ited by the action of a pin striking
against it. It is one of the worst of many methods of loading at the
breach; and the same principle was patented in England by A.A. Moser, a
German, more than ten years ago. {344}

It has already received the attention of our Ordnance department, and has
been tried at Woolwich. The letter to which JARTZBERG refers, dated Berlin,
Sept. 11., merely shows the extreme ignorance of the writer on such
subjects, as the range he mentions has nothing whatever to do with the
principle or mechanism of the gun in question. He ought also, before he
expressed himself so strongly, to have known, that the extreme range of an
English percussion musket is nearer _one mile_ than _150 yards_ (which
latter distance, he says, they do not exceed) and he would not have been so
astonished at the range of the Zuendnadel guns being 800 yards, if he had
seen, as I have, a plain English two-grooved rifle range 1200 yards, with a
proper elevation for the distance, and a conical projectile instead of a
ball.

The form and weight of the projectile fired from rifle, at a considerable
elevation, say 25