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Round shot or solid shot or a cannonball or simply ball A solid spherical projectile made, in early times, from dressed stone but, by the 17th century, from iron. The most accurate projectile that could be fired by a smooth-bore cannon, used to batter the wooden hulls of opposing ships, forts, or fixed emplacements, and as a long-range anti ...
Fouling shot: A fouling shot is a shot fired through a clean bore, intended to leave some residue of firing and prepare the bore for more consistent performance in subsequent shots. The first shot through a clean bore behaves differently from subsequent shots through a bore with traces of powder residue, resulting in a different point of impact.
A French blunderbuss, called an espingole, 1760, France Musketoon, blunderbuss and coach gun from the American Civil War era. The flared muzzle is the defining feature of the blunderbuss, differentiating it from large caliber carbines; the distinction between the blunderbuss and the musketoon is less distinct, as musketoons were also used to fire shot, and some had flared barrels.
Henry II of France opted for six sizes of cannons, [92] but others settled for more; the Spanish used twelve sizes, and the English sixteen. [93] [94] Better powder had been developed by this time as well. Instead of the finely ground powder used by the first bombards, powder was replaced by a "corned" variety of coarse grains.
Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder during the late 19th century. Cannons vary in gauge , effective range , mobility , rate of fire , angle of fire and firepower ; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees, depending on their intended use on the ...
Black powder produces gas at a predictable rate unaffected by pressure, while the gas production rate of smokeless powder increases with increasing pressure. [6] The possibility of runaway pressures caused smokeless powder to destroy many firearms designed for black powder and required much more precise measurement of propellant charges.
The canister round is known as a case, so canister was sometimes called case shot and the term has confusingly become generic for grapeshot and shrapnel shells. [1] However, the term case shot is also used to describe a hollow ball containing a powder charge and bullets. After firing the iron ball the powder would explode, scattering the bullets.
Powder in the magazine could be reloaded through a hatch on the underside of the powder carrier if the powder magazine was located under the lock. [ 23 ] [ 1 ] On Kalthoff guns with the magazine in the stock, the magazine was refilled through a hole covered by a sliding lid in the butt-plate, or through a hole uncovered by removing a screw on ...