Brooke rifle The Brooke rifle was a type of rifled , muzzle - loading naval and coast defense gun designed by John Mercer Brooke , an officer in the Confederate States Navy . They were produced by plants in Richmond , Virginia and Selma , Alabama between 1861 and 1865 during the American Civil War . They served afloat on Confederate ships and ashore in coast defense batteries manned by the Confederate States Army . Design and production . Brookes can be identified by the presence of at least one band of wrought iron at the breech and a rough - finished , tapering barrel . The barrels were made of cast iron for ease of manufacture , but one or more wrought iron bands was welded around the chamber to reinforce it against the high chamber pressure exerted when the gun fired . Because no southern foundries had the capacity to wrap the rifles in a single band like the Parrott design , a series of smaller bands were used , each usually thick and wide . All of Brooke ' s rifles used the same seven - groove rifling with a right - hand twist . Most of Brooke ' s guns had a Gomer - style powder chamber , shaped like a truncated cone with a hemispherical tip , but the 6 . 4 - inch rifles had a simple hemispherical powder chamber . These weapons were manufactured at the Tredegar Iron Works ( sometimes referred to as J . R . Anderson & Co , after owner Joseph Reid Anderson ) in Richmond , Virginia and at Selma Naval Ordnance Works in Selma , Alabama . Markings . Guns manufactured at Selma bear the foundry imprint " S " , those from Tredegar " TF " . " R . N . O . W " may be found on some guns as they were bored and rifled by the Richmond Naval Ordnance Works in Richmond , Virginia after a fire in May 1863 temporarily crippled Tredegar ' s boring shop . Types . 6 . 4 - inch Rifle . Brooke reported fourteen single - banded rifles were completed by 8 January 1863 , although Tredegar records only list eleven as some were double - banded before being shipped . Three were cast in 1861 with the remainder in 1862 . Two of the earliest were mounted on the broadside of the ironclad CSS " Virginia " . Two were mounted fore and aft on pivot carriages aboard the ironclad gunboat CSS " Neuse " . Two others were mounted on the broadside of the ironclad CSS " Atlanta " and survive today in Willard Park of the Washington Navy Yard . Double - banded rifles were produced from 28 October 1862 by direction of Stephen Mallory , Confederate Secretary of the Navy . Twenty - four were cast by Tredegar between 1862 and 1864 while Selma cast twenty - seven , but only fifteen were shipped due to casting problems . Five of the damaged gun blocks were rebored as double - banded smoothbores . Nine survivors exist , including four from CSS " Tennessee II " and one from CSS " Albemarle " . 7 - inch Rifle . The first seven single - banded were bored and rifled from Dahlgren gun blocks between July and December 1861 . Two of these were the front and rear pivot guns of the CSS " Virginia " . Tredegar made another nineteen to the Brooke pattern between 1862 and 1863 of which three survive . Two of these are found at the Washington Navy Yard as trophies from CSS " Atlanta " . Selma cast fifty - four double - banded rifles in 1863 and 1864 , but only shipped thirty - nine due to casting flaws . Tredegar cast thirty - six between 1863 and 1865 . Eight survive , two as trophies from CSS " Tennessee II " , one in the Washington Navy Yard and the other in Selma . Three triple - banded rifles were cast by Tredegar in 1862 . These were longer than the other 7 - inch rifles and were unique among Brooke guns in that they lacked cast trunnions . Instead a separate trunnion strap was fitted around the breech . One was mounted on the CSS " Richmond " and another was sent to the harbor defenses of Charleston , South Carolina where it remains as a trophy in Ft . Moultrie . 8 - inch Rifle . Tredegar cast four double - banded rifles in April and May 1864 . One was mounted in CSS " Virginia II " while another was sent to the batteries defending the James River . It was present , but lacked shells during the fighting at Dutch Gap Canal on 13 August and 22 October 1864 . Shells were delivered on 27 October and 2 November 1864 . No known survivors . Brooke smoothbores . Brooke designed a series of smoothbores that were produced in small numbers by the Selma and Tredegar foundries . Selma re - bored five flawed 6 . 4 - inch blanks as 8 - inch double - banded guns , one of which survives in Selma , Alabama . Brooke ' s 1863 report to Secretary Mallory shows a plate of an unbanded 8 - inch smoothbore , but nothing further is known of it . Similar attempts to bore out flawed 7 - inch gun blocks to smoothbores were unsuccessful . Seven double - banded guns were cast by Selma and four by Tredegar in 1864 . Two survive , one of which is a trophy from CSS " Columbia " in the Washington Navy Yard . Selma cast twelve 11 - inch double - banded smoothbores in 1864 , although only eight were shipped . One survives in Columbus , Georgia . In 1863 and 1864 two 11 - inch triple - banded guns were cast by Tredegar , but none are known to survive . Ammunition . Brooke ' s rifles fired both armor - piercing and explosive shells of his own design . The former were solid cylindrical projectiles with a blunt or flat nose to reduce the chance of a ricochet , and were often referred in contemporary accounts as " bolts " . The latter were hollow cylinders with rounded or pointed noses . They were filled with black powder with a fuse set to detonate a variable amount of time after being fired . His smoothbores used spherical solid shot for armored targets and hollow spherical explosive shells against unarmored targets .