168 THE SHOOTER'S GUIDE. 



Proof of Barrels. 



The methods of proving gun-barrels are very nu- 

 merous, and many of them by no means satisfactory. 

 The Tower proof is made with a bullet exactly fit- 

 ting the calibre of the piece, and a charge of powder 

 equal in weight to the bullet : this proof is generally 

 supposed to be a safe one. 



There arc some gun-smiths, it seems, who pride 

 themselves on making their barrels undergo a second 

 proof: if a barrel, however, bears any assigned 

 proof, it will most likely sustain the same immediate- 

 ly after with greater safety; since the metal, from 

 being warmed with the first fire, the barrel is less 

 liable to burst from the force of a second discharge. 



The author of La Chasse au Fusil says, a stronger 

 proof than ordinary might be made by ramming 

 down, on the top of the powder, six or eight inches 

 of dry clay. I have little doubt, however, that this 

 proof would burst any barrel ; as the hardest rocks 

 are torn in pieces by means of dry clay, strongly 

 rammed over powder that is placed at the bottom of 

 a cylindrical cavity made in t^em ; and we certainly 

 cannot expect that a force sufficient to rend in pieces 

 immense blocks of granite can be resisted by the 

 comparatively trifling thickness and strength of a 

 gun-barrel. 



Another proof, preferable beyond a doubt to the 



