Morning journal and courier., 1881-08-15
SqrrnaI anS GOruier.
Monday Morning, August 15. 1881.
Great Guns Tried.
Weapons ExhibIted at am English School
 of Csumuarv.

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 Of Gunnery.
 lFrom the London Newsl
 Yesterday the Secretary of State for War, MT. G. O. Trevelyan. member of Parliament, representing the Admiralty, and the official chiefs of the various departments in the war office and the Admiralty, visited the school of gunnery at Shoeburyness, and witnessed the working of the weapons which there un- dergo trial. Nearly every class of gun was tried, including heavy siege guns, light field guns, machine guns designed to make three men more formidable than twenty armed with rifles, the Nordenfeldt one-inch bore machine gun for sinking torpedo boats, and also light and heavy ships guns, the latter including the powerful 43 ton gun on the Armstrong principal and with breach-loading gear of late design. On entering the war office grounds the party was conducted to earthworks in the marsh raised under the di- rection of Major Hime, R. E., and here were siege guns of different calibre, fit ed with self-elevating apparatus upon the principle of Major Monarieff, whereby the recoil force is stored to serve the purpose of raising the weapon to- the firing position. The siege guns attacked with common shell and battering shell some parallels 1000 yards distant be- hind which were placed dummy" soldiers. After the work with the siege artillery, re- presented by an S-inch muzzle- loading howit. ger, riaed field artillery, breech and muzzle loading, was brought into action, and fire common, ring, and shrapnel shell into the works. The parallels were then visited, and the t'dummies'' were seen to be very much injured; the earthworks, too, had been much broken up. The next work was with the ma chine guns-a five-barreled Gardner of the ordinary rife 0. .45 bore, two-barreled gun of similar bore, a one-barreled gun, and a ten -barreled Calling This last worked stiff ly, while the five barreled Gardner jammed twice. The two barre1ed Gardner has been favorably reported upon by the committee on machine guns who made the trials last win ter, and the weapon certainly worked well ;; but the superiority of two-b -barreled machine gun which would require three men to work it over three magazine guns in skilled hands would not be very great. The four-barreled navy Nordenfeldt for penetrating torpedo boats was tried against half-inch steel plates, and passed through them very cleanly. MT. Childers was much interested in this gun of which there are 400 in the navy, and MT. Nordenfeldt explained its working. The largest piece of ordance fired was the 43-ton gun designed for naval use. This weapon is 27 feet inches in length, and takes 2S5 pounds of prismatic powder. It is loaded at the breech. The recoil is received by hy- draulic buffers, and altogether the large piece of ordinance presents many ingenous mechan- ical arrangements. The gun fired shot and shell well, and the work as seen from the shore, both in the battery and at the range, was exceedingly interesting. The 25-pound- CT breech-loading gun, on naval carriage, was fired at 2,000 yards range the same gun on the Albini carriage, at 1000 yards, and the 8-inch Armstrong at 1000 yards. Ali ter visiting the other batteries, the party re- turned to town by special train.