, OUR " ADMIRABLE " SERVICE RIFLE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—If you can grant me the space, I should like to point out that Mr. T. Ranken in his reply published in the Spectator of April 13th deals with the whole question merely from the standpoint of a target-shot, and not from that of a military 'or technical expert. Mr. Ranken, as every marksman knows, is among the very first flight of British rifle-shots, and for this reason a wider view of the subject would have been doubly welcome. Let me explain why his examina- tion is a one sided one. He concedes that our Service rifle is inferior to the Mannlichers and Mausers (1) in lightness, (2) in the action, (3) in the magazine, and (4) in general finish and eseellence, and he only disputes the correctness of the criticisms quoted by me respect- ing its durability and accuracy. Of the former he appears to judge only by his Bisley experience of it, and even then asserts things I am somewhat surprised to hear him say. Thus he states that he "does not remember ever having seen one of them go out of order or fail to work properly." Now Mr. Ranken was the winner of many prizes at the Bisley meeting of 1899, the occasion when not one but many Service rifles went very considerably out of order (in consequence of the faulty Mark IV. Service ammunition), the lives of several fellow-competitors of his being endangered by the blowing back of the entire bolt. On that occasion, as also at previous and subsequent rifle meet- ings, numerous complaints were made of the fore-end or butt, or both, working loose, and this under the comparatively insignificant strain and exposure incidental to a fortnight under canvas. When the Service rifle was put to the really serious test of a campaign we know from numerous letters from officers at the front published in your columns, in the Times, Vanity Fair, &c., that the woodwork about the Service arm proved to be anything but satisfactory. One of these letters says: "Our rifle is certainly a rotten weapon; the stock is insufficiently strong for Ser- vice purposes. Amongst hundreds I could have taken at Pretoria scarcely one was sound, many like a flail with the butt loose, many lashed together with bootlaces." Another officer, writing in confirmation of these strictures, declares : "I have seen the stock of the rifle come completely off, and in my own corps the bolts had to be tied on with bootlaces to keep them from dropping out when on the march." By referring to private letters rom the front worse instances could be cited, but the above will suffice to show how our arms stood the test of war. That the barrel of the Service rifle has, as a rule, a longer life than that of the Mauser and Mannlicher is quite true, but it is an advantage of which Mr. Ranken should not boast, for it is bought at the expense of inferior velocity, our rifling suffering less wear and tear owing to the lesser twist and inferior velocity imparted to the bullet. A3 every one who knows anything about modern rifles is aware, a higher velocity means a better (flatter) trajectory, which again means a wider death-dealing zone by direct fire as well as by ricochet, and, what is most important, mistakes in judging distances do not militate to the same important extent against success in hitting the object aimed at. For our " Tommies " this last advantage is all the more precious, considering their ignorance in judging distances owing to entirely inadequate training and the puzzling conditions of light and ground in South Africa. It may well be asked: Why has the British rifle a worse trajectory than the Mauser and Mannlicher ? Simply because the much weaker bolt action would not withstand a larger charge and increased pressure, without which, of course, the velocity of the projectile must remain inferior. As to the accuracy of the Service arm so far as it comes into play in warfare, it must be plain even to the novice that, while it probably holds its own at measured distances, its inferior trajectory puts it to a considerable disadvantage at unknown distances. Now, as we all know, the great bulk of shooting in actual war is done at unascer- tained distances. The newer Mannlichers have about 400 ft. per second greater muzzle velocity, and an easy calculation will demonstrate what vast advantages this carries with it at unmeasured distances. Mr. Ranken betrays in other ways that his support of the Service rifle springs exclusively from his knowledge of it as a target rifle. Thus his unconsciously amusing remark that "cordite does not seem to suit the back position" has no bearing upon the military qualities of the powder or rifle, for that position is not recognised in the Army. Again, what he says about the advantages of our sights holds good only for target-work, where the shots are marked on a nice white target, and the error can be determined with the telescope to within two or three inches. He passes very lightly over that scandalous piece of War Office negligence in sending to the front one hundred thousand incorrectly sighted rifles by saying that " a very few shots on the range will show what corrections to make." He forgets that the men who got these rifles were not crack Bisley shots with facilities at hand to try them, but were green recruits who in many instances had absolutely never fired a Service rifle before they reached Africa. Lastly, it would be interesting to know on what statistics Mr. Ranken bases his remark about the Service rifle, in proportion to their number, winning more than their share of prizes. According to the official National Rifle Association records, the Mannlichers in 1899 won at Bisley, in competitions open to both, ninety-five individual prizes, against thirty-six won by the Service arm, while in 1900 the numbers were respec- tively seventy-eight against forty-six. And not only this, but the Service rifles that distinguished themselves were in all, or almost all, cases carefully picked-out weapons, while the barrels of the Yannlichers (the stock of which in this country is never large) were not carefully selected ones. According to these National Rifle Association records, Mr. Ranken him- self in 1899 won no less than six, and in 1900 four, prizes with the despised Mannlichers in competitions in which he could have used the Service rifle had he chosen to act consistently with what he says about the superior accuracy of the Service
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