IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF GUNPOWDER AND CARTRIDGES FOR ORDNANCE OR FIRE-ARMS
Year: 1880

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by George Vincent Fosbery at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 13th September 1880.
A communication from abroad by Henry Studer, of Paris, France.
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GEORGE VINCENT FOSBERY, of Paris, France, now temporarily of 8, Southampton
Buildings, London. "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF GUNPOWDER AND
CARTRIDGES FOR ORDNANCE OR FIRE-ARMS." A communication from abroad by
Henry Studer, of Paris, Franco.
My Invention relates to improvements in the manufacture of gunpowder and
cartridges, which are more especially designed for artillery, but which may be
adapted for use in other arms.
The said Invention particularly relates to powder compressed and formed into
blocks or bars of a polygonal or prismatic form with external grooves of truncated
angles, and consists in so forming the exterior surfaces of said blocks that when
they are made up into cartridges, for use in ordnance or other fire-arms, the
truncated angles or grooves on the surfaces of some or all the blocks forming the
cartridge will coincide with each other, and I thus, without perforating the blocks,
form air spaces and passages for the flame throughout the mass, thereby facilitating
the ignition of the charge, diminishing the strain on the gun, and promoting that
regularity of combustion and gradual development of force so essential to the
attainment of high and regular velocities, combined with moderate and easily
regulated pressures in the gun-chamber.
I am aware that solid blocks of powder have been used for charging ordnance,
but the disadvantages of this form of powder are now generally acknowledged.
I am also aware that perforated prisms have been and are now used for the above
purpose, but the machinery employed in the production of these perforated prisms
is both costly and delicate, and has the disadvantage of rendering necessary the
use of very short prisms and comparatively large holes or perforations.
But according to my Invention the prismatic blocks or bare of powder may be
made of any desired length by being compressed laterally into suitable grooves and
between dies of the proper form.
This process will ensure equal pressures, and therefore equal density, throughout
very long blocks or prismatic rods or bars of powder, a result impossible to obtain
when pressure is applied upon the ends of such blocks of gunpowder. Moreover
it will be practicable to make a more rigid cartridge than beretofore, and

page_text: one in which there will be no movement amongst the blocks in transport, and
consequently there will be no formation of dust, which with the present powder
prisms is so liable to interfere with the regular ignition of the cartridge and with
the preservation of the powder.
In these long prismatic blocks, grooves surrounding them at regular intervals
may be formed so as to provide horizontal as well as vertical passages through the
charge, and the blocks may be formed with concave or hollow instead of straight
lines for the same purpose.
I do not limit myself to the use of polygons, of which every angle is broken, or
which have a groove in every side, or to one or any other number of grooves in
a side, nor to any particular form or direction of such grooves, but in all cases I
so form the solid or unperforated blocks of powder that when two or more of
them are placed in juxta position in a cartridge, grooves or passages will he left
between them, and these grooves or passages will be in such number and of such
a size and section as may be found by experiment to be best suited to the guns
for which they are designed.