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Updated: May 24, 2025
Aiming at the shoulder, I fired six shots with the two-grooved rifle, which must have eventually proved mortal, after which I fired six shots at the same part with the Dutch six-founder. Large tears now trickled down from his eyes, which he slowly shut and opened, his colossal frame shivered convulsively, and falling on his side he expired."
But this she carefully avoided to expose, presenting only her full front. I had given Stofulus my Moore rifle, with orders to shoot her if she should spring upon me, but on no account to fire before me. Kleinboy was to stand ready to hand me my Purdey rifle, in case the two-grooved Dixon should not prove sufficient.
Twelve months' experience with elephants and buffaloes decided me to order a battery of double-barrelled rifles, No. 10, two-grooved, with 6 drams of fine grain powder, and spherical-belted bullets. These were most satisfactory, and they became the starting-point for future experiments.
I had given Stofolus my rifle, with orders to shoot her if she should spring upon me, but on no account to fire before me. Kleinboy was to stand ready to hand me my Purdey rifle, in case the two-grooved Dixon should not prove sufficient.
In another place, after detailing the manner in which he assailed a poor animal he says, "I was loading and firing as fast as could be, sometimes at the head, sometimes behind the shoulder, until my elephant's fore-quarter was a mass of gore; notwithstanding which he continued to hold on, leaving the grass and branches of the forest scarlet in his wake. * Having fired thirty-five rounds with my two-grooved rifle, I opened upon him with the Dutch six-pounder, and when forty bullets had perforated his hide, he began for the first time, to evince signs of a dilapidated constitution."
My double-barreled No. 10 rifles are two-grooved, and an infinity of trouble they gave me for the first two years. Many a time I have been giving my whole weight to the loading rod, with a ball stuck half-way down the barrel, while wounded elephants lay struggling upon the ground, expected every moment to rise.
As I turned my back to mount, the elephants were so very near that I really expected to feel one of their trunks lay hold of me. I rode up to Kleinboy for my double-barreled two-grooved rifle: he and Isaac were pale and almost speechless with fright. Returning to the charge, I was soon once more alongside and, firing from the saddle, I sent another brace of bullets into the wounded elephant.
General Jacob says, very justly, of this gun: "The mode of rifling is the very worst possible. It is only the two-grooved rifle in disguise. Let the shoulders of the grooves of a two-grooved rifle be removed, and you have the Lancaster rifle. But by the removal of these shoulders, the friction, if the twist be considerable, becomes enormous."
The two-grooved rifle, when new, is particularly difficult to load, as the ball must be tight to avoid windage, and it requires some nicety in fitting and pressing the belt of the ball into the groove, in such a manner that it shall start straight upon the pressure of the loading-rod.
To avoid this, a rifle should be made with double bolts and a silver plate should always be let into the stock under the breech; without which the woodwork will imperceptibly wear, and the barrel will become loose in the stock and jar when fired. There is another reason for the necessity of heavy barrels, especially for two-grooved rifles.
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