THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
203 
The Special Committee on Iron, in recording the marked success obtained 
with some of Major Palliser’s shot which were fired at Shoeburyness last 
May, state :— 
“ It must, however, be remarked that Captain Palliser has used in some of his 
experiments a material to which, perhaps, some of the superiority may be attributed; 
and the Committee are unable to apportion the exact value which may be due in 
part to the material, and in part to the chilling process.’’ 
An experiment will shortly take place with a view of deciding this point; 
but under any circumstances it is quite evident that if shot can be manu¬ 
factured uniformly, possessing the qualities of those of chilled cast-iron 
which were fired at the “ Small Plate ” target,*—viz. sufficient hardness for 
penetration without the toughness of steel shot—they will be infinitely 
superior to the latter for use against Iron-clads, for we shall then obtain the 
advantage of langridge which is lost by using steel shot. The saving of 
expense, by employing chilled cast-iron shot in place of steel, would also be 
very great. 
As the tensile strength of cast-iron is considerably increased by frequent 
melting, it was considered desirable to ascertain whether metal thus treated 
could be advantageously used for shot. Por this experiment 40-pr. Arm¬ 
strong shot were cast from metal 4 times melted, 8 times melted, and 12 
times melted, but each description proved inferior to the 40-pr. service 
shot. 
The last experiment with cast-iron shot to which I shall refer, is one 
which was made in order to determine the amount of damage which could 
be inflicted on an iron-clad vessel by means of solid shot fired from a 13" sea 
service mortar at a low angle of elevation, if, in case of emergency, owing 
to the absence of heavy guns, it should ever be found necessary to employ 
ordnance of this nature under such conditions. 
The elevation of the mortar was 2°, and the shot, which had a mean weight 
of 279 lbs., were fired with a charge of 20 lbs. at Scott Russell’s target (8J" 
of iron) at 200 yds. range. 
Three rounds were fired; the first shot struck the bull’s eye, the second 
missed the target, and the third struck the target 6 ft. above and 3ft. right 
of the point aimed at; the mean indent of the two shot which struck was 
3’7", and the plates were much damaged by the blow, but the Committee in 
their Report state,— 
“ The result showed that no reliance can be placed on the accuracy of a mortar 
fired under such circumstances.” 
The initial velocity of the shot was 788 ft. per second, and the terminal 
velocity 768 ft. 
Table A shows the results obtained from cast-iron shot fired from various 
guns at iron armour. 
* Yide p. 177. 
