60 
MINUTES OF PKOCEEDINGS OF 
powder with shot of 110 lbs., one of them reached 630 rounds without any 
symptom of failure further than that action, partly mechanical, partly 
chemical, of the inflamed gases on the grooves and interior, which occupies 
so much space in the Russian report; two others have fired 422 and 431 
rounds respectively. They have been since bored up to 8-inch guns. The 
reasons assigned for the bursting of the guns seem prompted by a needless 
desire to save the reputation of Krupp's steel. They evidently burst from 
over work, and the misgivings of those unnamed persons who conceived 
thereupon doubts as to the resistance of large steel guns, cannot be regarded 
as altogether unreasonable. 
There are several points to which the reader may be specially referred as 
bearing on questions but recently examined in this country: 
(1) That the life of a steel gun used with charges not exceeding i th (i 4 A) 
is only rated at 250 rounds, §§12 and 15. 
(2) The unqualified preference expressed for rifled guns over smooth- 
bored guns of larger calibre but of the same weight, § 15, 2. 
(3) Evidence of the indifferent shooting of a Blakely gun rifled on the 
American plan with a copper expanding base, § 17. 
(4) Evidence of the general superiority of breech-loading guns rifled on 
the forcing system adopted in the British and Prussian artillery, in point of 
accuracy, §§18, 20. 
(5) Proof of the satisfactory performance of breech loading guns with a 
charge as high as 27*5 lbs. § 20, 24, although it is very evident that neither 
the quality of Krupp's steel nor the mechanical means employed to prevent 
escape of gas are as yet a complete security against that guttering of 
the end of the bore and the sides of the breech piece, which leads to the 
necessity of occasionally refacing the corresponding surfaces in the Armstrong 
system. 
(6) Indications of defective centering in the Prussian system of breech 
loading from which the British system is free, § 22. 
It only remains for the translator to apologize for a certain obscurity 
and hesitation of style which may be criticised in these pages. He has 
endeavoured to reproduce the Prench version before him as faithfully as 
possible, and it is curiously characterized by those defects; whether they 
belong to the original, and whether that is in Buss or German, is to him 
unknown. 
Woolwich, 
27tli November, 1865, 
