page_title: 68-pounder gun
section_title: Conversion to rifled muzzle loader
hierarchical_section_title: 68-pounder gun / Conversion to rifled muzzle loader
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of British RML 80 pounder 5 ton gun at Smiths Hill Fort, Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
context_page_description: The 68-pounder cannon was an artillery piece designed and used by the British Armed Forces in the mid-19th century. The cannon was a smoothbore muzzle-loading gun manufactured in several weights, the most common being 95 long cwt, and fired projectiles of 68 lb. Colonel William Dundas designed the 112 cwt version in 1841 and it was cast the following year. The most common variant, weighing 95 cwt, dates from 1846. It entered service with the Royal Artillery and the Royal Navy and saw active service with both arms during the Crimean War. Over 2,000 were made and it gained a reputation as the finest smoothbore cannon ever made.
  The gun was produced at a time when new rifled and breech loading guns were beginning to make their mark on artillery. At first the 68-pounder's reliability and power meant that it was retained even on new warships such as HMS Warrior, but eventually new rifled muzzle loaders made all smoothbore muzzle-loading guns obsolete. However, the large surplus stocks of 68-pounders were given new life when converted to take rifled projectiles; the cannon remained in service and was not declared obsolete until 1921.
context_section_description: The introduction of rifled muzzle loaders (also classed as RMLs) rendered smoothbore guns largely obsolete.  However, the 68-pounder and other smoothbores still existed in large numbers and various attempts were made to adapt the guns to fire new projectiles. Eventually Captain William Palliser patented a method of boring out the gun barrel and inserting a wrought iron rifled liner.  This allowed rifled shot and shells to be fired from old smoothbore cannon and experiments revealed that it made them even more powerful than they had been before. Introduced in 1872, 68-pounders adapted in this way had a calibre of 6.3 inches (16 cm) and were known as a RML 68-pounder, or officially as the
  RML 80-pounder 5 ton.  With a 10 lb (4.5 kg) powder charge they could fire an 80 lb (36 kg) projectile at a muzzle velocity of 1,240 feet per second (380 m/s). They were deployed as coast defence and garrison artillery around the British Empire and remained in service until eventually declared obsolete in 1921.
  At least two 68 pounders were converted to 7 inch 6.5 tons RML guns firing a 115 lb or 150 lb double shot.
caption: RML 80-pounder 5 ton gun at Smiths Hill Fort, Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
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