Read Ebook: Gunnery in 1858: Being a Treatise on Rifles Cannon and Sporting Arms Explaining the Principles of the Science of Gunnery and Describing the Newest Improvements in Fire-Arms by Greener William

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Origin of its invention--Roger Bacon's recipe--Accidental discovery by a German monk--Gunpowder introduced by the Saracens--Its explosive and propellant properties--Composition of gunpowder--Nitre its essence--Properties of sulphur as an ingredient--Proportions and constituents of French gunpowder--Sulphur not always indispensable-- Chemical principles of its composition--Component parts of different gunpowders--Source of its explosive force--Explosion at Gateshead-- Variations in strength and quickness of fire--Granulation of sporting gunpowder and of artillery gunpowder--Importance of suitable granulation for different firearms--Large grain powder the more effectual expellant--Fine powder dangerous--Principle of granulation-- Gun-cotton--Imperfect instrument for testing gunpowder--Charcoal-- Operation of making gunpowder described--"Glazing" detrimental-- Utility of granulation--Fine grain powder--Dr. Ure on the projectile force of gunpowder--Dr. Hutton's calculations and experiments--Mode of controlling the destructive force of gunpowder--Experiments to test the velocity of explosive force of different granulations--The grain should be proportioned to the length and bore of the gun--Chlorate of potassa used by the French in making gunpowder--Similar powder proposed by Mr. Parr, and condemned by Sir William Congreve--Velocity in projectile force must be gradual--Curious experiment--Operation of blasting stone, &c., with gunpowder--English sporting gunpowder-- Military and naval gunpowder--Fame of English gunpowder makers 18

Improvement in gun barrels depends on the iron--Continental manufacturers advance while English stand still--Cheap and inferior guns of "Park-paling"--Scarcity of horse-nail stubs--Importance of iron manufacture--Great value of steel in ancient times--Iron originally made with wood charcoal--Coal coke unfit for making best iron--British iron ore inferior--Mr. Mushet on steel-iron--English workmen employed abroad--English gun-makers' names forged in Belgium-- Indian Iron and Steel Company--Indian process of making steel--Hammer- hardening recommended--Difference of "Silver steel" and "Twist steel" --Method of making laminated steel--It is spoilt by over-twisting-- Watering of Damascus barrels--Proportions of carbon in steel and iron --Damascus barrels often plated--Modern method of making Damascus iron --Objection to wire-twist iron--Figured barrels--Damascus barrels made in Belgium--Damascus iron inferior in strength--Use of old horse-shoe nails for gun-barrels--Stub iron alone insufficient-- Prejudices of provincial gun-makers--Mixture of steel and stub iron-- Importance of welding on an air furnace--Proportions of steel and stub iron--Efficacy of hammer-hardening and reworking iron--Improvements in superior iron owing to gun-makers--Explosions of steam-boilers owing to neglect or bad construction--Boiler iron improveable--Steel- Damascus barrel iron--Manufacture of "charcoal iron"--Imitation of "smoke brown"--Gains from using inferior iron--Frauds in barrel making --Advice of Edward Davies in 1619--"Threepenny skelp iron"-- "Wednesbury skelp"--Test of a safe gun--"Sham damn skelp"--Base guns made to sell--Their injurious effect on the gun-making trade--"Swaff- iron forging." 146

Barrel welding--Birmingham welders--Different twists of metal --Process of welding--Hammer-hardening--Belgium welders--Mode of plating barrels--Belgium method --Profits of fraud--Qualifications of a good gun-barrel maker--Processes of boring and grinding--Proper inclination of double barrels--Elevation of barrels should be proportionate to charge and distance--Brazing of barrels detrimental--Mr. Wilkinson's opinion--Solid ribs requisite-- Advantage of the patent breech--Best shape of breech --Gun locks--Their scientific construction--The Barside lock--Messrs. Braziers' locks--The stock, fittings, &c.--Recipe for staining steel barrels--Birmingham method of browning--Belgian method--Varieties of iron for best barrels--Laminated steel barrels never known to burst-- Base imitations of laminated steel--Cost of laminated steel barrels-- Author's method of laminating--Stub Damascus passed off for steel-- Birmingham guns--Practice of forging names of eminent makers--Author's offer--Improved metal for axles--Author's imitation Damascus --Joseph Manton's merits--Prize medals awarded to author-- Advantages of Birmingham for gun making--"London-made guns"--Foreign imitations of English guns--Periodical exhibition of guns recommended --Steel-twist and stub Damascus --Barrels of charcoal iron--Inferior guns--Cost of skelp-iron guns--Cost of "sham damn iron" guns--Sham guns --Cost of "park-paling" guns 185

Proof-house of Gun-maker's Company--Proof Acts of 1813 and 1815-- Provisions of Gun Barrel Proof Act of 1855--Penal clauses--Schedule B --Proof marks--Scale of charges for Proof--Mode of proving --Number of barrels proved in 1857 243

New principle--Improved rifles--Useless inventions--Scientific principles of gunnery: 1. The explosive power and its velocity. 2. The retarding agents. 3. Construction of the tube. 4. Form of projectile-- Robins's theory--Hutton's experiments--Suitable velocity the germ of the science--Author's experiments and their results--Penetrating power of bullets--Resistance of the atmosphere--Friction detrimental-- Construction of the tube--The Cylindro-conoidal form best suited for projectiles--Jacob's and Whitworth's bullets--Lengthened projectiles tend to burst the barrel--Amount of heat needful to explode gunpowder --Advantage of unglazed powder--Percussion powder--Best form of nipple --Propellant velocity the grand desideratum--Why short guns shoot better than long ones--True science of gunnery--Cause of guns bursting--Mr. Blaine's difference of opinion with the author on explosive force--Shooting powers of different gun barrels--Tables of strength and pressure--Colonel Hawker's axiom--Mr. Daniel's remarks on shot--Duck and swivel guns--The wire cartridge--Bell-muzzle guns--Mr. Blaine on long barrels--The just medium--Belgium guns will not stand English proof--Cause of their inferiority--French gun-makers behind the age--Author's notes on the "Specimens by French Gun-makers at the Paris Exhibition"--On recoil in shooting--Causes and experiments--Mode of determining the size of shot suited to the bore of gun--Mr. Prince's double gun 257

Breech-loading fire-arms unsafe and inferior--Objections specified-- Trial of breech-loading against muzzle-loading guns--Danger from using breech-loaders--Excessive recoil 329

Immense demand for them--Their value--Best manufacturers--Colonel Colt's repeating pistol described--Its double action discussed-- Machine-made pistols not equal to hand-made--Dean and Adams's revolver described--Its improvements on Colt's--Tranter's double trigger revolver--His lubricating bullet and other improvements--Webley's revolver--Comparison of self-acting and cocking-lock pistols-- Tendency of revolvers to foul--Lieut. Symons's opinion--Other defects to be overcome--Author's preference for double-barrelled fire-arms in warfare 413

The name explained, and weapon described--Its origin--Author's share in its construction--American machinery for gun-making--Extent and products of the Enfield manufactory 429

RIFLES, CANNON, AND SPORTING ARMS.

ANCIENT ARMS.

From the earliest ages of the world, the jealousies and bickerings of mankind have been fruitful causes of war. Sometimes, perhaps, justified by political reasons; at others, it may be, arising solely from a desire, on the part of ambitious chiefs, to extend their territories by multiplying their conquests; while, in too many cases, the struggle for religious ascendancy has led to the most sanguinary and cruel battles.

War has been considered as a science from the most remote ages, and the ingenuity of the talented has successively been taxed to render it as perfect as possible. It is true--

"Man's earliest arms were fingers, teeth, and nails, And stones and fragments from the branching woods;"

but these soon gave place to others, more calculated to decide unequal, and often protracted, conflicts.

Arms, in a general sense, include all kinds of weapons, both offensive and defensive; and amongst the earliest may be classed the bow and arrow, as it gave facilities to man to capture the wild animals for food, probably before their use was required for the purposes of war. The bow and the sling were the first means invented, and next only to the human arm for projecting bodies with an offensive aim: the great principle which, to the present day, reigns unrivalled, developing the ruling passion of man to injure, while remaining himself in comparative safety,--"self-preservation" being "the first law of nature."

To the bow and sling were soon added spears, swords, axes, and javelins, all of which appear to have been used by the Jews. David destroyed Goliath with a stone from the brook. The invention of the sling is attributed, by ancient writers, to the Phoenicians, or the inhabitants of the Balearic Islands. The great fame that these islanders obtained arose from their assiduity in its use; their children were not allowed to eat until they struck their food from the top of a pole with a stone from a sling. From the accounts left us , it appears that the immense force with which a stone could be projected, can only be exceeded by modern gunnery. Even at that early age, leaden balls were in use as projectiles; though we cannot put much faith in Seneca's account of the velocity being so great as frequently to melt the lead. The use of the sling continued over a long period of time, even as late as the Huguenot war in 1572.

The bow is of equal, if not greater, antiquity. The first account we find of it is in Genesis, 21st chapter and 20th verse, where the Lawgiver, speaking of Ishmael, says, "And God was with the lad, and he grew and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer." The arms of the ancient Greeks and Persians were such as we have described, with the addition of chariots armed with scythes, in which the chiefs sometimes fought; though their main dependence was upon their heavy-armed infantry. Elephants were afterwards used as adjuncts in their military operations, but their use does not appear to have been very great or very permanent.

The great artillerist of the Sicilians, Archimedes, seems to have made some of the most powerful engines; but he, considering any attention to mechanics as beneath the philosopher, has not left us an account of any one of them.

We are told incredible stories of the abilities of some of our bygone archers. Should it be true, as stated, that an arrow could be shot nearly 700 yards, we can easily conceive the immense velocity with which it must have left the bow; this range being quite equal, if not superior, to that of the late unimproved rifles. Though we must bear in mind, that the peculiar shape of the arrow fits it to cut the atmosphere with less resistance then the half sphere of a bullet; and hence one reason of its obtaining an extensive range. There is a story told of the famous Robin Hood, and Little John, "who could shoot an arrow a measured mile." We suppose the mile was the reverse of an Irish one, or they had the advantage of a precious stiff gale of wind. Historians sometimes "draw the long-bow" as well as archers. Many statements have descended to us of the power of the battering rams of old; but we have a much more ready method of blowing open gates by a single bag of gunpowder; and a 68 lb. shot has all the force that could be given even to that famous ram of Vespasian, "the length whereof was only fifty cubits, which came not up to the size of many of the Grecian rams, had a head as thick as ten men, and twenty-five horns, each of which was as thick as one man, and placed a cubit distance from the rest; the weight, as was customary, rested on the hinder part, and was no less than 1,500 talents; when it was removed, without being taken to pieces, 150 yoke of oxen, or 300 pairs of horses and mules, laboured in drawing it, and 1,500 men employed their utmost strength in forcing it against the walls."

With these remarks we shall proceed to introduce the invention of Gunnery.

Barbour, in his life of Bruce, informs us that guns were first employed by the English at the battle of Werewater, which was fought in 1327, about forty years after the death of Friar Bacon; and there is no doubt that four guns were used at the battle of Cressy, fought in 1346, when they were supposed to have been quite unknown to the French, and tended to obtain for British arms the victory. Froissart gives an excellent representation of a cannon and cannoneers, in 1390, a cut of which we give in the following page.

The use of guns in warfare is, therefore, comparatively of modern date, and the early specimens which are still extant, of which we have drawings and descriptions, must have been of very little service compared with those of the present day. The English musqueteer was formerly a most encumbered soldier. "He had, besides the unwieldy weapon itself, his coarse powder for loading in a flask, his fine powder for priming in a touch-box, his bullets in a leathern bag, with strings to draw to get at them, whilst in his hand were his musket-rest and his burning match; and when he had discharged his piece, he had to draw his sword in order to defend himself. Hence it became a question, and was so for a long time, whether the bow did not deserve a preference over the musket."

Grose's "Military Antiquities."

Archery furnished matter for oratorical display, both in the senate and the pulpit; the palace and the cottage alike bore testimony to the great importance which was attached to the art; and it was at once the study and pastime of the whole nation. Thus, long after the introduction of fire-arms, the long-bow was held in great esteem; and it is no wonder that this favourite instrument should have been reluctantly relinquished, after obtaining such universal popularity, and becoming so intimately connected with many national and important events. It is now superseded by the gun, a more potent and destructive engine. The bow, so much valued, has vanished from our ranks by slow gradations, to make way for the musket; and the quivers of cloth-yard shafts have been supplanted by bristling bayonets. These things are now practically unknown as military weapons, though they contended for superiority with fire-arms during two centuries.

The invention of portable fire-arms is awarded to the Italians by Sir Samuel Meyrick, and, in a memoir in the Archaeologia of the Society of Antiquarians, he has named the year 1430 as the precise period of their introduction.

We have already stated that cannon, or heavy ordnance, was in use in the English army in 1327, more than a century before that time. It is not improbable, however, that the Italians were the originators of small fire-arms, for they had for many years been celebrated as skilful in the art of making armour--Milanese armour being considered the most valuable, and it is natural that their attention should be directed to the construction of offensive weapons of a different description.

The invention of the portable fire-arm, in its primitive state, was one of extreme simplicity; the gun consisting merely of a tube fixed to a straight stock of wood, about three feet in length, furnished with trunnions, cascable, and touch-hole: the latter was, in the first instance, at the top, like a large cannon, but was afterwards altered to the side where a small pan was placed to hold the priming, and lessen the liability of its being blown away by the wind. This contrivance was the first step to the gun-lock.

Before the adoption of the match-lock by the English, cannon, as I have before shown, had been in use, though they were of a clumsy description.

During the sixteenth century, fire-arms of every description then in use underwent a variety of alterations and improvements; each change bringing with it a change of name, which would neither be profitable or interesting to enumerate here; our object being to trace out the advances which have been made in the manufacture of fire-arms since their general adoption as weapons of war, or auxiliaries to the sports of the field.

When first introduced into England, the hand-gun, as it was termed, had already received a slight improvement, in having a covering for the pan which contained the priming, and a sight on the breech, to assist in giving greater certainty to the aim; it remained thus until the trigger of the cross-bow suggested a contrivance to convey, with equal certainty and greater rapidity, the burning match to the pan.

The Syrians were formerly celebrated for their skill in the working of iron. Damascus gun-barrels were not to be obtained, at certain periods, at a price less than their weight in silver. The elaborate mixtures in their barrels, swords, and other weapons, entitle them justly to the honour of being the best of iron workers, as we shall hereafter have occasion to show; and the splendour displayed in their inlaying attests their taste and ability: but as mechanicians, formers of complex machinery, they never reached mediocrity. Turkey and Greece, as well as other countries which were renowned as having been, in days of yore, nurseries of the arts, but which have, in later times, degenerated into a condition little better than semi-barbarous, were remarkable for the great labour and pains which they bestowed upon the exterior ornaments of their firearms; but they never succeeded in improving the machinery of the lock in the slightest degree.

The mine of complex inventions was exhausted during the last century; and the greatest benefactor to the science of gunnery will be he, who, blowing away the cobwebs of mystery, renders its principles as clear as the silvered glass. Nothing now remains of the beautiful machinery of the flint lock; the fancy cock and hammers have given place to a "simple" hammer, striking on a copper thimble, covering a steel pivot. What would the old lock-filers say to this, if they could return and see their handiwork consigned to the scrap-box as old iron?

To those curious in the progress of invention as it relates to gunnery, it would be highly interesting to visit the "Mus?e d'Artillerie" of Paris, and there to study the classified selections in the possession of the French Government. Among other specimens equally interesting, he will find revolving pistols, revolving rifles, and swords and revolving pistols combined in one; and these produced in the early part of the seventeenth century. The revolving pistol did not therefore originate with the present generation; and however universally we may use the "Colt," "Adams," or "Tranter," neither can lay the slightest claim to originality. In that museum will be found four, five, and six charge chambers; and though in all there is certainly an absence of movement in the chamber, produced by the cocking of the lock, yet several present the appearance of having formerly had some mechanical adjunct for revolving the chamber: this, though well adapted to the present percussion system, must certainly have been troublesome to manage in the old flint lock; for when the first barrel was discharged, the priming of the other barrels would be lost during the revolution of the chamber.

Well had it been if the many hundred inventors in England and elsewhere had studied, and made themselves intimately acquainted with the productions there to be seen in such abundance. Monuments they are of mis-spent skill and labour; samples of the almost hopeless task of fabricating complicated machinery which shall resist the action of explosive gases at high pressure. An experiment extending over two hundred years, but unattended with success, notwithstanding all the skill and ingenuity brought to bear upon it, is, we think, sufficient to prove that breech-loading guns cannot be made sufficiently durable to yield any reasonable return for the extra expense and trouble attending their fabrication. Nevertheless, our "would-be mechanics hope against hope;" and to such we would, in conclusion, tender a word of advice. Before spending your money, make acquaintance with all that has been done before, and if in your own production you find principles which have been untouched by any previous invention, and untainted by any of the previous causes of failure, then patent your invention, and make a fortune--if you can.

Great mechanical skill, and even scientific principles, are to be found in some of the earliest productions after the invention of fire-arms; and thus is established the important fact, that want of experience was the chief drawback under which they laboured: one elaborate machine being unequal to their requirements was succeeded by another; and yet, with all these examples patent to us, we still fruitlessly fall back on exhausted principles.

A more intimate knowledge of what our predecessors have accomplished would be a great boon to our race. Foreign nations, but especially France, have provided for this by their museums; and we want here a museum of progression, an epitome of the mind of the present age, and which, continued to future generations, would leave to no man the fruitless toil of hauling in an endless rope.

ON GUNPOWDER.

Gunpowder being the base on which the superstructure of this treatise is to be raised, the history, the use, and the nature of this explosive compound, are here placed in the foreground; as it is essential to the correct conception of the various matters hereafter to be explained, that the reader be first acquainted with the one grand principle in fire-arms, the propellant power of explosion.

The inhabitants of India were unquestionably acquainted with its composition at an early date. Alexander is supposed to have avoided attacking the Oxydracea, a people dwelling between the Hyphasis and Ganges, from a report of their being possessed of supernatural means of defence: "For," it is said, "they come not out to fight those who attack them, but those holy men, beloved by the gods, overthrow their enemies with tempests and thunderbolts shot from their walls;" and, when the Egyptian Hercules and Bacchus overran India, they attacked these people, "but were repulsed with storms of thunderbolts and lightning hurled from above." This is, no doubt, evidence of the use of gunpowder; but as it is unprofitable to investigate this subject further, we shall merely confine ourselves to the European authorities.

This discovery has also been attributed to Schwartz, a German monk, and the date of 1320 annexed to it; a date posterior to that which may be justly claimed for Friar Bacon; and as accident is stated to have been the means by which he discovered it, we have taken that incident as the subject of an illustration.

Mr. Hallam, referring to the authority of an Arabic author, infers that there is no question that the knowledge of gunpowder was introduced into Europe through the means of the Saracens, before the middle of the 13th century; and no doubt its use then was more for fireworks, than as an artillerist projectile force. There is good evidence, too, that the use of gunpowder was introduced into Spain by the Moors, at least as early as the year 1343. Now, as Roger Bacon is known to have been an Arabic scholar, it is not at all unlikely that he might have become acquainted with the mode of making the composition, and also with its most remarkable properties, by perusing some Arabian writer with whom we are at present unacquainted.

This invention, by which the personal barbarity of war has certainly been diminished, is, when considered as a means of human destruction, by far the most powerful that skill has ever devised, or accident presented; acquiring, as experience shows us, a more sanguinary dominion in every succeeding age, and subserving all the progressive resources of science and civilization for the extermination of mankind: which, says Mr. Hallam, "appals us at the future prospects of the species, and makes us feel, perhaps, more than in any other instance, a difficulty in reconciling the mysterious dispensation with the benevolent order of Providence."

The composition of gunpowder, as regards the proportions of the ingredients, has not undergone any material alteration; the chemical proportions of the ancients being nearly those of the present day.

"There is one good reason," says the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, "for the use of sulphur, although it does not contribute to the production of any elastic fluid. The carbonic acid which is generated would doubtless combine with the potash, if it were not for the presence of the sulphur, and thus so much elastic fluid would be lost. That this is the case we know to be true, from the fact that carbonate of potash is always formed when nitre is decomposed by charcoal alone, which I shall almost immediately show." This certainly would be the case, to a certain extent, with gunpowder without sulphur--some carbonate of potash would be formed.

The sulphur, we have no doubt, from experiments we have made on this subject, is, in part, engaged during the explosion of gunpowder in expelling the sixth proportion of oxygen from the potash, so as to combine with the potassium, to form a true sulphuret of that metal. This fact is easily ascertained, from the circumstance that no sulphuretted hydrogen can be detected, by the most delicate tests, coming from the residuum left after firing gunpowder, until moisture has gained access to it. The bad smell which arises sometime after the burning of gunpowder, is occasioned by the decomposition of the moisture which the sulphuret of potassium attracts from the atmosphere; giving rise, by this decomposition and liberation, to the foetid foul gas, called sulphuretted hydrogen, and the production of potassa, or the oxide of potassium.

A commission of French chemists and artillerists was appointed by the Government, in the year 1794, to experiment upon the best proportions and constituents of gunpowder for the use of the French service. The following were the proportions of five different kinds prepared at the Essonne works:--

The first and third, after 200 discharges with the proof mortar, were declared the strongest, and the third proportions were adopted at the recommendation of the commissioners. Some few years elapsed, and the first, owing to its better keeping quality, was substituted, as it contained less charcoal, and a little more sulphur. The French Government having always been extremely impressed with the value of durability in gunpowder, they have since returned to their ancient proportions: 75 nitre, 12-1/2 charcoal, 12-1/2 sulphur. The charcoal, the absorbent of moisture, being further reduced, and the sulphur, the preserving ingredient, being increased in the same ratio.

"Mr. Napier tried a small quantity made of nitre and charcoal only, and was much surprised to find it project a shot as far as the best powder made in the usual manner. It is found that, in small charges, sulphur is advantageous; but, in charges of several ounces, the projecting force is as great without as with it. Therefore, under certain circumstances, sulphur may be dispensed with; but to make a good gunpowder, nitre and charcoal are indispensable."

Amongst the brilliant discoveries of modern chemistry may be classed the development of the fact, that a chemical combination, to constitute the same compound, always takes place in definite and unalterable ratios. To select one example out of a multitude: one atom of carbon combining with two atoms of oxygen produces the gas; because more would answer no useful end. So, with reference to the sulphur, if it enter into combination only with the potassium--the base of the nitre--the sulphur should be in that proportion to form the sulphuret of that metal; and in this case there would be no superfluity, for that would only add to the weight of the charge of powder, and diminish its absolute and effective energy. The view of the case which we have taken supposes only two combinations, viz. carbon with oxygen, and sulphur with potassium. Should there be a more diversified play of affinities, and the several elements of the powder enter into more complicated action, accurate analysis would conduct us through all difficulties, and point out what the proportions of the ingredients ought to be in order to sustain that action, and to produce a perfect ultimate result.

In the present improved state of chemical science, when the nature of the bodies comprising gunpowder is so well known, as well as the compounds resulting from their action on each other, the proportions we have named may be taken as the best for practice.

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