But while there was no doubt as to the shooting capacities of these guns, defects in the breech mechanism soon became equally patent, and in a few years caused a reversion to muzzle-loading.
Owing to the conical shape of the early muzzle-loading guns, if one trunnion were higher than the other, the " line of metal " would no longer be in the same vertical plane as the axis; in consequence of this, if a gun with, say, one wheel higher than the other were layed by this line, the axis would point off the target to the side of the lower wheel.
By means of a well-chosen value of n, determined by a few experiments, it is possible, pending further experiment, with the most recent design, to utilize Bashforth's experimental results carried out with old-fashioned projectiles fired from muzzle-loading guns.
There were in addition twelve muzzle loading carbines per troop.
The largest muzzle loading guns produced for the navy.
