456 
MINUTES OE PROCEEDINGS OE 
Shrapnel shells, Boxer . Contains balls of lead and antimony packed in 
rosin on a perforated diaphragm plate of wrought-iron beneath which is a 
powder chamber taking a bursting charge of 8 drs. shell F. G. powder. 
The shell is weakened by lines of least resistance, the head is filled with 
wood. 
Weight filled, with primer, 7 lbs. 8 oz. 2 dr. 
Length, 5'5 inches. • 
They are issued filled and with a primer screwed into the passage down 
the axis of the shell to the bursting charge. They have been found very 
effective up to 600 yards. 
Case Shot. Consists of a tin case with tin and wrought-iron bottom and 
a lining of three thin wrought-iron plates running longitudinally like the 
staves of a barrel. Inside are thirty-six one ounce iron balls packed in 
coal dust. 
Weight, 5 lb. 3 oz. 12 drs. 
Length, 5 inches. 
It gives good effect at 200 yards range, but it has been suggested to 
substitute small balls of mixed metal as more effective at very short ranges. 
Indeed, on abrupt and rocky ground and across ravines, case shot, many of 
which graze very near the muzzle and so depend for their effect almost 
wholly on ricochet, are of avail only at the shortest ranges. 
Cartridges , are white serge hooped with blue braid and choked with 
worsted, containing 6 oz. of F. G. powder; they are packed in paper bags, 
twenty are carried in centre box along mules backs. Vide centre mule 
bottom of sketch. 
Fuzes. 
Fuze 10 -seconds M.L.R.O. Boxer special resembles Boxer's M.L.O. 
9-seconds fuze,* but differs in being of the common gauge and having 
a calico strip (without a metal one) to cover the quickmatch laid round 
head in groove, which being larger in quantity causes it to bulge in a 
projecting ring, the quickmatch is divided across to stick out on uncapping 
and ignite more readily. 
Fuze 5 -seconds M. L. R. O. Boxer special, resembles the above, but is 
driven with mealed powder, and so burns only five seconds, the divisions 
giving half-tenths. It is painted red (which colour in a fuze signifies 
mealed powder), it is specially designed for the shrapnel shell. 
N.B.—It may here be noticed that the marking of the fuze appears false, 
that is, the divisions marked half-tenths are not real half-tenths of inches, 
but at such a distance apart as corresponds to half a tenth of an inch of 
ordinary fuze composition, so that any one taking up either of the above 
fuzes, or the 15-seconds fuze given below, and setting it to some given 
length, will read off the figure given and bore it correctly, irrespective of 
which fuze it may be. 
Tubes, friction, copper, differ from the copper friction tubes of the service 
only in being 2*1" long. 
* Vide p, 426; 
