Discover Top Posts Tagged with #early guns

Erm… Steven? What are you doing with your hands?

#I need his balls in my mouth #my fav picture of them #guns n roses #music #rockstar aesthetic #gnr #idol #1980s #gunners #axl rose #axl gnr #w axl rose #izzy stradlin #izzy gnr #duff mckagan #gnr duff #slash #saul hudson #early guns #late 80s #steven adler #popcorn #steven popcorn adler

Early naval guns

Early guns were made by craftsmen and often had individual names, as Mons Meg, which was presented to King James II of Scotland in 1457. Guns could be made in two ways, either by assembling with staves and hoops (hence the term barrel of a gun) or by casting in one piece. Wrought guns, made in several pieces, were often breech- loaders, with a detachable chamber that contained the explosive.

One of Mary Rose's iron breech-loading guns 16th century

They were usually made of iron and were quite small, since anything bigger might explode, with dangerous consequences. Larger guns were cast in a copper alloy, commonly known as bronze, and were often heavily decorated with the emblems of the state or the maker.

A cast gun was essentially a tube closed at one end, with a small touch- hole for setting off the powder. It was loaded by ramming gunpowder and shot in from the muzzle. It had a complex breech with a ball or cascable at the end, thicker rings around its length, and a trunnion on each side to form a pivot on its carriage.

One of Mary Rose’s bronze muzzle loading guns, 16th century

Cast iron guns were much cheaper than bronze ones but were regarded as unreliable until the early years of the 17th century, when the English began to cast them in large numbers. The Swedish, with good supplies of ore, developed iron guns for export and for merchant shipping. Brass guns, however, were retained for prestige on flagships in most navies until near the end of the 18th century.

#naval history #15th 17th century #early guns #age of sail