Morning journal and courier., 1880-09-04
Afghan Artillery.
nreeeh Loading Armstrong Gums Made
 by CabuI Smiths.

Loading Armstrong Guns Made by CabuI Smiths.
 lFrom the London Timesl
 In the hrst place, the Afghans have always
 had the reputation of being good gunners.
 They are nation of fighting men, and were accounted good marksmen even with their old 3aez0tGs. Moreover, the mutinous troops Of the WaI have been trained to the use of artillery by us, and doubtless many of these deserters have joined the forces of Ayoob
 In the second place, Shere Ali was an artil- lerlst by nature, and had for many years been
 engaged in perfecting his guns Shortly af-
 ter h1s return from visiting Lord Mayo in
 lo69, he assembled all the s'canning smiths'' In Cabul and gave orders that rifed guns were to be produced The members of Shere Ais Ordnance Select Committee had never had the advantage of passing through an tad vanced class, " but their intellects were sharp ened by to1erably shrewd notion of what would be the consequences of failure, and thelr ungmded skill was thus assisted by the mother of invention. The president, or chief smith, was sent to Peshawur with letters of introduction to our Commissioner, and was there afforded opportunities of visiting the workshops in the arsenal inspecting the breech-load1ng Armstrong guns and in oth- erw1ss making himself acquainted with the nature and methods of manufacture of mod ern weapons. He returned to Cabul with wooden models of various guns, including r1tied breech-loading Armstrongs and with more or less complete working drawings. A manufactory of rified guns and small arms was forthwith started in the Balia Hissar, forced labor to any extent being procurable among the smiths of Cabul, who have ever had nigh reputation for native skill. The result was some 90 rifed guns of various cal lbres, chiefly of the class of mountain and field Some of these guns were made of wrought-iron strips, laid side by side on a core, and welded together by hand with bands of iron subsequently, beaten on to keep the barrel together. The gun was then bored out by lathes driven by water power, and rltied by hand. The breech- block, vent piece, and other parts were forged by hend, ana the result was very fair imitation of an Armstrong breech-loading rif1ed gun. Doubt less the weapon would not have stood mony discharges of 9'oat71e 6qaStaLe, but it was quite equal to fair charge of Cabuli powder, and when nicely polished up, 1t made very cred ltable appearance. A large number of small bronze guns were also cast, and many of them rided by hand Shot and shell were copied from specimens brought from India, but the mysteries of the time-fuse appear to have baffled the willy Afghan. He succeeded making very fair powder in large quanti- ties, both coarse grain and fine grain, the per centage of ingredients beingthe same as with us, and he turned out very respectable cop per caps, but his attempts at fuse compost ton were not successful and his shells gen. orally either burst in the muzzle of the gun or in flight, or did not burst at all Large numbers of Snider cartridges were also made by hand in the Bala Hissar arsenal the cases being ''solid drawn' and thus capable of be- ing refilled many times. It has been comput- ed that at the time of Shere Ais death there were about 380 guns of different sorts in Af- ghanistan. We captured 256, or thereabouts, during 1879-e0 leaving 124 unaccounted for. Many of these are known to have been gent from Cabul to Turkistan and Herat, and it is by no means improbable that some of Shere Ais breech-1oading rifed Armstrong; may have been forwarded to the latter fortress, and that thus the presence of breech-loading guns with Ayoob's force may be accounted