HEAVY GUNS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1244, 2 October 1875, Page 19

HEAVY GUNS.

Captain Price, M. P., writes to tho Times and submits a practical test of tho efficiency of tne heavy gunß now employed in the navy. Let Her Majesty'a Bhip Mon iron (he says) be ordered to go out to sea, and to go through exactly the same trials with her guns which she would have to undergo in an engagement with, an iron-plated battery or ship. Lee her go through this mock engagement with an imaginary enemy at close quarters, firing only such charges as would be used in such a case. Let her continue the action with the greatest possible rapidity for four hours in the morning and four hours in the afternoon. Let her, if she is in a conditioa to do so, renew the engagement next day at a distance from her supposed enemy, using elevations of sdeg. to Bdf g. ; and Captain Price ventures to stake his professional reputation &s a gunnery officer that, before tbat ship has fired 200 rounds from each of her guns one half of them will be disabled. In all the so-called tests which have been applied at ShoeburyneFs to the heavier guns, they have (Captain Price adds) invariably been carefully nursed } they have not beeu fired with elevation, which increases the strain upon a gun ; nor have they been fired with rapidity, long intervals being givoa between the rounds, the experiments extending over monthß. The gun. in a heated state, is under a totally different condition, as regards the crystalline state of the metal, the relaxed grip of the contracted outer coils) and the increased pressure of the gases which act as superheated steam. Uflder these con. diticnp they have never hitherto bsg^ twt«d,