fire arm, or weapon of offence, which forcibly discharges a ball, shot, or other offensive matter, thro' a cylindrical barrel, by means of gun-powder. See Gun-powder.
Gun is a general name, under which are included divers or even most species of fire-arms. They may be divided into great and small.
Great guns, called also by the general name cannon, make what we also call ordnance, or artillery; under which come the several sorts of cannons, as cannon-royal, demi-cannon, &c. Culverins, demi-culverins, sakers, minions, falcons, &c. See Cannon.
Small guns include musquets, musquetoons, carbines, blunderbusses, fowling pieces, &c. See Musquet, &c.
Pistols and mortars are almost the only sort of regular weapons, charged with gun-powder, that are excepted from the denomination of guns. See Pistol and Mortar.
The advantage of large guns, or cannons, over those of a smaller bore, is generally acknowledged. Robins observes, that this advantages arises from several circumstances, particularly in distant cannonading. The distance to which larger bullets fly with the same proportion of powder, exceeds the flight of the smaller ones, almost in proportion to their diameters; so that a thirty two pound shot, for instance being somewhat more than six inches in diameter, and a nine pound shot but four inches; the thirty-two pound will fly near half as far again as that of nine pound, if both pieces are so elevated as to range to the farthest distance possible. Another and more important advantage of heavy bullets is, that with the same velocity they break holes in all solid bodies, in a greater proportion than their weight. weight. Finally, large cannons, by carrying the weight of their bullet in grape or lead shot, may annoy the enemy more effectually than could be done by ten times the number of small pieces. See Gunnery.
The author here quoted, has proposed to change the fabric of all the pieces employed in the British navy, from the twenty four pounders downwards, so that they may have the same or less weight, but a larger bore. He thinks the thirty-two pounders in present use would be proper models for this purpose. These being of fifty-two or fifty-three hundred weight, have somewhat less than a hundred and two thirds for each pound of bullet. And that this proportion would an fewer in smaller pieces, in point of strength, seems clear from these considerations: 1. That the strength of iron or any other metal, is in proportion to its sublance. 2. That the lesser quantity of powder fired in a space it fills, has proportionably less force than a larger quantity; so that if two pieces, a large and a small one, be made in the same proportion to their respective bullets, and fired with a proportionable quantity of powder, the larger piece will be more strained, will heat more, and recoil more than the smaller.
On this scheme our present twenty-four pounders will be eased of six or eight hundred weight of useless metal; and some pieces of a less caliber, as nine and six pounders, would be sometimes eased by fourteen hundred: hence much larger guns of the same weight might be borne. Thus, instead of six, nine, twelve, and eighteen pounders, our ships might carry twelve, eighteen, and twenty-four pounders: guns would be kept cooler and quieter, and would be of more service, in many respects, if their usual charge of powder were diminished.