The question of success of a smokeless powder does not rest alone with the powder itself.  The gun, the cartridge case, primer, and bullet have been as much the subjects of experiments in adapting them to the use of smokeless powder as has the smokeless powder in being adapted to them.  To impart a velocity of 2,000 feet per second to a rifle ball, with corresponding long range and accuracy of flight, has been a question as much of improvement in rifles and projectiles as in the powder.  To give a velocity of 2,000 feet per second to a bullet, requires a pressure of at least 15 English tons in the chamber of a gun.  This would be a dangerous pressure in an old-fashioned shoulder arm; while a bullet made only of lead would strip on striking the rifling and pass right through the barrel of the gun without taking any rotary motion whatever.  It might at first seem that the powder is the only thing to be considered; but high ballistics can only be obtained when everything else is adapted to its use.

The projectile, the cartridge case, the fulminating cap, and the gun have had to be all built up together, and a very large amount of experimenting has been necessary to determine what would constitute the best projectile, best cartridge case, best fulminating cap, and what should be the character of the rifling and the quality and temper of the steel of the gun barrel.

It has been necessary first to conduct experiments to test the smokeless powders for velocities and pressures, and then with the powders test various kinds of projectiles and guns.  In order to obtain the high ballistics which have been secured, it has been found necessary to cover the bullet with something harder than lead and to rifle the gun in a special manner.

The French, who were the first to definitely adopt smokeless powder, were the first also to make a rifle, projectile, cartridge case and primer suited to its use.

To obtain long range with a small long bullet such as is now used, it should rotate at a very high speed.  It is well known to artillerists that a projectile of four or more calibers in length has to be rotated at a much higher speed than one of half that length, in order to keep the projectile stiff in the air, and to prevent it from ending over in its flight.  To communicate this very high rotary movement to the bullet in the instant of time during which it is passing through the barrel, the rifling of the gun has to exert an enormous torsion on the bullet.  Lead, no matter how hardened, is not sufficiently strong, as it will not only strip and pass straight through the gun without taking any rotary movement whatever, but under such very high pressures it behaves like wax, and is thrown from the gun in a distorted mass.