_ our best gunsmiths, must, and in 
O. N. Rood on Elongated Projectiles. 29 
parallel to its axis and could be caleulated to a nicety. Again, 
when the object was to prevent any recoil, there was no difficul- 
ty in doing so.”* All of the above mentioned precautions being 
no doubt essential to counteract the evil effects of the beavy 
recoil and of the twisting of the piece. With the American rifle 
no such artificial bolstering was employed, the barrel was rested 
on acommon shooting bench and the stock held honestly to the 
shoulder of the marksman, the friction and recoil being so insig- 
nificant as not to require other contrivance. 
ut the Whitworth-gun was tried in the open air at Hythe, 
April, 1857, in competition with the Enfield rifle, to which it 
appears to have been greatly superior. We are not informed 
whether “the firing machine” was transported and used on this 
occasion; be that as it may, the statement made as to the results 
obtained is, ‘that when both had a range of 500 yards the supe- 
riority of the Whitworth was in the proportion of three to one.” 
As the absolute deviation of the Enfield rifle at that distance is 
28 inches, the deviation of the Whitworth rifle must have been 
about 9°3 inches, or the shots averaged that distance from the 
centre of the target. Chapman states that the absolute deviation 
of the American rifle at 550 yards is 11 inches; his work was 
published in 1848 since which time very considerable improve- 
ment has been effected by our best makers. Knowing this to be 
the case, I instituted some experiments at 500 yards with rifle 
0. 1: after it had been sighted 10. 
for that distance ten shots were fired 
by a friend, who was but a moderate ° 
marksman; a reduced cut of the 
target is given. The distance of 
each shot from the centre was meas- % 
ured, the sum of the distances was 
67-1 inches: the absolute deviation 
therefore in this experiment was | = =} 2 e 
6,7; inches or 24 inches less than [gOS o 
that of the Whitworth rifle. 
This may serve to show how great- 
y the American rifle, as made by 
fact does surpass in accuracy of fire 
various rifles used at the present 
reference to the ) 
tables below it wil be seen that the 
performance of Rifle No. 1 in the ; 
above target made at 500 yards, was superior to that of the 
Swiss rifle at 200 yards, . 
* “The Rifle,” by Hans Busk, M. A., page 94. 
One-tenth of full size. 
