AMMUNITION 57 



the measure of some unknown proportion of the energy and 

 to call it static pounds. 



On the other hand, the fashion is to make the exactly 

 contrary mistake in testing guns for shooting strength. The 

 flattening of the shot pellets on a steel plate is the result of 

 energy; here the flattening of lead by which "pressures" are 

 erroneously taken is ignored and scouted, and velocity is 

 considered the thing to judge by, although it is only the 

 velocity of one pellet out of three hundred which, at 20 yards, 

 vary by as much as 300 foot-seconds mean velocity. 



In a lecture delivered by the late Mr. Griffith, of Schultze 

 Company fame, it was said quite truly, and with proper pride, 

 that the velocity of shot had increased during the last twenty 

 years by 100 feet per second at 40 yards. During this time 

 recoil has been reduced very much, only apparently in defiance 

 of the law that action and reaction are equal and opposite. 



Recoil is equal to the total momentum of shot, wads, and 

 powder-gas, and what the powder people have done is to 

 reduce that portion of recoil that was not represented by 

 momentum of the shot, but was represented by the momentum 

 of waste powder-gas. 



Consequently, what has been got rid of in twenty years is 

 some momentum of powder-gas, which has served two purposes 

 first, by permitting some extra strength of powder, to put 

 some extra momentum into the shot pellets, and to somewhat 

 reduce recoil in spite of this. That then was the tendency of 

 the powder-makers, when suddenly they were brought to a 

 standstill by a catchword, "standard" loading and "standard 

 velocity." 



There would have been some sense in " standard velocities," 

 had it been impossible to increase velocities without also 

 increasing recoil ; but nobody believes that. The tendency 

 has not only been the other way, but it represents the one 

 and only great improvement in powders that has been made 

 since nitro propellers were first invented. There is still a large 

 proportion of recoil due to the " blast " after the shot has gone, 

 or the momentum of lost powder-gas. It is not nearly abolished, 



