Historical Firearms, Long Range Target Shooting & Military History
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Curtis’s & Harvey No. 6 gunpowder was a popular choice in the 19th century for use with the Whitworth rifle. Contemporary loading instruction for the rifle refer to its use.
Following Sir Joseph Whitworth’s death in 1887, ‘Sir Joseph Whitworth & Company’ was restructured.
Appendix 19 of the Report of the U.S. Department of Ordnance, 1882, is a ‘Report on European Ordnance and Manufactures.’ It extends over 50 pages of text plus 30 single page plates. English and French ordnance of the period and various systems of construction are covered. Included is a short section on Whitworth’s Guns, with breech loading gun details and including Whitworth’s own remarks on early trials and gun construction.
The Hex Bore project has a good archive / library of Whitworth research material, but now and again something new surfaces.
‘The Guns of the Ironclad “Riachuelo” and Their Alteration to the Armstrong System’ is a treatise by Duarte Huet Bacellar Pinto Guedes, First Lieutenant of the Brazilian Navy.