------------------------------------- RICOCHET. 24-POUNDER HOWITZER. -----------+--------------+---------- Charge. | Elevation. | Pitch. -----------+--------------+---------- oz. | deg. | 6 | 7·5 | 400 9 | 4·38 | -- 8 | 9· | 500 10 | 7·5 | -- 11 | 6· | -- 11-1/2 | 5·5 | -- 12 | 5·25 | -- 14 | 5· | -- 9 | 7·75 | 600 12 | 6·5 | -- 16 | 4·75 | -- -----------+--------------+----------
Cartridges for either brass or iron guns are best made of some woollen material; trade serge or old blanketing answers very well for the purpose. Bags should be made a little less than the bore, and into these the charge of powder is to be poured. A piece of woollen thread, double worsted, or twine should now be used to close the end of the bag, after which it is to be passed two or three times round the bag, giving it at the same time a compact cylindrical form by rolling on a board or table under the hand. Passing the thread through the substance of the cartridge aids much in keeping its form and facilitates loading. A cartridge needle should be used to perform this operation. This needle can be easily made from a piece of stout copper or brass wire. Flatten out one end, drill or punch a hole in it to form the eye, and file the other end sharp for a point. Fourteen inches is a convenient length for a cartridge needle. It is said that a sailor's wife enabled a British vessel to continue a long and desperate fight by pillaging the officers' quarters of all the stockings she could find, and handing them up to be filled for cartridges. The intestines of animals, according to their size, would make as good cartridge cases as could be desired. Wads may be made of picked oakum twisted in a flat spiral to the proper size of the bore, when they are made to retain their shape by being secured here and there with fine twine passed through with the needle. In the absence of oakum, wooden wads may be made by first spokeshaving a stout pole to the size of the bore, and then sawing it up into convenient lengths.
Old guns which have been laid by will not uncommonly be found spiked, by having a common nail driven into the vent. If efficient tools are at hand this may be drilled out, if not, put a charge of powder in the gun, bore a gimlet hole in one of your wooden wads, through which pass a loosely-twisted string well impregnated with dissolved gunpowder, and afterwards dried. Cut the end of your prepared string just at the muzzle of the gun, light it, and get out of the way, when the explosion, which soon takes place, will not unfrequently expel the spike. A gun which has had its trunnions knocked off, with a view to rendering it useless, may be made nearly as effective as ever by cutting with the axe or adze a bed for it in a stout piece of log, of such a form that the cascabel of the gun and the breech end are rather more than half buried in solid wood. The log may now be trimmed off to convenient dimensions, and all made secure by a lashing of wet raw hide rope, which rests in a broad shallow notch cut in the log to receive it. The gun and its bed are thus, as the rope dries, held together by a material little less rigid than iron.