OUR MODERN GUNS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LIII, Issue 9301, 7 March 1907, Page 2

OUR MODERN GUNS.

Modern heavy guns will stand enormous pressures without failure, and. deliver projectiles of 'extraordinary toughness and ; hardness, at velocities which were undreamed of a few years ago, and with'un accuracy of fire in the first few rounds which leaves nothing to be desired. At present the powder is not equal to the gun, not at least in respect of its accuracy and reliability; but as soon as a powder has been niad© which is perfectly stable and can be lelied upoa to give unvarying results for a given charge in a given gun, the art of heavygun manufacture will have been brought with one very serious exception to & point of practical perfection. The- exception is gun erosion, or the more or less rapid wearing away of tlhe bore of the gun by the action of the powder gases. Gnu erosion is a trouble which, in some guns, after a few Tounds have been fired, entirely upsets the calculations as to their range and accuracy, and the projectile is not given a sufficient speed of rotation about its axis to lna.-infaiin the axis parallel with the line of flight, and the shell begins to tumble end over «nd.