SINGLE AND DOUBLE BARRELS. 32 7 



expressly declared by Mr. Greener in 1841 that lie did not 

 think the expansion into the grooves was advantageous to- 

 the rifle, in the paragraph inserted above, in which the 

 italics are my own. Lancaster and Wilkinson then tried the 

 cannelured bullets, in slightly varying forms, and made good 

 shooting, increasing at the same time 

 the sharpness of the spiral and the 

 charge of powder to counteract the re- 

 tardation caused by them in the flight 

 o/ the ball. Then came Pritchett with 

 his conical balls (fig. 78 a and b), having 

 a depression in the base, which, allow- 

 ing the powder to expand it, rifles the 

 surface in contact with the spirals. 



Lastly, we have the Whit worth ball, PRITCHETT BULLETS. 

 which has been already described as 



hexagonal, and slightly twisted on itself to fit the rapid spiral 

 used with it. (See fig. 75.) 



SINGLE AND DOUBLE BARRELS. 



Such are the variations in principle of the muzzle-loading; 

 rifle and the bullets used with it, but there are also some prac- 

 tical modifications of the former which require to be con- 

 sidered. In the first place, there is the choice to be made 

 between the double and single barrel, and if the latter is 

 adopted, it may be a solid bar of steel bored, or of twisted iron, 

 like the shot-gun described in the last Book. The double- 

 barrelled rifle is never made out of solid steel, on account of 

 the weight and bulk which would attach to so large a mass of 

 metal. In any case, however, the metal must be hard, and steel 

 in some form is almost always adopted. It is obvious that 

 where two barrels are put together, both cannot be directed 

 with the same sight at the same spot and at all distances, for 

 though it may be possible so to arrange two barrels that at any 

 given distance they shall both throw a ball into the centre 

 of the bull's-eye, yet at any other the two balls will be wide 

 of it. Still, General Jacob was of opinion that for all 

 distances his double rifle was superior to his single barrel; 

 but I have never met with any one who took the same view. 

 Whether with one barrel or two, any of the bullets described 



