The best of the smooth-bore rifles showed the same accuracy at a distance of 50-60 m, and the privates did about 30. Nevertheless, for about three centuries from the moment of their appearance, rifled rifles were practically not used. The reason for such a historical incident today is considered to be the low rate of fire of rifled weapons of the wick-flint era - no more than one round per minute versus four or six for smooth-bore rifles.
The first screw threads
In fact, there was no noticeable difference in rate of fire. The root of the error lies in the wrong comparison. As the results for smooth-bore weapons, the normal rate of fire of a rifle with record rates for smooth-bore guns is usually taken, and also obtained under ideal conditions (cartridges and a seed horn lie on the table, the ramrod between shots does not retrace in the stock, you do not need to aim). In the field, an ordinary gun did not fire five or six, but only one and a half shots per minute. The statistics of the era of the Napoleonic wars showed that soldiers with ordinary guns fire only 15–20% more frequent than rifle shooters.
Loading a rifled rifle from the barrel was not easy. To do this, a plaster (oiled rag) was placed on the muzzle, and a bullet was placed on the plaster, which was then driven into the barrel by blows of a wooden hammer on the ramrod. It took a lot of effort to imprint the edges of the projectile into the grooves. The plaster made it easier to slide, wiped the barrel and prevented lead from clogging the rifling. It was impossible to overdo it. Entering too deep, the bullet crushed the powder grains, which reduced the power of the shot. To prevent such cases, the choke ramrod was often equipped with a limiter cross member.
The service life of the fitting was also short. Usually it withstood only 100-200 shots. The rifling was damaged by a ramrod. In addition, despite the use of the plaster, they quickly became lead and filled with scale, and then rubbed off when cleaning the barrel. To preserve the most valuable samples, the ramrod was made of brass, and a tube protecting the rifling was inserted into the barrel during cleaning.
But the main defect of such guns was the imperfection of the rifling themselves. The bullet was held in them too tightly and the powder gases did not immediately manage to touch it, since the charge was burning in a minimum volume. At the same time, the temperature and pressure in the breech of the rifle were noticeably higher than that of smooth-bore guns. This means that the barrel itself had to be made more massive in order to avoid rupture. The ratio of muzzle energy to the mass of a rifled weapon was two to three times worse.
Sometimes the opposite situation arose: the bullet held too weakly in the rifling and, gaining speed, often fell off them. An oblong cylindrical-conical bullet (experiments with a stacked type of ammunition have been carried out since 1720), contacting with snares with the entire lateral surface, was too difficult to hammer into the barrel from the muzzle side.
Another reason why rifled rifles have not spread in Europe for such a long time is their relatively low power. The "tight" course of the bullet at the first moment of movement in the barrel and the danger of falling off the rifling closer to the muzzle did not allow the use of a large charge of gunpowder, which negatively affected the flatness of the trajectory and the destructive power of the projectile. As a result, the effective range of a smoothbore gun was higher (200–240 versus 80–150 m).
The advantages of a smooth barrel were manifested only in the case of volley fire against group targets - a close formation of infantry or an avalanche of attacking cavalry. But this is exactly how they fought in Europe.
Acute angled slicing
The first attempts to radically improve rifling were made in the 16th century. In order to improve the "grip", the inner surface of the barrels of the first fittings was completely covered with grooves. The number of grooves reached 32, and the cutting course was very gentle - only a third or half of a turn from the treasury to the muzzle.
In 1604, the gunsmith Baltazar Drechsler ventured to replace the already traditional rounded, wavy cutting with a new, acute-angled one. It was assumed that the small triangular teeth piercing the lead would hold the bullet stronger and it would not be able to break off from them. This was partly true, but the sharp ribs cut through the plaster, which protects the cuts from the lead, and wore off faster.
Nevertheless, in 1666 the idea was developed. In Germany, and a little later in Courland, rifles with a very deep and sharp cut in the shape of a six-, eight- or twelve-pointed star became widespread. Sliding along the sharp edges, the bullet easily entered the barrel and held firmly in the grooves at their greatest steepness. But the deep "rays" were difficult to clean and sometimes cut through the lead shell in the barrel. It was still impossible to put a powerful charge of gunpowder under a bullet. Most often, "chinks" - small-bore rifles known since the 16th century for hunting birds, received "star" cutting. They were distinguished from other long-barreled weapons by the butt, designed to rest not on the shoulder, but on the cheek.
Bullet groove with belt
In 1832, the general of the Brunswick army, Berner, designed a rifle that had a barrel of the usual 17.7 mm caliber for that time with only two grooves 7.6 mm wide and 0.6 mm deep each. The fitting was recognized as a masterpiece, was mass-produced in the Belgian city of Luttih and was in service with many armies, including the Russian one.
Cutting similar to Berner's has been known since 1725. The secret of the success of the fitting was in the bullet, cast with a ready-made belt. It did not need to be hammered into the grooves. The ball, thickly smeared with fat, was simply put into the grooves and, under its own weight, slid to the treasury. The rifle was loaded almost as easily as the smooth-bore. The difference was the need to hammer two wads instead of a plaster or a crumpled paper cartridge. The first is to prevent the oil from wetting the charge, the second is to prevent the bullet from falling out.
The only complaint was the accuracy of the shooting. As a rule, "luttikhs" beat on a par with the best regular rifles. But there were frequent "wild" deviations: the bullet acquired a too complex rotation, at the same time twisting the rifling along the axis of the barrel and rolling along them, as if along the grooves. Later, this flaw was eliminated by introducing two more rifling (and bullets with two crossing belts) and replacing the round bullet with a cylindrical conical one.
Polygonal rifling
The bore, the cross-section of which is a circle with projections corresponding to the grooves, seems not only familiar, but also the most practical: it is easiest to make a round hole with a drill. All the more strange seems to be the Cossack trotz rifle of the Tula master Tsygley (1788), the bore of which had a triangular cross-section. However, experiments with triangular bullets were carried out earlier, from the 1760s. It is also known that in 1791 a gun was tested in Berlin, the bullet for which was supposed to be in the shape of a cube.
Despite the boldness and extravagance of the plan, it was not devoid of logic. Polygonal rifling radically eliminated all the disadvantages inherent in rifles. A triangular or square bullet did not need to be flattened with a ramrod. The specific power of the weapon also turned out to be higher than that of a conventional choke, since the bullet went from the treasury to the muzzle just as easily. She could not break off the rifling. In addition, the barrel was practically not leaded, it was easy to clean and served for a long time.
Mainly economic considerations hindered the proliferation of polygonal rifled weapons. Forging a barrel with a faceted channel was too expensive. In addition, the cube-shaped projectile, in comparison with the spherical one, had worse ballistic performance and more complex aerodynamics. In flight, the bullet quickly lost speed and deviated greatly from the trajectory. Despite the obvious advantages of polygonal cutting, it was not possible to achieve better accuracy than when shooting with a round bullet.
The problem was solved in 1857 by the English gunsmith Whitworth, and in a very original way: he increased the number of faces to six. A bullet with "ready-made grooves" (that is, a hexagonal section) received a sharp tip. Whitworth's rifles remained too expensive for mass production, but were widely used by snipers during the war between the northern and southern states, becoming one of the first rifles to be equipped with a telescopic sight.
Polygonal rifling has proven itself in the best way, and already in the 19th century, ordinary round-section bullets began to be used for firing from them. Overloads forced lead to fill the bore.
The spread of the innovation was prevented by the high cost of producing rifles with polygonal grooves, as well as the rapid progress of the arms business at the end of the nineteenth century. During this period, breech loading became widespread, smokeless gunpowder appeared, and the quality of the barrel steel radically improved. These measures allowed rifles with traditional rifling to completely supplant smoothbore guns from the army.
Nevertheless, the idea of polygonal rifling is still being returned to this day. The American Desert Eagle pistol and promising automatic rifles have a bore in the form of a twisted hexagonal prism, that is, a classic polygonal rifling.
Cossack rifle-triplet of the Tula master Tsygley (1788) with a triangular bore
Barrel of a shotgun with a square bullet (Germany, 1791)
Traditional screw threads
Traditional screw rifling dominates rifled weapons today. Polygonal slicing is much less common, not to mention the various exotic varieties.
Cutting the Nuthall system, patent 1859
It was available with five and four grooves. Used primarily by Thomas Turner (Birmingham) and Reilly & Co for short-barreled shotguns.
Straight cuts
Beginning in 1498, the master Gaspar Zollner made barrels with grooves that did not impart a rotational movement to the bullet. The purpose of their introduction was to increase the accuracy of shooting by eliminating the "wobble" of the bullet, the diameter of which was usually much less than the caliber of the weapon. Soot, a real scourge of old rifles, was tightly hampered to hammer in the bullet. If the carbon was forced out into the grooves, it was easier to load the gun with a bullet of exactly the same caliber.
Polygonal rifling
Polygonal slicing is the main alternative to traditional slicing. At different times, the number of polygon faces varied from three to several dozen, but a hexagon is still considered the optimal pattern. Today, polygonal cutting is used in the design of the US-Israeli Desert Eagle pistol.
Butcher hexagonal cut with rounded corners
