number of charges obtained, six- 

 ty out of each quarter of a pound weight of powder, being compared 

 with the quantity used in the common ball-cartridges of English mus- 

 kets. The ball is formed in the shape of a loaf of sugar, only more 

 tapering at the point than the balls used by Mr. Lancaster and others. 

 Mr. Sears's ball-cartridge is put into the breech of the barrel through a 

 cavity in the under part of the stock of the gun, and requires no other 

 exertion than the use of the thumb and forefinger of the right hand. 

 A sliding, but strongly made groove, similar to the head of a bayonet, 

 is then pushed forward, and renders the breech of the barrel air-tight, 

 and not liable to be injured by any concussion. In the centre of the 

 extreme end of the sliding groove is a needle, which is pushed for- 

 ward sharply on the trigger being drawn, and is very effective in its 

 operation, as was evidenced, only one cartridge having failed to ignite 

 on drawing the trigger, out of fifty-four fired with Mr. Sears's guns. 

 It was evident that the charge of powder for the cartridges was too 

 small for a range of four hundred yards, or the person who fired was 

 not acquainted with the elevation of the musket requisite to carry 

 that distance, the first four rounds having fallen about one hundred 

 yards short in every instance. The fifth and sixth rounds, on the 

 musket having more elevation, entered the target. After trying sev- 

 eral other rounds, the stand was removed to a range of three hundred 

 yards from the target, and ultimately to two hundred yards' range. It 

 was ultimately resolved that another trial should take place with an 

 increased charge of powder. Mr. Sears's construction of gun appears 

 very simple and easily used, and four rounds can be fired from it in a 

 minute, which might be extended to five or six by those acquainted 



