The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1898-07-21
Ripe California olives Mt Tripp &
D~ragstedt's, sos East Park.
MAKING SMokELess POWDER.
Brown Powder Will soon lie Superseded
by the ~smokeIes Kind.

1t has been remarkable that gunpow-
der is TO the gun what the soul is TO
n body. II gives IL life and makes II
or some account. 1t is the means TO an
end. Gunpowder drives the shot thar
h man behind the gun aims at the
enemy, ana enables him Gf he be as
skillful as most of the marksmen i'm
the United States navy arel TO demol-
ish his target. whether it b. a bird or
a man or a ship or a fort.
Ordinary gunpowder, the kind one
Buys In a store, is a mechanical mix
ture of rs parts of saltpetre, IL parts
of charcoal and 10 parts of sulphur.
Inc properties such a mixture possess
es may be altered to any desired ex-
tent by changing these proportions; the
method of treatment also modihes the
of the resulting powder. and
the size and shape of the grain like
wise influence the action of gunpowder.
To manufacture ~gunpowder quantI-
ties of each ingredient are thoroughly
mixed in the proper proportions, in a
machine called a mixer, the compost
tion from this is known as green pow
der. Green powder must be subjected
10 the Incorporating process, an ex-
tremely dangerous one, for it is in the
Incorporating room that nearly all pow
der mill explosions occur.
The green powder is put into a tub,
where heavy runners of three or four
tons weight grind il into a homogene-
Gus mixture. After Incorporation the
mill cake" as it is called, is crushed
between gun metal rollers, then it is
subjected to different treatment, ac-
cording to the kind of powder to be
produced, whether grain, pebble or
prismatic. Granulated powder is the
ordinary grain ~gunpowder of commerce..
Pebble powder. or giant powder. or
blasting powder-for all three are prac-
tically the same-is quite like a grain
powder, except hat each grain is of
the average size of a pebble. Prismat-
ic powder is the kind used in our serv-
ice to drive shot home, therefore a snort
description of it may not be uninterest-
ing.
The powder charges for the guns of
the United States navy are made up
of hexagonal prisms of brown gun
powder. Brown gunpowder contains
usually 50 parts Of inter, 3 parts of sui
phur and Is parts Of unburned char
coal, which account for the chocolate
color of the powder. Prismatic powder
passes through the same process as
other powders, only the grains are
pressed into prisms by hydraulic ma
chinery instead of being separated and
glazed. The prisms thus formed are
one inch high and three-quarters of an
MN va NHN HANNSs 10 iVNhN h'ANf
half al inch in diameter, through the
middle of each hexagon.
Powder charges for all of our gum
now using fixed ammunition with me-
tallic cartridge cases are put up in
wooden serge cartridge bags, the prisms
forming the charge being carefully
piled up in layers of the diameter of
the chamber of the gum, n on top of
the other, so that the holes in the piles
will be coincident. Brown prismatic
powder ignites slowly; it is therefore
necessary to put into each cartridge a
prism or two Of qufck-burning black
powder in the center of the bottom lay
er next to the breech plug. BY this
means the flame is quickly distributed
through the entire charge. Each full
charge in its bag is kept in a copper
cylinder with removable heads. This
cylinder is passed from the magazine
of the ship up to the gun, where the
ends are removed the charge
pushed into the gun chamber. All the
powder charges in service on board our
ships are brown prismatic, though
smokeless powder is being tried with a
view to its adoption.
Smokeless powder is so called because
when exploded ii produces no smoke.
As a matter of fact, however, a light,
thin, transparent vapor is usually seen,
but it quickly disappears. Smokeless
powders, from the nature of the ingre-