Rifle

a fire-arm which has the inside of its barrel cut with from three to nine or ten spiral grooves, so as to make it resemble a female screw, varying from a common screw only in this, that its grooves or rifles are le deflected, and approach more to a right line; it being now usual for the grooves with which the best rifled barrels are cut, to take about one whole turn in a length of thirty inches. The number of these grooves differs according to the size of the barrel and fancy of the workman; and their depth and width are not regu Jated by any invariable rule. See Gun, Gun- NERY, and FowLinG-pPreEce..