Re: Getting nailed from Way Far Away (tm)

At 8:39 AM -0400 5/30/01, Roger Books wrote:
>I rather doubt the sharpshooter was using balls, more than likely it
>was  a bullet.  :)

By the civil war they were using Mini-balls. Essentially a properly 
shapped bullet with an ogive. The base was hollowed out in a cone and 
had a metal wedge that the firing action forced up into the base. The 
edge of the base then engaged rifling and spun the bullet up nicely.

The problem with rifles up until then was that it was a royal pain to 
force the ball down through the rifling. That made a considerable 
problem to the rate of fire. With the bullet engaging after the 
trigger was pulled, things were much faster...

--
- Ryan Montieth Gill		DoD# 0780 (Smug #1) / AMA / SOHC -
- ryan.gill@SPAMturner.com  I speak not for CNN, nor they for me -
- rmgill@SPAMmindspring.com	     www.mindspring.com/~rmgill/ -