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By Root 2161 0

between Ordnance and private enterprise had allowed the United States to catch up to its European rivals, and the larger firms were even forging ahead with improved forms of powder. Even so, the actual output of powder lagged behind ideal requirements. In 1895 Frankford struggled to produce three million smokeless cartridges, barely sufficient for the army’s everyday needs for a year, and Ordnance warned that if war broke out in the near future, an adequate supply might not “be relied upon from American manufacturers.” Recalling the hard-won lessons of the Revolution and the War of 1812, when soldiers suffered from ammunition and powder shortages, Ordnance tried hard to ensure that production was divided up among several firms—itself quite an accomplishment, considering that six years previously, there had been none at all—each prepared to expand capacity to a limited degree upon the declaration of hostilities. A year after the department announced the shortage of smokeless cartridges, the staff could congratulate themselves on a job well done: there was now sufficient powder for all the army’s service rifles and even enough to replace black powder for target practice and ceremonial shooting using blanks.24

The most immediate effect of the smokeless revolution was felt on bullet design. The deleterious impact of air resistance on a bullet’s flight path and range heavily depends on its velocity; the projectile’s size and shape also play a role. A bullet propelled by guncotton is so much faster than one propelled by regular powder that greater air resistance threatened to offset any gains in accuracy caused by the flatter trajectories of the speeding projectiles. In order to lower air resistance, ballisticians began reducing caliber and lengthening and narrowing ammunition to create a more aerodynamic bullet. A consequence of this change was that the spiral grooves inside a rifle’s barrel had to be “twisted” more tightly than ever before, to impart increased spin, so that these light, elongated projectiles did not tumble end over end in midflight as air resistance pushed against them.

A by-product of the tighter twists was that normal bullets—from time immemorial fashioned from soft, malleable lead—were being torqued literally to pieces as they hurtled up the barrel. To prevent the immense centrifugal forces from ripping the bullets apart, arms-makers began jacketing them in either copper or cupronickel.25

The infuriating problem, then, was that these small-caliber bullets—even with their jacketing—could not match the killing ability of the good old one-shot, one-kill .45-70. The solution was inescapable: guns would have to fire more bullets, more quickly, to compensate for the loss in hitting power. No matter what advocates of the Springfield might say, the day was coming when the exclusively single-shot military rifle must pass into history.

The New York Times summarized the problem: “As a serviceable weapon there is, perhaps, none better than the Springfield,” but compared to the products issuing from European arms-makers, it was distressingly antiquated. The average caliber of the British, Austrian, German, Belgian, Swiss, Portuguese, French, and Danish service rifles had fallen to .31 (roughly two-thirds of the Springfield’s weighty .45), while their average muzzle velocity was 2,008 feet per second (about a third more than the Springfield’s 1,300).26

Ordnance had, in fact, been looking into the issue of smaller-caliber rifles for some time. In 1887 Benét had concluded that because there was “a movement in that direction in military circles both here and abroad,” a reduced caliber for the next generation of small arms was a certainty. A. 30 was even mooted—quite a comedown from the mighty . 45. The choice of caliber was arbitrary: Springfield’s commanding officer told the chief of Ordnance that .30 (rather than .29 or .31) had been selected “not from any special principle involved,” but because it was easier for tool-makers to work with “even” numbers.27 On such small accidents are the tidal waves of history based.