BULLET

the small leaden projectile used for smaU-arms. Formerly bullets were always of a spherical form, and were cast in moulds; but this oldest kind of bullet has for a good number of years been almost entirely given up, at least for military purposes. In the first place, it was found that the method of casting bullets in moulds was both slow and unsatisfactory in its results. The bullets were rough on the surface, and the spherical form was not given to them with sufficient accuracy. To remedy Siese defects a machine was invented by Mr. Greorge Napier, bv which bullets were made with much more rapidity than by the former method, and at the same time, by means of a spherical die, the proper form was given to them with much more accuracy. But these were not the only defects of the old bullet. The spherical bullet, even when made with perfect accuracy, was far ^m securing precision in firing, and this kind, especially since the introduction of rifled muskets, has gone more and more out of use. Two great improvements have been made in recent yean in the manufacture of bullets. The first consists in the adoption of some means of dilating the bullet at the moment of explosion, so that it is forced into the grooves of the rifle and exactly fills the barreL The means adopted for this purpose are various. In some cases there is merely a cavity left at the base of the bullet into which the gases formed on the explosion of the gunpowder are forced before the resistance of the bullet to the force of the gunpowder is overcome, so that the gases have the effect of dilating the bullet in the maimer required. In other cases a plug is inserted in the cavity, which is driven forward by the explosion of the gunpowder, and has the same effect The other great improvement conaists in the change of the form of the bullet. Of the various forms that by different inventors have been substituted for the spherical, that which was first selected by Mini^, an officer in the French army, namely, the cnrlindroconical, has now been generally adopted as the best. In such bullets the lower part, that next the gunpowder, is cylindrical, and the upper part is conical, or more properly ogival — ^that is, shaped like a Gothic vault, l^his is the form ia which the bullet of the Snider -converted Enfield, which is used by the British troops, is made, but it has some peculiarities whjch distinguish it from the original Minid rifle buUet. It has the cavity at the base like the Mini^ bullet^ in which is inserted a plug of day; but the rest of the bullet, instead of consisting of solid lead, has a cylindrical chamber proceeding from the apex of the bullet about halfway down the axis, and in this chamber there is inserted a wooden plug. This is a plan which was first adopted in the Metford bullet, and its effect is to make the bullet lighter and also to throw the centre of gravity further back, which secures greater precision in shooting. The bullet of the Snider rifle has also four cannelures or grooves running horizontally round the lower part of it, and these are filled with bees' -wax to lubricate the barrel while the bullet is pa ing through it. The length of the bullet is 1*0625 inch, ^e diameter '55 inch, and the weight 530 grains.