A second type was the Justice Harpers Ferry Rifle, caliber .58, 35-inch barrel rifled with three shallow grooves, fitted with Ml855 style rear leaf sight and bayonet stud without guide, on right of muzzle. Brass mountings, oval screw-clamp bands, and Justice special trigger guard; length overall 4 feet 3 inches; weight 9 pounds 2 ounces. Lock appears to be a Harpers Ferry transformed flintlock of , with original flying eagle and also stamped P. S. Justice/Philada. No proof mark; Justice’ name only. Serial number on trigger guard tang surmounted by a “P.” The specimen Fuller illustrates is No. P/315, early in the manufacture of the Justice special model guns. The cone seat bottom is carved to fit pan-cut in the lockplate, but other Justice guns have the nipple holster of -2 percussion form.
Ager, Williams, Vandenberg, these have faded into history. The repeating gun most remembered from the war, and yet one which had a very confusing record of use therein, is that of Dr. Richard Jordan Gatling. I had the pleasure of witnessing how effectively Dr. Gatling had builded when I attended a meeting of the American Ordnance Association at Aberdeen the fall of 1957 . Mounted on a testing stand was a small bundle of barrels, dwarfed in seeming firepower by the huge cannon flanking it. But when the gunner pushed the button and that mighty mite whirred into action with a high-pitched snarling roar so rapidly that no individual explosions could even be sensed, I knew I had witnessed not only the world’s fastest-firing machine gun, and the world’s heaviest gun in weight of metal fired (a ton and a half in one minute), but a gun that was directly inspired by the Civil War special artillery General Butler bought from Dr. Gatling. First of Gatling’s guns was bulky wheeled carriage “c...
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