Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1885 — Gatling Guns. [ARTICLE]

Gatling Guns.

The Gatling gun weighs about 1,500 pounds and is precisely of the same design as the ordinary canon. There are ten chambers that revolve in the barrel proper, and each chamber has an independent lock. The main barrel is eight inches in diameter. The size of cartridge used is that of the ordinary forty-five Government rifle caliber. Each feed drum contains 240 rounds. The firing is done by operating a crank; the cartridge is exploded by a hammer which works with such great rapidity that 120 cartridges are fired in a minute. The movement of the gun can be so adjusted as to make it either stationary cr oscillating, so that the gun practice can become either scattered or centrifugal in its execution. At 700 yards the Gatling gun has been known to hit a 12x15 foot target 396 times out of 400 shots. At 1,200 yards 413 out of 500 shots have struck a 9x25foot target. To show the rapidity with which the gun can be worked, it might be explained that the time occupied in coming to action front from trot and firing is ten seconds; limber rear, mount and off, thirteen seconds. A New Orleans paper refers editorially to the wondeiful restoration to health of Mr. T. Posey, druggist, 225 Canal street, that city, who some time ago was prostrated by an excruciating attack of sciatica. After much suffering his wife applied St. Jacobs Oil, which cured him promptly and entirely.