Whitworth Rack and Pinion Rearsight

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.

A new weapon is launched in the pre-WWI naval arms race. This striking film illustrates the processes in the casting and manufacture of a 12-inch, 50-calibre naval gun – the kind of gun that would be used on battleships between 1914 and 1918. It was filmed in early 1908 at the factory of Armstrong Whitworth & Co., based in Newcastle-on-Tyne.

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.