These articles appeared originally in the March and April 1957 issues of The American Rifleman. To subscribe to the monthly magazine, visit NRA’s membership page.
In the fall of 1897, when I was just a young National Guard sergeant shooting on my company rifle team, my old coach, Captain William DeV. Foulke, brought to the Essington, Pennsylvania, rifle range his .45-110-550 Long Range Sharps Match Rifle. He showed it to me with great pride, saying, "Whelen, there is a rifle that has never lied to me yet". I have never forgotten that remark.
This Sharps Long Range Match Rifle probably represented the highest development of the breech-loading blackpowder weapons. It was a magnificent weapon, with the Borchardt action, and a 30- or 32-inch round barrel. Most of the weight of the rifle was in the barrel, the sides of the receiver being skeletonized and a walnut filler inserted, and the pistol grip, shotgun-buttplate stock was hollowed out to bring the weight down to the prescribed ten pounds. It had a vernier aperture rear sight, with screw adjustment and scale so it could be adjusted to hundredths of an inch, that could be mounted either on the tang or on the heel of the buttstock for shooting in the back position. The front sight was a hooded aperture, also similarly adjustable for windage. The groove diameter of the barrel was .451 inch.
While it would shoot the common lubricated lead bullet, the preferred target load was a 550-grain smooth, cast lead, round-nose bullet of bore diameter, patched with paper to groove diameter, seated in the case with considerable of the patched portion projecting. For the best accuracy this match cartridge had to be shot from a clean barrel. The peculiar match conditions of those days favored such clean barrel shooting. From five to ten competitors were assigned to each long-range target, each competitor firing one shot in turn. Thus, as much as ten minutes might intervene between shots, and a rifleman had to be a good wind-doper as conditions might change in that interval.
Each competitor had alongside him on the firing point a can of water and in it a Fisher brush, a bristle brush with three rubber washers back of it. After each shot he pushed this through the bore, thus loosening and washing out all the blackpowder fouling. This was followed by a flannel patch, and in this uniformly clean condition the rifle was fired again.
Two Conditions For Accuracy
I must now digress for a moment to mention two related conditions which must pertain if any good rifle is to be fired accurately. In 1891, when I was 13 years old, my father gave me my first rifle, a .22 caliber Remington rolling-block rifle. Shortly after I got it I saw an advertisement of Lyman sights, got one of their No. 1 aperture sights, and fitted it on the tang of my rifle. About this time I also found in my uncle's library a New York Tribune Book of Sports. It had a chapter on rifle shooting which included the caution to pull the trigger very carefully and gradually, not to jerk it, or the rifle would move off its aim before the bullet left the muzzle. Using the accurate aim permitted by an aperture sight, and being careful to squeeze the trigger, I soon became a much better shot than any of my companions, and on July 4, 1893, I won my first rifle match at Blue Mountain Lake in the Adirondacks, and that same September I shot my first deer with this rifle. Thus a rifleman was made at a very early age, and when I enlisted in the Pennsylvania National Guard in 1896 I had no trouble in winning a place on my company rifle team.
In those days the National Guard was armed with the old .45 caliber Springfield, a single-shot rifle firing the .45-70 blackpowder cartridge. The cartridge which was issued to us contained a round-nose 500-grain lubricated lead bullet, and 70 grains of Fg blackpowder, not 405 grains as I have seen often stated. The Cavalry had a .45-70 Springfield carbine, and it was always used with the 405-grain bullet, but not the rifle.
The trigger pull on these rifles had a long, smooth creep, and before one could do any good shooting with it he had to learn to pull the trigger back slowly and carefully almost a quarter inch before the rifle went off. All our rifles had the Buffington rear sight, not very different from the sight on our .30-'06 Springfield rifle. That is, it had a peep as well as open sight, and screw adjustment for windage. About the first things we were taught on our company rifle team were to use the peep sight exclusively, and to squeeze the trigger slowly, things I had already learned in my early boyhood. We were also taught how to use the gun sling as an aid to steady holding in the kneeling, sitting, and prone positions, practically as we use it today.
This old .45-70 'coal burner' was the most accurate and dependable big-bore rifle of its day, excepting only the Sharps and perhaps the Remington long-range match rifles. Like all other blackpowder rifles, the bore had to be kept fairly clean to shoot at its best. On all but very damp days the fouling would cake in the bore so much after five shots as to considerably increase the dispersion, and all matches required ten consecutive shots in those days. To avoid this accumulation of fouling, we drilled out the head of a cartridge case and fitted a foot-long rubber tube to it and, placing the case in the chamber between shots, breathed slowly through the bore to keep the fouling moist.
Shooting in this way a good marksman in the prone position was frequently able to score ten-shot possibles at 200 and 500 yards, but hardly at 600, where a score of 45 was excellent. The recoil of the rifle was heavy, of course, but more of a shove than the quick jab of the present-day .30-'06. I do not remember anyone having trouble for long with the recoil of the rifle, but the cavalry had a lot of such trouble, and flinching to combat, with their light carbine and no gun sling. Note that both rifle and carbine had the military buttplate, not that abominable crescent-shaped rifle buttplate seen on almost all sporting rifles of those days. For ordinary practice we were issued an old vintage of Frankford Arsenal ammunition with tinned cartridge cases. The lubricant in the bullets was very dry, and these cartridges did not give the best accuracy. Our rifle team bought freshly loaded Union Metallic Cartridge Company and Winchester cartridges for our matches.
Why The Springfield Was Good
I think the reason the Springfield was more accurate than other commensurate rifles of those days was first because of its one-piece stock, and because of the great pains that Freeman R. Bull, the Master Armorer at Springfield Armory, took to bed each rifle in its stock. The mysteries of this bedding I did not learn until long years afterwards, as I will relate. All we knew about bedding in those days was that the two guard screws must be kept screwed up very tight if the rifle was to shoot accurately. I used to spend every Saturday on the range, and I shot some with various commercial rifles, thus becoming aware of the superiority of the Springfield over most of them.
Then came the Spanish-American War, which put an end to my rifle shooting for the time being. Returning from that war as a lieutenant, I was made Range Officer in charge of the big National Guard range at Essington, just south of Philadelphia, and there I had unique opportunity to indulge in my hobby of shooting and rifle testing. I started out to test all available makes and calibers of rifles so far as my purse and the generosity of my friends would permit. This accuracy-testing I have continued right up to the present day, as many readers know.
At the start, testing methods were rather crude. I always fired ten consecutive shots, which alone in those days constituted a real accuracy test. The firing was all slow-fire, shooting prone, forearm resting on a box covered with a thick blanket, and elbows on the ground. I soon learned that I could get no results unless the rifle was fitted with an aperture rear sight, and I finally refused to test any rifle not so fitted.
The blackpowder fouling was a continual problem, particularly in the smaller bores. Most .25 caliber rifles would so cake up, despite breathing through the bore, that after five shots the bore looked like a black .22 caliber hole with no rifling visible, and the bullets scattering all over the target. The .40-70-330 and the .45-70 single-shot Winchesters, Sharps, and Remington-Hepburns shot much better with lubricated bullets and fresh ammunition, with the .32-40 and .38-55 rifles in between. The latter Schuetzen rifles would shoot very accurately indeed if the bullet was seated in the bore ahead of the case and the bore kept clean—that is, about five-inch groups at 200 yards. I am not including in this the Pope rifles with which many Schuetzen riflemen were equipping themselves, as they are really muzzle-loaders. Up to 200 yards these were decidedly the most accurate rifles of their day, and even when these Pope rifles were loaded from the breech they surpassed all other rifles of their clay, probably due to their system of rifling, which was ideal for lead bullets, and to the pains that Harry Pope took in making his barrels.
Bullet Dimensions And Lubrication
About 1900 I started in to handload my ammunition, and following particularly the experiments of Dr. Walter G. Hudson and my old coach Bill Foulke. I started to measure the groove diameters of my barrels and fit my bullets to those diameters, always freshly lubricating them. I did not have much success in this until the introduction of the Ideal lubricator-and-sizer, which very greatly helped getting near-perfect bullets of the exact diameter desired, and well lubricated. With this better prepared ammunition I was soon averaging around three-inch groups at 100 yards with good, heavy-barrel, single-shot rifles of .32 to .45 caliber. But it was not until the introduction of King's Semi-Smokeless powder that I was able to get similar accuracy from the .25-20 and .25-21 rifles. This powder gave very much less fouling than black, and better accuracy for the ten shots than did blackpowder.
I was never able to get what I would call decent accuracy from any of the tubular magazine rifles using blackpowder cartridges. Most of them, instead of shooting into the eight-inch bull at 200 yards, would group ten shots in about 15 inches! This I laid to the fouling of the blackpowder, the restriction on barrel expansion caused by the tubular magazine, and the variations in weight caused by the cartridges in the magazine-probably as good explanations as any. It was hard to understand the glowing terms in which some writers referred to these rifles. I was willing to concede that a hunter might be able quite well to hit large game with them up to 100 yards or so if his barrel was fairly clean and cold. The best I ever tried were a .38-56 Winchester Model 1886 that shot usually quite well, and my old .40-72 Winchester Model 1895 which had a heavy No. 3 barrel, and from which I once got a two-inch group at 100 yards with handloaded cartridges. Perhaps I had better get a little ahead of the game here and say that in later years. I did get very fine accuracy from a .25-20 Winchester Model 1892, and a .32-40 Winchester Model 1894 when fired with jacketed bullets and low-pressure smokeless powder.
Then one day, in the fall of 1900 I think it was, Bill Foulke brought out to the range one of the .30-40 Krag Jorgensen rifles, and he and I shot it. The impression we gained with it was that it would shoot as accurately as did our .45-70s under the best conditions, and we both remarked at the extraordinary noise that the bullet made on its way down to the target. Bill called the system of shooting a hard, nickel-jacketed, unlubricated bullet through a rifled bore a "mechanical cruelty," and wondered how long the barrel would remain accurate.
The Transition Begun
Right away both he and Dr. Hudson started on a study of the Krag rifle, and we are more indebted to their findings at that time than most shooters realize today. Briefly they found that the groove diameters of the Krag barrels of those days varied from .3075 inch to .311 inch, and that .30 caliber jacketed bullets varied from .305 inch to .309 inch in their base diameters. That always the best accuracy was obtained from barrels that measured close to .308 inch, and with bullets also close to .308-.3085 inch. Within these limitations, and selecting bullets that were well fabricated, excellent accuracy could be obtained even up to 1000 yards, and accuracy at 200 yards that was excelled only by the Pope muzzle-loading rifles. Thus the transition from black to smokeless had begun.
Shortly before this Winchester had adapted their Model 1894 rifle to a new high-power smokeless cartridge, the .30 WCF, commonly called the ".30- 30." It was not quite so powerful a cartridge as the .30-40 Krag, shooting a 160-grain copper-jacketed bullet at a muzzle velocity of 1,960 feet per second, the barrels being made of nickel steel instead of carbon steel. After the close of the Spanish-American War many of these rifles found their way into the hands of sportsmen, and particularly Western hunters. Gradually information about their performance began to filter through to us Eastern riflemen. Their owners almost invariably said that they were much more accurate than their old blackpowder rifles, had a much flatter trajectory, the rifle, cartridge, and recoil were much lighter, and they could hit game at much longer distances. Particularly most everyone said that these little .30-30s killed big game just as well as did the old .45s.
From the standpoint of the hunter the greatest drawback to the old blackpowder rifles was their short effective hitting range when one had to shoot at estimated distances, as in the hunting field. If, as was the usual practice, the blackpowder rifle was sighted to strike point of aim at 100 yards, it overshot about two to three inches at 50 yards, and the bullet dropped around six inches below aim at 150 yards, and over two feet at 200 yards. Even the higher velocity blackpowder cartridges like the .40-82-260 and the .45-90-300 did not alter these figures by more than an inconsequential inch or so. No one could reliably estimate range in the field and allow for the drop of the bullet beyond about 150 yards, and hits beyond about that range were all a matter of luck. In fact, if you examine the writings of all the more prominent British sportsmen of the period 1870 to 1900, you will find them invariably stating that no shot at big game should be taken at a longer distance than 150 yards. Despite modern flat trajectory most of them still put 150 yards as the maximum sporting range. Probably the reason they still do so is that with British conservatism they still adhere to that blankety-blank open rear sight.
Increased Effective Range
The new .30-30 cartridge, on the other hand, had a trajectory such that if you sighted it in at 150 yards the bullet struck only about two to three inches above aim at 80 yards, and dropped only about four inches at 200 yards. making it quite a sure-hitter to 200 yards at least on the shoulders of game the size of deer. In fact, by aiming at the top of an animal's back you would probably stand a fair chance of a good center body hit up to about 300 yards out. This was never a surety, for the accuracy of the tubular magazine rifle was never sufficient for sure hits at 300 yards. The old .30-30 was, and still is, a fine short-range deer rifle, but it never has been a nail-driver.
In the spring of 1901 I was trying to get a commission in the Regular Army, but was informed that the veteran volunteer officers of the Philippines Insurrection would have to be taken care of first, and that it would probably be a year before I, a veteran of the Spanish-American War, could obtain a designation to take the examination. Therefore I determined that before I settled down to a military career I would have one real good hunt, so I threw up everything and went out to British Columbia, the best happy hunting ground I could learn of, and there I remained for nine memorable months.
I took with me my old .40-72 Winchester Model 95 rifle, which up to that time was the best repeating big-game rifle I knew of. But just before I jumped off, reading all that was being written about the .30-30 Winchester, I got one and took it along also. It had a 26-inch octagonal barrel and a pistol-grip stock, and weighed about eight pounds. Of course I had it sighted with a Lyman No. 1 rear sight on the tang, and an ivory bead front sight. Before I left I had only time to sight it in, and fire several groups at 50 yards, where it grouped in about three inches. I finally sighted it in to average striking point of aim at 100 yards, and so left it during all my hunting in British Columbia.
Getting out there, I soon found that due to the steepness and open character of the country my .30-30 at eight pounds and with its flat trajectory was a much more practical weapon than my long 11-pound .40-72, and I used the .30-30 almost exclusively, shooting a lot of mule deer, sheep, and goats with it. It killed almost everything with a single shot, and the only game that I missed with at least my first or second shot was one running deer, and three or four shots that were well over 200 yards. I am not one of those who declare the .30-30 to be obsolete and not powerful enough for deer. On the contrary, I think it a damn good deer rifle up to a range of about 150 yards when it is fitted with decent sights. The popular .30-30 carbine with open sights is good—well, for about as far as one can pitch a rock.
So somewhere around 1901 the .30- 40 Krag and the .30-30 Winchester sounded the death knell of the old blackpowder rifles.
The only limitation to skill in marksmanship is that imposed by the rifle and its ammunition. If a rifle and its cartridge are highly accurate, the shooter will take greater pride in the arm, he will shoot it more, his marksmanship will improve, he will get more game, he will win more matches. On the other hand, if the rifle is not accurate, the shooter gets nowhere with it, he does not develop into a good shot, he loses interest, and he soon disposes of it. Only accurate rifles are interesting.
Training Pays Off
My first real experience with the high-velocity smokeless powder rifle was at Monterey, California, where I joined my regiment, the 15th U.S. Infantry, in the fall of 1902. We were armed with the .30-40 Krag rifle. I proceeded to train my company in accordance with the principles of marksmanship I had learned in the National Guard, as related in Part I. I found that very few officers and men of the regiment knew much about rifle shooting. The regiment had just returned from three years in the Philippines and China, where they had been fighting, not target shooting. Particularly I stressed the use of the peep sight, a careful trigger squeeze, taught them how to use the gun sling, and had the men spend many hours in dry shooting. It all paid in the target practice season when my company easily led the regiment.
I sent to Springfield Armory and bought a standard Krag rifle for my own use, specifying that the groove diameter of the barrel should be .308 inch. Since then I have always owned my own military rifles, excepting only those that were used for rapid-fire, for which I used the regular issue or National Match rifles. When my rifle came, according to what I had learned from Bill Foulke and Dr. Hudson, I eased up the wood under the upper band so it did not bind the barrel, thus allowing the barrel to expand from heat and to vibrate unrestrained. Thereafter I did this with all my full-stocked military rifles, and most well-informed shooters did it also. Thus the barrel was practically 'free floating.' I am a firm believer in a free-floating barrel for all rifles.
The 1903 outdoor target practice season was the first regular target practice season the Army had had since the start of the Spanish-American War, and really you might say the first with a smokeless, high power rifle fitted with an efficient rear sight permitting the use of an aperture as well as an open rear sight. It was also the first under the new Small Arms Firing Regulations which prescribed rapid-fire at 200 and 300 yards, and two skirmish runs, as well as slow-fire at 200, 300, 500, and 600 yards. The first ammunition issued to us for our Krags was loaded with a 220-grain "three-groove lubricated" bullet, and Peyton powder, and was not particularly accurate. But shortly afterwards a new issue with a smooth cupronickel, round-nose bullet and DuPont powder was issued, and this ammunition shot splendidly. For the first time the better shots began to get ten-shot possibles at 300 yards on the eight-inch bullseye, a thing I had never seen done before.
I also obtained a Pope micrometer adjuster for my rear sight, which permitted adjusting and reading it in terms of minutes of angle. This was a very great advantage, and I thoroughly believe that such minute adjustment, and preferably quarter-minutes, is essential on any rifle for good shooting and learning how to hit with the first shot.
Army Competitions
After our first target season the two best shots in each company, and the two best shots among the officers of the regiment, were sent to the competitions of the Department of California, and the 12 high men in that competition were sent to the Army Rifle Competitions at Fort Sheridan, Illinois. It was gratifying to have the two representatives from my company accompany me to the Army Competitions, which I had the good luck to win. Afterwards the 12 high men in the Army Competitions constituted the Army Infantry Rifle Team, and we were sent to the National Matches at Sea Girt, New Jersey, where I renewed acquaintance with all my old shooting friends in the National Guards of the Eastern states. After this very successful 1903 shooting season I wrote an article entitled "The Scientific Coaching of the Rifleman" giving my experiences. It was published in the Journal of the Military Service Institute, and afterwards reprinted in Arms and the Man (predecessor to THE AMERICAN RIFLEMAN), and I think it did a lot at that time to increase skill in rifle marksmanship in the Army. At any rate it taught how to aim with the aperture sight, adjust sights, squeeze the trigger, use the gun sling, operate the bolt in rapid-fire, and assume the steadiest firing positions. This was my first serious writing on the rifle and marksmanship, although previously I had contributed a number of short articles to various sporting magazines on hunting rifles and their accuracy.
We continued to use the Krag in the Service for the next three years, during which time in the summer and fall I was a shooting member of the Army Infantry Rifle Team. I have a great admiration for the old Krag rifle. It was a very accurate and dependable arm; I think the best rifle for rapid-fire I have ever used because of the ease with which the bolt could be operated, and its long 30-inch barrel which was so easily aligned. It was, I think, just as accurate basically as the .30-'06 Springfield which replaced it in the Army and National Guard in 1907, but practically the Springfield was more accurate chiefly because this latter rifle was made to closer manufacturing tolerances, and with its 700 feet per second greater muzzle velocity and its sharp-pointed bullet, it bucked the wind better. But for the record let me state what kind of shooting we were able to do regularly on the Infantry Team with the Krag.
Courses And Scores
In slow-fire possibles were common at 500 yards, but not so common at 600 because that required very careful wind doping. (In 1909 my 600-yard average with the Springfield, counting practice, record, and competitions, was 48.7 out of a possible 50, an average I do not think anyone could equal with the Krag.) Rapid-fire was at 200 yards standing and 300 yards kneeling or sitting on the silhouette of a kneeling man. The members of the Infantry team almost always made possibles at both ranges. I remember Lieutenant Neel Green (now Colonel, retired) was our best rapid-fire shot, and he made a pile of money betting a dollar he would make a possible at 200 yards standing. In the skirmish runs we were required to fire ten shots at 300 and 200 yards. the target being the figures of a prone and a kneeling man. Hits on the prone "papoose" figure counted five points, and on the "squaw" four points. The time limit was 30 seconds at 300, and 20 seconds at 200 yards. All of us used to fire only four shots at 300, and arrive at 200 yards with one shot in the chamber and five in the magazine, firing these six shots at 200 yards in 20 seconds. Most of us required only about 12 seconds for them, and it was very seldom that a team member did not hit that prone figure with all his ten shots. The prone figure about equaled in size the vital area of a deer's chest. The fact is that successful shooting on a big-game animal by a good shot with a modern rifle and suitable sights is like taking candy from a baby—he should never miss. All except shots at game running fast through timber. That, my boy, takes a lot of practice and skill, and a cool head.
Record Of Springfield
Everyone these days knows the record that the Springfield rifle has made in target practice and at the National Matches, a really wonderful record of high scoring. For example, literally hundreds of possible scores have been made with it at 1000 yards. But for the record let me set down some shooting that I do not believe is on record. Along about 1930 a bench-rest match at 500 yards was held almost weekly on the Walnut Hill, Massachusetts, range. It was most regularly won by a Phillip Nutting. He used a .30-'06 Springfield rifle with a heavy barrel. He handloaded his cartridges with the 173-grain Frankford Arsenal sharp-pointed boattail bullet and 36.5 grains of HiVel No. 2 powder, the International load. His groups ran regularly in about four to seven inches—that is, practically a minute of angle. After firing about 9,000 rounds he noted a little opening of the groups, so he began seating his bullets a little further out of the case, and fine accuracy was restored up to about 14,000 rounds when unfortunately Mr. Nutting died. That is pretty fine accuracy, as well as long barrel life.
The undiminished accuracy life of the Krag rifle confined to slow fire was about 5,000 rounds; much less if much rapid-firing was done. With the service Springfield, despite the larger powder charge and the higher muzzle velocity, it was about the same because the .30-'06 cartridge used a much cooler burning powder.
At the start we had considerable trouble in cleaning and maintaining the bores of smokeless high power rifles. The bore would rust and pit despite all ordinary cleaning. Finally about 1904 we almost licked it by cleaning with a brass bristle brush and Hoppe's Powder Solvent No. 9, and repeating this cleaning daily for several clays afterwards. It was not until about 1920 that we finally understood the chemistry of the fouling, and licked the problem completely by simply using water for cleaning. Today, of course, the modern noncorrosive primer makes water cleaning unnecessary.
When we first began to use the Springfield rifle we had considerable trouble with lumpy metal fouling, which had a very detrimental effect on accuracy. Finally we came to using the ammonia metal-fouling solution after every match, which completely removed the metal fouling, and incidentally proved a most ideal way of cleaning our barrels, because after its use there was no after-corrosion. Finally, this lumpy metal fouling was completely prevented by using gilding metal for our bullet jackets instead of the cupronickel formerly employed.
From about 1905 until the present day our American riflemen have continued to make an exhaustive study of the manufacture and design of rifles and ammunition, and all pertaining equipment, with a view to increasing accuracy and reliability, and perfecting marksmanship. The details of this experimental work and development have been quite fully recorded in the pages of THE AMERICAN RIFLEMAN the last 30-odd years, but I think that for the benefit of the newer NRA members it is well to record some of them here as indicating how far we have progressed in our efforts to obtain accurate, interesting rifles and perfect marksmanship.
The Only Limitation
At the start of this article I made the statement that "the only limitation to skill in marksmanship is that imposed by the rifle and its ammunition". That is to say, if we have a rifle and ammunition accurate enough, the marksman can learn to fire it with practically no human error, and indeed, subject only to wind and weather conditions, bullets should strike almost in one hole.
To substantiate this, let us examine the kind of shooting our best marksmen are doing at the present day with rifles and ammunition fabricated with the skill and knowledge that we have now learned to apply.
In smallbore shooting at the present day, 20-shot possibles are common, with at least 70 percent of the shots in the X-ring, practically an accuracy figure, of rifle, ammunition, and man combined, of a minute of angle.
In 1,000-yard shooting, possibles on the 36-inch 5-ring are common, with 75 percent of the hits in the V-ring 20 inches in diameter. Considering the atmospheric conditions occurring over the 1,000-yard range, this again is practically a minute of angle.
In bench-rest shooting we have done better still. The present world's record for ten consecutive shots at 200 yards measures .4016 inch, practically two-tenths of a minute, practically all bullets in one hole, made by H. L. Culver of Silver Spring, Maryland, who incidentally is my own gunsmith.
What kinds of rifles and cartridges are required for such shooting? What is their design, and how are they made, and where can they be had? In other words, what constitutes an almost perfect rifle and cartridge?
Here are the things painstaking American riflemen have found out.
Advantages Of Bolt Actions
Accurate and dependable rifles are almost always bolt-action rifles, with the bolt locked close to its head by two equally bearing lugs, and with a one-piece stock. The breech action must be perfectly bedded in its stock. The lug on the bottom of the receiver must be evenly and strongly backed up by the recoil shoulder of the stock, and the receiver ring and the tang at the rear of the receiver must bed accurately and firmly in the stock. There must be no unequal pressure of the stock against the receiver at any point. The two guard screws must be kept very tight and must pull the receiver down to complete, even, and tight pressure at receiver ring and tang. Lacking such skill, such perfect bedding can best be secured by glass bedding methods.
Some difference of opinion has existed among riflemen in the past few years as to whether the barrel should be free-floating, that is, not touching the forearm at any point, or whether the tip of the forearm press upward against the bottom of the barrel with a uniform pressure of about five to ten pounds. The preponderance of opinion is now in favor of the free-floating barrel. From my own experience, and from experiments I have conducted to find out, I am firmly of the opinion that the free-floating barrel is best. To be accurate and dependable a rifle should hold its zero from month to month, and should shoot to the same point of impact no matter in what position it is held—bench rest, prone with or without sling, sitting, kneeling, or offhand. Only if it holds its zero can one be sure of hitting a small object with the first shot, the acme of reliable accuracy. If the forearm touches the barrel, different ways of resting, tension of holding, sling tension, will alter its contact with the barrel, and the result will be a different location of impact for that shot. Also, the portion of the stock most liable to warp is the forearm, and I know of no way to prevent its warping and causing uneven pressure on the barrel.
The bore should be of even diameter, lands and grooves, throughout its length, and as smooth as possible. In the past several years considerable success in attaining such a perfect bore has attended the use of the broach instead of the rifling cutters formerly employed. Stainless steel seems now to be preferred instead of chrome-molybdenum steel, particularly for rifles using cartridges of very high velocity, for it seems to resist erosion much better, leading to much longer accuracy life. But there are only one or two makers at present able to successfully blue or black the exterior of a stainless steel barrel. The turning of a fine stainless steel barrel over to a firm specializing in bluing stainless steel seems to be taking many chances. Bench-rest shooters do not blue their stainless steel barrels. The practical field rifleman would hardly stand for such a bright, glistening barrel.
The minimum chamber tolerances established many years ago do not seem to have been bettered. The neck diameter of the fired case when extracted is apparently about .003 inch larger than the neck diameter of the loaded cartridge.
Coming back to the stock, it should be heavy, particularly around the receiver—at least a little heavier than seen in modern bolt-action sporting rifles. For a practical field rifle the Winchester "Marksman" type stock is apparently of about the right weight, but the dimensions of that stock are intended for prone shooting only.
Barrel Weights
I have stated many times in print that "other things being equal, the heavier the barrel of a rifle the more accurate and reliable will it be." It vibrates more evenly. Its vibrations are not altered so much by slight unavoidable changes in velocity, pressure, and bullet fit. It heats up slowly and maintains a more even temperature. Its alignment and vibration are much less affected by tensions of holding and manners of resting. A light barrel may shoot two or three shots at the start into as small a group, but as it heats up the shots will start to walk away from center, and if the tension of holding is not very uniform the accuracy will suffer. Barrel weight should be adjusted to caliber and breech pressure. A fine heavy barrel for the .222 Remington cartridge might be excessively light for the .30-'06 cartridge.
Now we will turn to the cartridge. Despite all the experiment with wildcat cartridges, and all the discussion about shoulder angle, it is doubtful if, within reason, the design of the case has much influence on ultimate accuracy, provided it is such that the powder charge used burns with even velocity and pressure. Rimmed cases do give more uniform headspacing and positioning of the bullet in the bullet seat of the barrel than do rimless cases. But with care the finest kind of gilt-edge accuracy can be obtained from rimless cases. Maintenance of a uniform case length, by trimming when necessary, is quite important, also uniform seating of the primer in its pocket, but continual cleaning of the primer pocket after each and every firing seems entirely unnecessary. The uniform anneal of the case neck assuring uniform tension on the bullet (bullet pull) is very desirable. Cases which have been fireformed to the individual chamber by prior firing give best results because they fit that individual chamber perfectly.
It is doubtful if the particular kind and granulation of the powder charge used has much effect on the ultimate accuracy, provided it burns with a uniform velocity and pressure, and gives approximately the velocity necessary for the bullet used and the pitch of rifling. An accurate barrel and a good bullet seem to shoot well with any sensible charge of several different kinds of powder. Quick burning powders seem desirable for light bullets, slow burning for heavy bullets.
Now we come to the bullet. Where all the above conditions pertain, the bullet is by far the most important single item in securing fine accuracy. Many details are important. Plain lead bullets, like the .22 long rifle, seem to shoot best if they are slightly larger than groove diameter, and if they are seated fairly well up into the lands, so that the lands slightly engrave them before firing. Flat-base jacketed bullets seem to shoot best if their diameter exactly equals the groove diameter of the barrel, or is not more than .0005 inch smaller than groove diameter. Boattailed bullets can often, with advantage, be as much as .0005 inch larger than groove diameter, and should be swaged very hard. All jacketed bullets should be seated in the case so that their ogives just do not touch, are not marked, by the lands. If they are seated shorter than this, accuracy usually suffers. If longer, forcing them up into the rifling, breech pressure is increased, and is not so uniform.
Despite everything, all bullets made in quantity production seem to regularly give two off-shots in every ten. The history of all rifle shooting is full of this. The off-shots may not be off very much—they may only enlarge the group diameter by a quarter minute—but you can almost always identify these two off-shots in every group fired with bullets produced by quantity-production methods. The bullet is a little gyroscope. If it is perfect, and if it be perfectly delivered from the muzzle of the rifle without any deformity, it will fly in a straight line to the target, and will resist all tendency to force it out of that straight course. Bullets cannot be made into perfect enough gyroscopes by quantity-production methods.
Bench-rest experience over the past four years has shown quite conclusively that the most accurate of all rifle bullets are those made by individual riflemen in accurate dies and swages. All present accuracy records at 100 and 200 yards and 300 meters have been made with such bullets. When using them in good rifles there is almost a total absence of any wild shots, not due to wind or the shooter, that have so troubled users of quantity-produced bullets. The making of such bullets involves several careful and meticulous operations, and the dies are rather expensive. The process is described in precise detail elsewhere.
However, there has so far been little experience in the killing power of these hand-made bullets on large game. At the present time, hunters would be wise to adopt one of the bullets furnished by the large factories, or the large special bulletmakers, which have already established a reputation for killing well.
Where can the target or hunter rifleman obtain such rifles of proved precision? There are in the United States a large number of custom riflemakers. Also, there are a number of standard rifles that are capable of being adjusted and tuned up to superior accuracy, such as the Winchester Model 70 the Remington Models 721 and 722, the FN Mauser and Sako rifles, and the Weatherby rifles. Many of our most skilled riflemen prefer to select and tune up their rifles themselves rather than trust anyone else to do so. At the National Matches at Camp Perry last year, one of our most prominent riflemen was heard to remark, "The Winchester Model 70 is the best 'do-it-yourself' rifle on the market."
In the above I have given my own experience and my own thoughts. I do not consider that I deserve any particular credit for the development of fine rifles and marksmanship in America. I have originated practically nothing myself. I have merely been the scribe who reported development and progress, who has encouraged others to proceed on the right lines, and who has from time to time made informal tests of various developments to properly evaluate them. I have had my rewards—lifetime of intense interest, in which I have found that only accurate rifles are interesting.
