“The 1851 Minié Rifle was a technological marvel of its time, but it wasn’t a perfect design. And in fact, in its earliest iterations, a lot of the problems that it faced had to do with the ammunition,” American Rifleman Executive Editor Evan Brune said. “Wellington himself, before his death in 1852, he insisted that it be a large-bore gun. Of course, he defeated Napoleon with the .75-cal. Brown Bess, and he’d be damned if the British military was gonna be equipped with anything smallbore. And so the compromise they came up with was a .70-cal. bore. This was an imperfect solution because the conoidal projectiles designed for the Minié Rifle were just a little too snug in the bore.”
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