634 



ORDNANCE. 



is the Phoenix Iron Company^ gun, which 

 seenis to be substantially the same as Lynall 

 Thomas's (English) *l-inch gun. These are made 

 from boiler plate rolled over a central steel 

 mandrel into a cylinder consisting of fourteen 

 or fifteen layers, then hammered together at a 

 welding heat, or pressed together by means of 

 rollers. The barrel is then reamed out, and 

 rifled or not as may be desired, and in Thomas's 

 patent two hoops 13 inches long and 3 inches 

 thick are shrunk over it. The Phoenix Compa- 

 ny, have not found the hoops necessary. These 

 guns have stood service well, and are quite 

 popular. Thomas's 7-inch gun, made on this 

 plan with the hoops, burst at the second round 

 at Shoeburyness. The new Ericsson guns (13- 

 inch), designed by the inventor as a part of the 

 armament of the Puritan and Dictator iron- 

 clads, differ in their construction from any other 

 gun yet made. The gun is a solid wrought-iron 

 barrel forged from very superior iron (specially 

 tested for the purpose), the walls of which aro 

 7f inches in thickness. This is reenforced with 

 a series of washers cut out of f inch boiler-iron, 

 forced on with accurately determined tension 

 by hydrostatic pressure. Upon the end of the 

 breech is forged a solid flange, against which 

 the washers abut. The washers extend forward 

 eight feet to the middle of the chase, where a 

 nut, embracing and screwed upon the chase, 

 presses them against the solid flange and into 

 close contact with each other. The total length 

 of the guns is 12 feet 8 inches ; the maximum 

 diameter 3 feet 11 inches; diameter of muzzle, 

 1 foot 10 inches; diameter of bore, 13 inches; 

 weight of each gun, 47,000 Ibs. By agreement 

 Captain Ericsson was to receive nothing for 

 these guns unless they burned over 50 Ibs. of 

 powder. He was confident of being able to 

 burn 100 Ibs. 



The Ames wrought-iron gun, made by Mr. 

 Horatio Ames, of Salisbury, Conn., from the cel- 

 ebrated Salisbury iron, by a new process of his 

 own, has been the subject of careful investiga- 

 tion by boards of Government officers during 

 the past year. The method of making them is 

 thus described by Mr. Holley in his " Ordnance 

 and Armor: " "A slab ten inches square and 

 six inches thick, piled and hammered in the 

 usual way, and rounded and turned to form a 

 short cylinder, receives a three-inch hole in the 

 middle, and a welded ring six by six inches in 

 section is shrunk upon the outside. The disk 

 thus made is welded to a mass of iron forged 

 on the end of the staff" by a horizontal steam 

 hammer, equivalent to an ordinary six ton ham- 

 mer. Other disks are thus welded to the first, 

 till the requisite length is attained. The gun is 

 also hammered by an upright six-ton hammer. 

 A pin is driven through the hole in each disk 

 after it is welded on, into the corresponding 

 hole in the next disk, to open and preserve 

 the line of the bore. The forging is upset to 

 two-thirds of its original length, and increased 

 in diameter two inches. The shape of the 

 gun is that of the Dahlgren 50-pounder. The 



trunnions are put on with Dahlgren's bre-sch 

 strap." The gun described is intended for 

 50-pounder. One of these guns was fired 

 1,630 times with a 87 Ib. rifle shot and the 

 usual service-charge, 3 Jibs, of powder. Another 

 gun of the same dimensions was bored out to 

 an 8-inch calibre, and fired 438 times with the 

 80-pounder service charge, a 67 Ib. rifle shot, 

 and 5 Ibs. of powder. The Navy Board author- 

 ized the inventor to make a 13-inch gun on this 

 principle for testing the endurance of his guns, 

 and fifteen 15-inch guns if the experimental 

 gun showed satisfactory endurance. On trial 

 the experimental gun was ruptured very early, 

 at the line of the transverse weld nearest the 

 breech. This transverse weld is, in his process 

 of making his gun, the weakest point, but the 

 gun might be protected from rupture there by 

 the introduction of a lining tube of sterro- 

 metal or low steel. Aside from this defect, the 

 gun seems to possess more desirable qualities 

 than most wrought-iron guns, but its high price 

 is a serious objection to it. 



The "Brooke" gun, which aside from the 

 Armstrong and Whitworth guns imported from 

 England, has been the principal rifled gun em- 

 ployed by the rebels, is a 7-inch cast-iron gun, 

 made at the Tredegar Works, Richmond, and 

 having a wrought-iron reinforce two inches 

 thick. The particulars concerning it, as obtain- 

 ed by Mr. Holley, in London, were as follows : 

 Total length, 146.05 inches ; length of bore, 

 179.9 inches; length of wrought-iron reinforce, 

 30 inches; length from muzzle to centre of 

 trunnions 80.5 inches; length from centre of 

 trunnions to forward end of reinforce, 10.9 

 inches ; diameter of bore, 7 inches ; diameter 

 of muzzle, 14.55 inches ; diameter of cylindri- 

 cal part of casting under reinforce, 27.2 inches; 

 diameter over reinforce 3 1.2 inches. The rifling 

 consists of 7 grooves 1-10 of an inch deep, very 

 slightly rounded at the corners, with one turn 

 in 40 feet. The grooves vanish as they ap- 

 proach the chamber. 



The most eminent European artillerists now 

 advise the use, for siege purposes or in naval 

 battles with iron-clad vessels, of the elon- 

 gated shell, like the Whitworth shell made 

 sufficiently strong to answer the purpose of 

 punching the walls of a fortification or the sides 

 of an armored ship nearly or quite as well as the 

 solid elongated shot, and the charging this shell 

 with gun-cotton closely packed. The projectile 

 thus charged has an explosive force many times 

 greater than gunpowder, and destroys with ter- 

 rific energy any thing and every thing around it. 



The gun-cotton, when enclosed in a strong 

 iron box and fired by a fuse, is also of great 

 service in making an opening through strong 

 palisades, blowing-in the gates to fortifications, 

 or destroying the strongest bridges, tearing the 

 strongest and heaviest timbers into bundles of 

 loose fibres, which have the appearance of hav- 

 ing been chewed. 



The improvements in the construction of 

 small arms within the past few yeais, have 



