12 OKEHAMPTON EXPERIENCES, 1894. 
doubtful observations. In some ranging series I have seen four wrong 
out of six rounds and yet no doubtful; with such a large propor- 
tion wrong, some must have been doubtful, and it would have been 
better to have classed them as such and repeated. A doubtful round 
entails only the loss of one round, whereas a wrong observation generally 
leads to several being lost. This same difficulty occurs in India, thus 
Colonel Murdoch in his report on Muridki says: “ Wrong observation 
was the most frequent fault; it must, at the same time, be admitted that 
the observation at Muridki is particularly difficult. A fault in obser- 
vation that was noticed frequently was declaring a round plus or minus 
when it was doubtful. Of course such a round should be recorded as 
‘not observed’ and be repeated even more than once if necessary.” 
HWXPERIMENTS. 
The Ordnance Committee have kindly allowed me to give the following 
notes of the experiments carried out at Okehampton this season. 
The Q/2-guns and equipment were again used by “ P” Battery, and 
were much liked by all who saw them, and it has, I believe, been 
definitely decided on for the Horse Artillery. The twist of rifling is to 
be further tested. Experiments so far appear to show that the lesser 
twist, 1/35, gives a closer pattern (the 1/28 covering about ten feet more 
at 75 yards burst), but the shell is not so well centred, and it is doubtful 
if the accuracy is sufficient to ensure good ranging. ‘lhe tubes were of 
a different pattern to those tried last year, and gave no trouble. 
Much interest was also taken in the trial of the 15-lb. shell carried out 
by the 75th Battery. 
The charge was 153 oz. cordite, giving a muzzle velocity of 1550 f.s. 
A radial vent was employed, and the tubes were almost identical to 
those used with the Q/2, and appeared very satisfactory. 
The shell has a base burster of 14 oz., and contains 216 bullets. 
Mark I. carriages were used, they were fitted with steel pockets, one 
on each side, to carry two fuzed shells and two cartridges, the two 
weighing | qr. 16 lbs. 
The service limbers and wagons were employed, the boxes being 
altered to carry fuzed 15-lb. shell and cordite. The number of rounds 
carried being as at present. I am unable to give the exact weight 
behind the team, but it is approximately the same as with 12-lb. shells. 
The weight gained by the use of cordite being about equal to the 
extra weight of shell, tubes and steel pockets. ‘Two of the guns were 
fitted with wheels similar to those on the Q/2 equipment, and they 
seemed to answer well. Should they be adopted there would be a gain 
of about 1 cwt. 
Two experiments were carried out to test the smoke-giving properties 
of shrapnel and ring shell. In the first, service shrapnel, shrapnel 
with special fuze, and ring were tried. In the second, shrapnel and 
ring; these latter were 15-lb. shell, the shrapnel had a base burster of 
1} oz., and the ring one of 44 oz. compressed powder down the centre. 
In both experiments the shrapnel came out best. It is hard to say 
why 13 oz. gave more smoke than 44 oz., butit certainly was so, and I 
can only imagine that the latter was not thoroughly consumed, 
