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Improvements in fire-arms
Jmprovements in Fire-arms.
345
trian service, of this safe method of using it in guns, and also of improvements in its manufacture, rendering it both less liable to spontaneous combustion and in every way safer, both to store and to handle, than when manufactured as formerly, have caused more attention to be given to gun-cotton in this country, both by military and by civil engineers, during the last twelve months, than ever before. Considerable quantities of it have been manufactured lately by Messrs. Thomas Prentice and Co., of Stowmarket; and among miners and. civil engineers, for whose special purposes it possesses great advantages over gunpowder, it has been growing rapidly into favor. As an illustration of the value of the advantage which is constituted by its explosion producing no smoke, Mr. Scott Russel in the lecture just quoted from, stated, that if gun-cotton were to be used instead of gunpowder in the completion of the tunnel which is being bored througl~ Mont Cenis, the final completion of that great enterprise would bo hastened many months, owing to the workmen being able to return to their tasks almost the instant after an explosion of gun-cotton, whereas after an explosion of gunpowder, under such circumstances as irt the Moat Cenis tunnel, the air in the immediate neighborhood is unbreathable for a considerable time. Captain Schultze's powder, however, as we have seen, shares with gun-cotton both this and all the other advantages of that substance, and possesses in addition several important advantages which are exclusively its own.
Improvements in ~ire-arms. Translated for the Jour na l of the Franklin Institute.
Mr. Seguier presented to the French Academy of Sciences a very interesting memorial upon improvements in fire-arms. The idea which underlies his proposed improvements is that of putting the ball in motion at first gradually and increasing the pressure upon it as it gains velocity, under such conditions that all the force of the explosion may be exhausted before the ball leaves the gun. For this purpose various expedients are suggested: the ignition of the charge first at its front part immediately in contact with the ball ; the interposition of an air-space between the charge and the ball, so that the air may act by its elasticity, (neither of these proposals are new ;) the forming the charge of two kinds of powder, a slow burning to be first ignited, and a more rapid to act on the ball after its inertia had been overcome. A modification of this latter consists in using gun-cotton in place of the rapidly burning powder. The cartridges made upon thin principle by Mr. Chaudeur, are claimed as giving the following advantages : 1st. An economy, by avoiding the loss of powder thrown out of the piece unburnt. This is gained by igniting the front part of the charge. 2d. A reduction of the recoil, by the insertion of an air-chamber between the breech-piece and the charge. 8d. An increase of the range, by the combination of slow and quick burning powders in the same cartridge.--Gosmos.
345
trian service, of this safe method of using it in guns, and also of improvements in its manufacture, rendering it both less liable to spontaneous combustion and in every way safer, both to store and to handle, than when manufactured as formerly, have caused more attention to be given to gun-cotton in this country, both by military and by civil engineers, during the last twelve months, than ever before. Considerable quantities of it have been manufactured lately by Messrs. Thomas Prentice and Co., of Stowmarket; and among miners and. civil engineers, for whose special purposes it possesses great advantages over gunpowder, it has been growing rapidly into favor. As an illustration of the value of the advantage which is constituted by its explosion producing no smoke, Mr. Scott Russel in the lecture just quoted from, stated, that if gun-cotton were to be used instead of gunpowder in the completion of the tunnel which is being bored througl~ Mont Cenis, the final completion of that great enterprise would bo hastened many months, owing to the workmen being able to return to their tasks almost the instant after an explosion of gun-cotton, whereas after an explosion of gunpowder, under such circumstances as irt the Moat Cenis tunnel, the air in the immediate neighborhood is unbreathable for a considerable time. Captain Schultze's powder, however, as we have seen, shares with gun-cotton both this and all the other advantages of that substance, and possesses in addition several important advantages which are exclusively its own.
Improvements in ~ire-arms. Translated for the Jour na l of the Franklin Institute.
Mr. Seguier presented to the French Academy of Sciences a very interesting memorial upon improvements in fire-arms. The idea which underlies his proposed improvements is that of putting the ball in motion at first gradually and increasing the pressure upon it as it gains velocity, under such conditions that all the force of the explosion may be exhausted before the ball leaves the gun. For this purpose various expedients are suggested: the ignition of the charge first at its front part immediately in contact with the ball ; the interposition of an air-space between the charge and the ball, so that the air may act by its elasticity, (neither of these proposals are new ;) the forming the charge of two kinds of powder, a slow burning to be first ignited, and a more rapid to act on the ball after its inertia had been overcome. A modification of this latter consists in using gun-cotton in place of the rapidly burning powder. The cartridges made upon thin principle by Mr. Chaudeur, are claimed as giving the following advantages : 1st. An economy, by avoiding the loss of powder thrown out of the piece unburnt. This is gained by igniting the front part of the charge. 2d. A reduction of the recoil, by the insertion of an air-chamber between the breech-piece and the charge. 8d. An increase of the range, by the combination of slow and quick burning powders in the same cartridge.--Gosmos.