It is obvious, from the extremely high character English sporting gunpowder has obtained all over the world, that considerable improvement must have been effected by the private manufacturers, either in the purification or manipulation of ingredients; indeed the unwearied care bestowed on this point by several of our best makers is beyond all praise. To explain the various methods, or otherwise enlarge upon this point, would be injurious to individual skill and enterprise, and be the means of imparting knowledge to those who have not ability to invent, but who gather from the brains of others. The French set great value on the “Poudre de Chasse” of England. It is rather singular that we should excel those who pride themselves so much on their chemical knowledge; but, as before remarked, it is certain that the intimate incorporation of the ingredients is of more importance than the chemical proportions.
All military and naval gunpowder is not manufactured of the greatest strength that can be acquired “_at the Government mills_;” a sample is furnished to each contractor with each contract, and to this strength he is limited.
The fame of our English gunpowder makers is patent to all the world, and, where skill is equal, to name one rather than another would be invidious; though we must not lose sight of the facts herein established. “Granulation,” properly understood, is an equivalent point to either chemical or mechanical knowledge and manipulation in gunpowder manufacture. Great anxiety to meet the wishes of the sporting world on this point, and to advance with the age, has been aroused; and specimens have been kindly furnished to me, not by one, but by all the following celebrated makers: Messrs. Pigou and Wilks, Curtis and Harvey, Lawrence and Son, John Hall and Son; and I have received also a very excellent specimen from the Scotch mills.
Gunpowder of five sizes of granulation, on the basis before alluded to: namely, No. 2, containing two quantities of No. 1, and No. 3, three, and so on in progression; but it is imperative that all the various sizes be produced from the same mill cake, or be otherwise of the same condensation or specific gravity, and in all experiments of comparison, equal weights are a “sine quâ non,” otherwise the comparison will be futile; as measure is, for these very obvious reasons, inapplicable in comparative tests. When these points are carefully attained, increased power of killing, “decreased recoil,” and much greater safety, will be the important benefits which the gunpowder manufacturers will confer on every one using a gun.