At the moment of
combustion, it is enormously expanded by heat, and its volume is
probably somewhat about 6,000 times that of the powder. I have here a
few specimens of the powders used for different sizes of guns, rising
from the fine grain of the mountain gun to the large prisms and
cylinders fired in our heavy ordnance. You will readily perceive that,
with the fine-grained powders, the rapid combustion turned the whole
charge into gas before the projectile could move far away from its seat,
setting up a high pressure which acted violently on both gun and shot,
so that a short, sharp strain, approximating to a blow, had to be
guarded against.
With the large slow-bursting powders now used, long heavy shells move
quietly off under the impulse of a gradual evolution of gas, the
presence of which continues to increase till the projectile has moved a
foot or more; then ensues a contest between the increasing volume of the
gas, tending to raise the pressure, and the growing space behind the
advancing shot, tending to relieve it. As artillery science progresses,
so does the duration of this contest extend further along the bore
of the gun toward the great desideratum, a low maximum pressure long
sustained.
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