per square inch. This gauge is made of the best steel, and is very
compact, the weight being inside of twenty-five pounds.
The inventor has heretofore made mercury column gauges for gunpowder
pressures, which were too large for direct attachment to guns, but were
connected with special powder chambers to test the pressure, etc., of
confined explosives. The experience thus gained enabled the construction
of the instrument here shown, which is adapted to direct attachment to
the gun, making it as easy now to measure gunpowder pressures as it had
been, heretofore, to measure steam pressures. The effect of this movement
is to reduce the exaggerated statement of high pressures, obtained from
ordinary sporting powders; these have been accredited with pressures up
to 40,000 lb. per square inch, but they only really gave 22,000 lb. by
actual gauge measurement. Artillerists and ordnance officers have, in
this instrument, a true pulse of the internal pressures of the gun, of
inestimable value when determining the quantity of powder and the proper
weight of shot. These are important matters in ordnance practice.
This gauge is a compact machine, designed to measure and indicate the
quick pressures resulting from gunpowder explosives and the slow
pressures of hydraulic force; the same mechanism used in both cases
permits the ready testing and examination of gauge under hydraulic
pressure, to determine its accuracy, for the more sudden pressure
occasioned by the use of gunpowder.
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