The superiority of the rifle in accuracy was generally admitted; and this advantage not only counterbalanced such deficiency in ranging power as may have accrued from the use of grooving, but actually led to a general but mistaken belief that the rifle carried farther than the smooth-bore. The reverse was the case. Moreover, it was not safe to use with a rifle the very large charges of powder which could be used with safety with a smooth-bore musket. On account of the resistance to motion of the ball which had been forced by ramrod, sometimes even by mallet, down the grooved barrel of the rifle, high chamber pressures resulted, and not infrequently the barrels burst. Hence in spite of the thicker metal of which they were generally made, rifles could only be used with moderate charges, and so could not compete on equal terms, in this respect, with the smooth-bores for superiority of range. Toward the end of the eighteenth century events occurred which drew attention to the utility of the rifle for military purposes. In spite of its slow rate of fire--to load it carefully took from one and a half to two minutes--it showed itself to be a very effective weapon in the hands of French tirailleurs, Swiss, Austrian, and Tyrolese _Jägers_, Hottentots and American Indians. In the War of Independence the superior accuracy of their rifles, and their capacity for hitting at ranges beyond the 200 yards which were about the limit of the smooth-bore musket, placed the American backwoodsmen at such an advantage over the British troops that riflemen were recruited on the Continent and sent across the Atlantic to counter them. New military tactics came into vogue at this time, their inception influenced by the gradual improvement in fire-arms and artillery. Bodies of riflemen, “a light erratic force concealing itself with facility and forming an ambuscade at will,” were formed in the continental armies to act in concert with the masses of infantry as skirmishers or sharp-shooters, their object being to surprise and demoralize the enemy by the accuracy of their long-range shooting. Rifles were now looked on, too, as the natural counterpart of the now flying or horse artillery, “which, from the rapidity of its motions, the execution of cannon-shot in all situations, appears to be the effects of little less than magic.”[117] [Illustration: RIFLEMAN PRESENTING (From Ezekiel Baker’s _Rifled Guns_, A.D. 1813.)]