112 MANUAL FOB YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 



States, owing partly to the disappearance of those species 

 of game against which it was employed. 



In the European armies the soldier's rifle, though 

 effective at long ranges, was ill-finished, clumsy, and not by 

 any means a weapon with which to allow men, much less to 

 teach them, to become first-rate shots. The first move in 

 the right direction was the heavy British two-grooved 

 military rifle with the belted ball. Its range was found to 

 be what was then thought immense, its precision great, 

 and it was an available, manageable, telling, and killing 

 weapon. . 



As a sporting piece, it still to a certain degree holds 

 its own, though it has one bad fault — a fatal one for troops 

 in active warfare' — 'that it clogs in rapid firing, and soon 

 becomes so foul as to render it impossible to load. 



This in turn was superseded by the Minie rifle, used 

 by the French chasseurs de Vincennes, the principle of 

 which is duplex. First, it contains a hollow projection, 

 sharp-pointed, running from the base of the breech per- 

 pendicularly into the chamber, which bursts the cartridge 

 when it is driven into it, and through which the igniting 

 power of the cap is carried directly into the centre of the 

 charge. Secondly, the ball is so contrived as to expand, 

 after the impulse is conveyed to it, fill the grooves of the 

 barrel, and cut its way out, instead of merely holding its 

 way out by means of the cuts made in it, as it was forced 

 down in loading. 



This weapon has made a complete revolution in the 

 art of war. The Minie rifle executes with such precision 

 at such ranges as to render all other fire-arms useless. A 



