§ EARL STANHOPEasked the Under Secretary for War whether the War Office would undertake to have the new pattern service rifle ready for trial at the Bisley Rifle Meeting in July, and also whether the present rifle could be altered without great expense. He understood that the Government had appointed a Departmental Committee to suggest certain alterations in the service rifle, and he had seen it stated in the press that the rifle was to be shortened. He had seen several of the German rifles—the Mannlicher, the Mauser, and the new German rifle. He thought the latter was a decided improvement on those we had been using. In the first place, it was loaded by a clip system and not by individual cartridges. There was a great improvement in the back-sight, and also in the fore-sight, and altogether it was a handier and lighter arm. He understood that a full trial would be given to these rifles by experts at the school of musketry. It was most important that they should have a full trial, but if they put them in the hands of the Volunteers they would have them tested by their best shots at the meeting of the National Rifle Association at Bisley next July. From what he had seen of the German rifle, as compared with the Lee 567 Metford, he thought the service arm could be altered and the present clumsy magazine removed.
LORD RAGLANNo new pattern rifle has been approved, and it is by no means certain to what extent, beyond minor alterations and the possible shortening of the rifle, especially for mounted troops, any new departure will be necessary. Experiments are being made, but I am afraid they will not come to a conclusion in time for the new rifle to be issued for Bisley. It is not desirable in the public interest to state at present the direction which the experiments are taking, and, pending their conclusion it is obviously not possible for the Department to estimate the probable cost of any alterations in the rifle which it may be desirable to make.
§ *LORD TWEEDMOUTH said he was most anxious, not only that the troops should have the best rifle which it was possible to put in their hands, but also that they should, by the appliances attached to the rifle, and by training, be placed in the best possible position to use it. He hoped the proposal to shorten the rifle would not be adopted without the most careful consideration. It was extremely likely that by such an experiment more would be lost in the efficiency of the rifle than would be gained in easing the inconvenience of carrying it. It was probable that the new explosive for rifles, as for big guns, would be a nitrocellulose powder, and slower than the nitro-glycerine one now in use, and for a slower explosive a barrel as long as possible would be required. Another objection was the difficulty of obtaining good sighting arrangements for a rifle with a short barrel, on account of the consequent short radius between back and fore-sight. Those who had been accustomed to the successive rifles that had been in use among our troops would remember that the old Snider rifle was an exceedingly easy one to shoot with, not on account of its special accuracy, but because of the long barrel, which was about 36 inches, the radius between the sights being 33½ inches. In the Martini the barrel was 33½ inches, and the radius between the sights 24 inches; in the Lee-Metford the length was 30¼ inches, 568 and the radius 23¼ inches; while in the Martini-Enfield cavalry carbine the length was 21 inches, and the radius only 15½ inches. There were several ways of getting over the inconvenience to mounted men of carrying a long rifle. He had seen an ingenious jointed stock invented by Colonel Remington Wilson, which, though it might be supposed to be weak, showed, so far as he could judge, great elements of strength. Now that recoil had been done away with a skeleton stock might perhaps be used for cavalry, and carried detached from the rest of the weapon. The noble Earl had praised both sights of the new German rifle. He admitted the excellence of the fore-sight, but was doubtful about the back-sight. When aiming at a stationary object without wind the German back-sight was a very good one, but there was no possibility of getting any wind allowance on it. To get full value out of our rifle some system of sighting would have to be adopted so as to enable allowance to be made for wind.
§ *EARL STANHOPE said the German fore-sight did allow for wind variation.
§ LORD TWEEDMOUTHwas afraid he could not agree, though the fore-sight was so fitted as to admit of a little lateral shifting, by which defects in the zero of a rifle could easily be corrected. Continuing, the noble Lord said that not only could the magazine be improved, but also the breach action, by adopting something similar to that in the Mauser and the new German rifle. He thought the Mauser magazine and breech action had great advantages over ours. In the first place, it was a clip loader which enabled five cartridges to be loaded at one motion. It had the further advantage over other clip-loading magazine rifles that, being loaded with five cartridges from a clip and one or more having been fired, they could be replaced singly, without, as in the Mannlicher, waiting till the whole five had been fired and the clip ejected from the magazine. The Mauser breech action and magazine were also simpler, stronger, and easier to clean than the Lee-Enfield, and, an important consideration, weighed ten ounces less. He was very much inclined to think that the question of some slight increase in 569 the bore was worth consideration, more particularly as by that means the accuracy of the rifle, by rendering the bullet less susceptible to wind, would be improved and its striking effect greatly increased. The new German rifle was enlarged to eight in lieu of seven millimetres. He asked that these points and others should be carefully considered by the Government, and that they should not simply be satisfied with having a good weapon, but try and get a very much better one. They should improve the sights; he believed some form of aperture sight must eventually be adopted, and, by increasing their training, enable the soldier to obtain the full benefit of the good weapon which had been placed in his hands.