The expansive principle not being adopted in the armies of France and other Continental nations, may be justly attributed to the experimenters of the French school having been led astray; claiming, as they did, the entire merit of the invention. It is but fair that whilst endeavouring to establish my own claim to the invention, I should point out the discrepancies existing in the theory of my opponents.
That considerable imperfections exist in the expansive rifle used in France, is evident from the results of their experiments, and the time which has been wasted in discussing the principles necessary for correcting the flight of the bullet by “annular rings” being applied to its cylindrical part.
Captain Tamissier’s theory is “that an elongated bullet in passing through the air, describing the curve of the trajectory, maintained its axis parallel in its successive positions to the position it had at starting, and that the angle formed by this axis with the element of the trajectory--that is, the direction of the motion--changed every instant. The action of atmospheric resistance would also be altered by the surface presented by the projectile; as the point of application of this force would not always pass through the centre of gravity, but would establish a rotatory motion different from that with which the bullet was originally animated: in different words, the bullet, by preserving its original position, would after a time be pursuing its path with its broadside foremost; that is, with the point of its axis above the line of the trajectory and the near end below.
“To remedy this, and increase the precision of fire with these bullets, Captain Tamissier thought it was necessary to create resistances to the atmosphere as far as possible behind their centre of gravity, in order to bring the point of the bullet back to its original course. For this purpose he formed a number of circular grooves on the cylindrical part of the bullet, in imitation of the feathers of an arrow; which, he says, are placed at the hinder part to engender resistances.”
The folly of such a theory must be very apparent to a practical man. The engraving below of a bullet obtained direct from Captain Minié in December, 1855, and with which the troops were then experimenting at Vincennes, when compared with my bullet of 1843, renders any further argument unnecessary.