If A Person Wishes To Harden A Bill For Any Purpose, It Should Be
Done By An Admixture Of Quicksilver To The Lead While The Latter
Is In A State Of Fusion, A Few Seconds Before The Ball Is Cast.
The mixture must be then quickly stirred with an iron rod, and
formed into the moulds without loss of time, as at this high
temperature the quicksilver will evaporate.
Quicksilver is
heavier than lead, and makes a ball excessively hard; so much so
that it would very soon spoil a rifle. Altogether, the hardening
of a ball has been shown to be perfectly unnecessary, and the
latter receipt would be found very expensive.
If a wonderful effect is required, the steel-tipped conical ball
should be used. I once shot through fourteen elm planks, each
one inch thick, with a four-ounce steel-tipped cone, with the
small charge (for that rifle) of four drachms of powder. The
proper charge for that gun is one-fourth the weight of the ball,
or one ounce of powder, with which it carries with great nicety
and terrific effect, owing to its great weight of metal
(twenty-one pounds); but it is a small piece of artillery which
tries the shoulder very severely in the recoil.
I have frequently watched a party of soldiers winding along a
pass, with their white trousers, red coats, white cross-belts and
brass plates, at about four hundred yards, and thought what a
raking that rifle would give a body, of troops in such colors for
a mark.
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