Show THEREVOLVER It Is NctSo Much Used Iii War In These Days Springfield Republican There are indications that the one distinctive weapon of Americathe re volveras characteristic as the maChete ma-Chete of the SpanishAmerican the be lan of the Pampas or the boomerang of Australia will shortly be a back number The Invention of the revolving revolv-ing cylinder is not Americanit had been foreshadowed long before it came into practical usebut it in America Amer-ica that it was developed and Amen cans have shown the most appreciation of its merits In fiction you may know the American by his plato even as by his dialect The occupation of the wild west gave opportunity for the development devel-opment of a miraculous skill which cx cited the lasting awe of all who had the good fortune tO see ar exhibition of it and uuurvive In military use also the revolver has played a mor prominent part in the United States than elsewhere Dur lag the civil war the cavalry of both sides acting rather as mounted infan I try than as cau1lr proper showed I great reliance upon the sixehooter Forrest Mosby Morgan and other confederate con-federate leaders especially in ihe irregular ir-regular cavalry hU little esteem for the sword as compared with the pistol pointing out that a saber was of no utility If you were diet before coming within striking distance Both armies were full of expert revolver shots trained liii a strenuous school vho placed 1their buiietawith the instinc tiseaeas bf a boy throwingat a mark and wasted no tine in the careful sighting which ietmnfortunhtely char actenistic ofthe cracittmerican target shooters of todnuriously enough in this respect he Enlish are superior They make a specialty f offhand shooting and our cracks are at a dis advantage from being trained by a method which is entirely alien t the roughandready spirit of the weapon If a mail wants tQ draw a bead let bins get a target rifle with peep sights The only raison detre for the revolver Is the need of hitting a enemy en-emy and hitting hIm quick As a target tar-get weapon it is inferior to the single barrel because thd escape nf gas be tureen the cylinder and the barrel is not a constant quantity For its purpose us a handy 0uick shooting weapon for choserange in an emergency the revolver as developed by American mechanical ingenuity is an entirely adequate weapon It has th disadvantage that it is zIon to reload re-load hut as art Engiisla offlcer who had seen servfceoathe Indian frontier fron-tier recently testified in speaking df this point there fisgidom need to r load in haste If ix phots dont stop the enemy there isxiothing to do lie said but to throw the weapon lus face It is probably becausi the need of more rapid fire is hot felt in ordInary use and partly front the febing that the American arm has been perfected that American makers were slew to realize the significance of the develop merit of the boxmagazine principle in military small arnis and the posaibil ity of applying it to the pistol At all events the Yankee Inventor while holding his own in machine gun improvement has fallen behind itt small arms and pistols The United States uses a European rifle in the army and will adopt the same in the navy And the development of a 5cr viceable magazine pistol which ought to have come from New England was heft to German manufacturers The recent re-cent tests of the Mauser pistol at the armory Ia this city show that ther Is no comparison between it and the service ser-vice revolver The Mauser feeds in its cartridges in packets of ten They can be fired at the rate of ten a see ond and it tmfkes less tiqia to reload them than to put a singig cartridge into a revolver In shootifig the comparison com-parison is equally onesided A re voiver hao no great penetration and little accuracy except at short range The Mausar sends a steeljacketed bullet of 30 calibre through an inch steel plate Used as a carbine with the stock provided It can take the place of a musket for considerable ranges As a pistol It spits forth death with a rapidity not dreamed of by the most practical cowboy There I can he no question that for military purposes the magazine pistol is the coming arth For cavalry it serves adequately as a carbine and at all ranges it shaits ith a force and pro cisioa which could byno possibility be attained by a weailon which allows part of the to escape before the bullet has left the muzzle For ordinary purposes the revolver will still hold its own fOr the present by reason of its lightness and compactness but it will probably not be long before Amen can ingenuity devises a more conveni eat magazine pistol than this clumsy German affair and then the revolver will go to join the flintlock and the muzzlebonder |