United States or Cuba ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Removing the brown paper, he found a square, polished mahogany box, fastened by two hooks as well as by a lock and key; and, upon opening the lid, he gave a cry of pleasure and surprise. Inside were a pair of most business-like large-calibre, blued revolvers, carrying the heavy .450 cartridge serviceable weapons indeed, capable of dropping a man in his tracks at a distance of a hundred yards.
Frank hurriedly examined and bandaged the wound made by a large-calibre bullet, which had passed through the leg below the knee, lacerating the muscles but not injuring the bone. Then he took up his post again, while Tashi dragged himself up behind a rock and opened fire on their foes. These were for the most part Bhutanese, but there were several Chinese among them. "Look! Look, Frank!
Before 1893 the United States had been behind the other important nations in the matter of small-arms equipment. The navy was still using the old-fashioned, large-calibre rifle, employing a charge of black powder, and effectively carrying only twelve hundred yards.
Captain Charles O'Neil, chief of the bureau of ordnance, gave his opinion as follows: "I do not think the battle off Santiago de Cuba demonstrated that we should abandon the heavy calibres of guns. Serious injury to an enemy's thickly-armored battleships can be inflicted only by large-calibre guns.
The monitor, which lay about a mile from the fort, was of the original single-turret form, armed with the large-calibre smooth-bores, which were fired with great deliberation and with surprising accuracy. I could not see how any rifled guns could have improved on their practice.
Fresh horses were secured at dawn, and breakfast would be secured en route with the cow outfit. There were a dozen large-calibre rifles in scabbards, and burdening ourselves with two heavy guns to the man and an abundance of ammunition, we abandoned Quarantine Station No. 1 for the time being.
One or two of our men who were shot in the head had the skull blown open, but elsewhere the wounds from the minute steel-coated bullet, with its very high velocity, were certainly nothing like as serious as those made by the old large-calibre, low-power rifle.
This concern made shells and other ammunition for the Belgian army; it furnished aeroplanes and machine-guns; it constructed miles of barbed-wire entanglements and connected those entanglements with the city lighting system; one of its officers went on a secret mission to England and brought back with him a supply of cordite, not to mention six large-calibre guns which he smuggled through Dutch territorial waters hidden in the steamer's coal bunkers.
What bullet would reach the souls of these river people who sang ribald songs, danced to lively music, and lived clear of all laws except the one they called "The Law," a deadly, large-calibre revolver or automatic pistol? "I 'low I just got to talk to them like folks," he decided at last, and with that comforting decision went to sleep.
Word Of The Day