National Republican., 1883-10-03
OLD GUNS AND NEW.
What the Government Has Done and Is Doing
With the Weapons Used in the Late War.
The Market for Old Flint Locks-Tostlng
Cannon Tor Coast Defense.

The ordnance department Of the army is
devoting much time and attention Just now
to series Of proposed experiments with large
guns for seacoast defense, the new multi
charge cannon being included among the
number. A REPUBLICAN reporter learned
from one Of the ordnance officers last evening
that the principal and most interesting ex-
pertinent will be made with guns whose bores
have beon heightened and their chambers
enlarged. The enlarged chamber will be
loaded with slow burning powder, which
it is thought will increase the velocity of the
projectilo as IL moves along the heightened
bore to the mugzle, beyond the already re-
corded velocity of 1900 feet per second. The
features of enlarged chamber, heightened
bore, and slow burning powder are new, and
the experiments will be watched with interest,
as they Will, in measure, compete with the
trials to be made about the same time with
the twenty-five ton multi-charge gun. Refer
ring TO the vast number of old muzzle loading
small arms which accumulated during
and after the late war, the speaker said
that large quantity of them had been
sold from time to time. They were purchased
by grand army posts, military companies,
aud private individuals all over tho United
States. One lot Of oyer $4,000 Enfield muskets
were sold to au English firm at $1.25 each.
The firm have been trying to speculate with
them ever since. The lot has been offered to
several South American republics but they
yet remain unsold. The supply of old flint
lock muskets in possession of the gov
ernment is very limited, but strange
to say, those ,-primeval pieces are
still in demand. Any number of them
can be sold in Africa, where they are popular
on account of the presence of flint there in
abundance and the entire absence Of percus-
sion cap factories. An African army armed
with flint lock muskets would feel much safer
than If they were equipped with tho most ap-
proved breech or muzzle leaders, because the
soil would furnish their caps and bullets,
too, If necessary.
Being asked the number of old arms on
hand in the government arsenal, the officer
replied that it would aggregate 100000 oil all
kinds They are being sold nearly every day
at prices ranging from twenty-five cents to 81
each The latter-pricod pieces are complete
and the former either incomplete or badly
rusted. Over two-thirds of the Grand
Army of the Republic posts in
this country have been supplied
from the collection of Belgian and Austrian
muskets used during the first part of the war.
These posts and numerous military compa-
nies have also been equipped with old waist
belts, plates, bayonet scabbards, and cap
boxes. The above equipment complete, with
gum is sold at Sl.4O. When new the Same
guns cost tho United States from $14 to $l5
FLASHED in the sunlight" on many memoir
able field, are sold at 81 piece, the belts
and plates costing 25 cents additional.
Sporting dealers are rapidly buying up all the
old smooth bore muskets, for which they pay
81. In many instances they are sent to Eng
land or France and converted into breech
loading shotguns. The former muskets, with
war histories attached, are then imported "
to this country and sold as foreign goods.
Very few of the captured or surrendered con-
federate guns are in possession of the
ordnance department. After the surren-
der at Appomattox confederate muskots
were stacked up like cord wood and sold at
auction. Many of them were bought by the
colored people, who still preserve them in
their households as guardians and shotguns.
Old cannon cannot be sold. They must be
appropriated by congress, which is done al
most every year, as ornaments for public
parks, monuments, and cemeteries. The
officer concluded with the significant remark
that no small arms can be sold unless they
arc unserviceable, and therefore "any person
who fires one of them off should certainly
have his life insured in advance"