It must be well known to any one versed in mechanics, that an anchor-shank weighing some hundredweights is more easily broken than iron one-twentieth part of the weight, which has had the advantage of being forged by hammers where the blows were felt through the whole mass. This cannot be the case in forging large barrels, as the workmen cannot use hammers heavy enough; consequently the barrel is turned out of hand with the pores more open than a piece of cast iron. They have tried this with large guns for the artillery, and it has repeatedly failed, entirely from the want of sufficient power to compress the iron.
All guns, therefore, of an unusual size, are not of strength in proportion to a small gun; hence the reason they cannot with safety be charged up to the corresponding scale. Neither are they of the length they should be, if the bore is to be the criterion. It must be remembered that to be charged in proportion, the pressure on the inch should be as many times the pressure on the inch of the small gun, as the one is the number of times larger than the other. If we come exactly to the real state of the case, we doubt much (when taking into consideration the difference of surface) that the pressure on the inch in the large gun is equal even to that on a small gun. The comparison might be carried up to the largest artillery, and I doubt whether it would come up to this scale; as it is well known that the heaviest guns will not throw their projectile as far in proportion as the small gun, because you dare not generate the force required to do it. The same principle is applicable to artillery as to fowling-pieces.
From the above data, I would say, never make duck-guns above seven-eighths in the bore, if you wish them to kill at a great distance; and not less than fifteen or sixteen pounds weight, and full four feet long; because then you can generate strength sufficient. Therefore, instead of the large stanchion-guns being one hundred pounds weight, they should, strictly speaking, be two hundred, and so on. In proof of this I may just mention that, upon repeated experiments, I have ascertained that a double stanchion-gun, with each barrel of the same bore, weight, and length, as a single gun, will kill further than the latter; simply owing to the advantage of the greater weight of the double gun. I have made observations, when trying moderate-sized and shoulder duck-guns on that fine level piece of sand before spoken of, and by tracing the grazing of the shots I have been enabled to pick them up. The large shot from the duck-gun, mostly No. 2, I found scarcely 400 yards from the spot where she was fired; the small shot, five and six, from a fourteen bore, were repeatedly picked up at 350 yards: thus showing that the large gun had not much advantage; but yet making probable many assertions made of killing at seventy, eighty, and sometimes a hundred yards, with a common-sized gun. By this it appears possible; for shot that will fly that distance must kill, if it hit during its flight through the first quarter of such a range; but then, at a single bird, above fifty-five or sixty yards, it is always twenty to one against hitting the object at all; as the pellets begin to separate rapidly at that distance, though their force is still sufficient, and in large flocks is apt to do execution.