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INDEX

introduction

childhood - railways -
inventions

India - the Mutiny - illness - investigation

bullets - barrels - telescopic
sights - explosive bullets

hollow front bullets -
Volunteers & the NRA -
Sir Henry Halford

rifling - the small-bore rifle

Mitrailleuse - breech-loaders

military rifles - bullet design

the latter years

Memoir

of

William Ellis Metford

From a photograph
taken in 1878

In a memorandum on the subject of his military rifles, Mr. Metford notes that the determination of the best alloy for his bullets cost him at least a year's time, and this is an example of the thoroughness with which every detail was considered. But although his own special line of work was concerned with the barrel and the cartridge, it must not be supposed that the merits of different breech actions failed to receive very close scrutiny. In 1870 he prepared for Mr. M. T. Bass, M.P., an exhaustive memorandum on the comparative merits of the Westley Richards and Martini breech actions, in which be dwelt forcibly on the weakness of the latter in leverage for extracting the cartridge. One can but feel, after reading this memorandum that the jamming of our soldiers' rifles in Egypt, a dozen years later was due to some fatal shortsightedness. Great, too, was the labour which he expended on making tables for the trajectories of his rifles. Mr. Froude gave him great help by suggesting a convenient formula on which to work, and he always-made calculation. and experiment go hand in hand. In deducing results from his experiments, he was extremely cautious, never allowing himself to be led into hasty conclusions. He possessed the rare gift of being able to criticise impartially his own work and ideas. In the summer he would sometimes fire his rifles up to their extreme ranges at Plymouth or Freshwater, against some rock in the sea, taking the distance with a theodolite, and watching through a telescope for the splash of the bullet in the water--for calm weather was essential--seconds after pulling the trigger. Most of his experimental shooting was done in conjunction with Sir Henry Halford at Wistow. He was singularly free from any personal desire to win a high place in rifle competitions, and only once shot in the English Eight for the Elcho Shield, though in that annual match, in which his own rifles were so conspicuous, the English team constantly had the benefit of his "coaching" until about 1890, when he ceased to be a regular visitor to the National Rifle Association meetings. His great pleasure at Wimbledon was to watch the shooting and to talk with those really interested in rifles--for his great store of experience was always at their disposal.

The rapid advance in military small arms abroad, especially as regards quickness of loading, caused the appointment of a Committee to deal with the question of an improved British rifle in February, 1883. Mr. Metford designed, at the request of the Committee, the detail of the barrel of .42 bore for the rifle provisionally issued for trial at the beginning of 1887. But just at this time the question of further reduction of the calibre was raised, as a result of Continental experiments, and the outcome was the adoption of the present .303 barrel and cartridge for the Service. The fulness of Mr. Metford's knowledge enabled him at very short notice to lay down the proper proportions for the grooving, the pitch of the spiral, the shape and dimensions of the "entry," and the "clearances" to be given for the cartridge, all so satisfactorily, that though he himself verified them at much trouble and cost, and the Committee also tried them exhaustively, it was found that no modification could improve them, as regards accuracy, convenience in use, or ease of manufacture. It has to he remembered that the .303 was first used with black powder, for which his segmental grooving was almost essential, and that it was only the rapid destruction of the bore by the smokeless powder afterwards adopted, which made it advisable to return to a very obvious form of grooving which had been used by Mr. Metford twenty five years earlier. The adoption of the name Lee-Enfield for the 303 magazine rifle with the altered grooving, obscures the fact that the shape of the groove was only one of the many important but not obvious' details connected with the barrel, chamber and cartridge, which are due to Mr. Metford's skill. Far as he was from being ambitious, and utterly alien as any mercenary idea was to his mind, he felt keenly more than once, and especially in connection with the .303 rifle, the difficulty of obtaining that proper public recognition of his work for the country, which his strong sense of justice felt to be due to him.

The peculiar shape of the bullet devised and used by him in later years, with a blunt point and a long sloping shoulder, was found to cleave the air with less resistance than the older shapes, and to. make a very appreciable difference to the flatness of the trajectory at long ranges. This improvement was adapted by him for the Service rifle. For many years all the bullets used in his match and military rifles had been made on the premises of his own house, so important did he consider care in their manufacture to be. His industry was indomitable, and it would be difficult to exaggerate the labour expended by him on the one item of experiment with alloys of lead suitable for bullets. He went deeply into the subject of the gradual change of hardness which taken place in them, and thus gained a light on points that would otherwise have seemed inexplicable.