Miscellaneous. What will Burst a Gun?

Waikato Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1923, 1 November 1884, Page 6

Miscellaneous. What will Burst a Gun ?

Foil the safety 'of jvmateur sportsmen other instances of g-un barrel bursting should be • cited. In bravado a young man placed the muzzle of hia fowling piece,under the water, and fired the charge. The result was the bursting of the barrel near the breech and the mutilation of his hand. Another placed and held the muzzle of his piece square against a piece of plate window glass, and fired the charge — powder and a bullet. Tb,e glass was shattered, so was the gun barrel. Another instance was that of an experimenter who had hoard that a candle could be fired from the barrel of a gun through an inch board. He drove a candle into the muzzle of the gun, fired, and the explosion split the barrel almost its entire length, and did not even drive the candle from the muzzle. Still another burst of a gun barrel was caused by the use of wet grass for a wad, well rammed down over a charge of Bhot. But perhaps oae of the most singular exhibitions in this line was a Colt's navy revolver, which some years ago was sent to the factory in Hartford, Conn. This was before the adaptation of these pistols to the metallic cartridges, and ifc is probable that in loading with open powder and ball only a small amount of powder got into the chamber, and the bullet was not propelled with sufficient force to drive it from the muzzle ; at least the bullet did not go out, but lodged. 'As the shooter did not know whether the bullet escaped or not, he kept on firing until the barrel burst or bulged, and when it was sawed in two longitudinally there were found fourteen bullets wedged one into the other, and so much " upset " by the hammering* of the successive explosions of the powder charges that some of them were not less than one inch diameter, being flattened discs instead of conical, bullets. — Scientific American.

Strangled. Tncnr, is a legend in faome Spanish book About a noisy reveller who, at night, Returning home with others, saw a light Shine from a window, and climbed up to look, And saw within the room, hanged to a hook, His own self-strangled self, grim, rigid, whitej " And who, struck sober by that livid sight, Feasting his eyes, in tongue-tied horror shock. Has any man a fancy to peep in And see, as through a window, in the Past, His nobler self, self-ohoked with coils of sin, Or sloth, ' or foil/ ? Round the throat whipped fa"?t. The nooses give the face a stiffened grin. 'Tis but thyself. Look well. Why be aghast ? — The Academy.