the dublin exhibition arrival of the armstrong guns Sir William Armstrong Elswick Ordnance Company 1865
The Armstrong Gun is a type of large rifled gun, first manufactured in England in 1855. It was designed by Sir William Armstrong and manufactured by the Elswick Ordnance Company and the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich. In 1854 Armstrong approached the Secretary of State for War, proposing that he construct a rifled breech-loading 3-pounder gun for trial. Later increased in bore to 5-pounder, the design performed successfully with respect to both range and accuracy. Over the next three years he developed his system of construction and adapted it to guns of heavier calibre. Armstrong's system was adopted in 1858, initially for "special service in the field" and initially he only produced smaller artillery pieces, 6-pounder ( in/64 mm) mountain or light field guns, 9-pounder (3 in/76 mm) guns for horse artillery, and 12-pounder (3 inches /76 mm) field guns. Armstrong did not consider his system suited to heavier guns but higher authorities had him develop a 20-pounder ( inches /95 mm) field gun, a 40-pounder ( inches (121 mm)) siege gun, and a 110-pounder (7 inches /180 mm) heavy gun. The Royal Navy used all these guns and all except the 20-pounder saw service in New Zealand. Armstrong's guns were constructed of wrought iron and used a "built-up" construction, comprising a tube holding the bore on to which were shrunk smaller tubes, a breech, and a trunnion ring. The guns' rifling was on the "polygroove" system; the bore of the gun had 38 grooves along its length with a twist of one turn per 38 calibres. The cast iron shells were similar in shape to a Minié ball and were coated in lead. This permitted the grooves to bite into the projectiles and impart the required spin. An innovative feature which is more usually associated with 20th-century guns was what Armstrong called its "grip", which was essentially a squeeze bore; the last 6 inches of the bore, at the muzzle end was of slightly smaller diameter, which centered the shell before it left the barrel an
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