IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE ORDNANCE MACHINE GUNS, AND SMALL ARMS
Year: 1882

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Robert Scipio Marsh de Ricci
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 11th April 1882.
ROBERT SCIPIO MARSH DE RICCI of Dover Street, Piccadilly in the County of
Middlesex, Barrister at Law "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE
ORDNANCE MACHINE GUNS, AND SMALL ARMS "
OF
The object of these improvements is to better enable guns, and especially heavy
ordnance, to withstand the prolonged strains set up within them under the
present system of gradual ignition of the charge and also to produce such
weapons more expeditiously and economically than heretofore.
The invention consists essentially in steeling the interior face of the gun barrel,
tube or lining after the gun has been bored and rifled but the precise details of the
manufacture will necessarily vary somewhat according to the class of gun to which
this process of manufacture is applied.
ور
In manufacturing, for example, a heavy gun of what is known as the "Woolwich'
pattern I construct an inuer tube of wrought iron having the fibre running
parallel to the longitudinal axis of the gun, and I shrink over this wrought iron
tube the various outer sections or jackets of the gun, constructed of coils and fitted
according to the system at present employed I next accurately bore and rifle
the gun and then convert the inner portion of the wrought iron tube or lining
into steel by fitting it with powdered charcoal and heating in a closed chamber,
or by carbonic acid gas under pressure or by any other convenient known
process.
I thus obtain a gun of great tensile strength and one especially well adapted to
resist the great endway strains which tends to produce "ring" fractures in the
inner steel tubes or linings now commonly employed for should a crack occur in
the steeled surface of the tube the further progress of the gas will be immediately
arrested by the wrought iron portion of my tube
If requisite I may "true" the boring and rifling after the steeling process has
been carried sufficiently far. Instead of enclosing the wrought iron tube by
jackets of coiled wrought iron I may employ steel or phosphor-bronze shrunk on,
cast, or otherwise applied; the gun being bored and rifled before the steeling
process is applied to the inner surface of the tube, by which method of
manufacture great economy of time is effected.

page_text: The invention may also be applied in the manufacture of solid wrought iron
forged guns, or of guns formed of coils without any inner lining, or to what are
known as "wire"
guns.
I may also steel the interior of lining tubes formed of wrought iron coils having
the fibre running transversely of the bore but I prefer the first described
arrangement.
The invention it will be understood is applicable with but slight modifications
to the manufacture of the barrels of machine guns and rifles.
I would remark that in constructing breech-loading guns according to my
invention preferably employ phosphor-bronze for the breech-pieces, and in
manufacturing field pieces and mountain guns I preferably employ the same
metal for the jacket coils; its lightness, strength, and security from dangerous
fracture by bursting, rendering it peculiarly well adapted for such weapons.