Читать книгу The Complete English Wing Shot онлайн

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In a lecture delivered by the late Mr. Griffith, of Schultze Company fame, it was said quite truly, and with proper pride, that the velocity of shot had increased during the last twenty years by 100 feet per second at 40 yards. During this time recoil has been reduced very much, only apparently in defiance of the law that action and reaction are equal and opposite.

Recoil is equal to the total momentum of shot, wads, and powder-gas, and what the powder people have done is to reduce that portion of recoil that was not represented by momentum of the shot, but was represented by the momentum of waste powder-gas.

Consequently, what has been got rid of in twenty years is some momentum of powder-gas, which has served two purposes—first, by permitting some extra strength of powder, to put some extra momentum into the shot pellets, and to somewhat reduce recoil in spite of this. That then was the tendency of the powder-makers, when suddenly they were brought to a standstill by a catchword, “standard” loading and “standard velocity.”