Rammers, are cylinders of wood, whose diameter and axis are equal to those of the shot: they serve to ram home the wads put upon the powder and shot.
Sponge, is fixed at the opposite end of the rammer, covered with lamb skin, and serves to clean the gun when fired.
Screws, are used to field-pieces, instead of coins, by which the gun is kept to the same elevation.
Tools necessary for proving Cannon, are, a searcher with a reliever, and a searcher with one point.
Searcher, is an iron, hollow at one end to receive a wooden handle, and on the other end has from four to eight flat springs of about eight or ten inches long, pointed and turned outwards at the ends.
The reliever, is an iron flat ring, with a wooden handle, at right angles to it. When a gun is to be searched after it has been fired, this searcher is introduced; and turned every way, from end to end, and if there is any hole, the point of one or other of the springs gets into it, and remains till the reliever, passing round the handle of the searcher, and pressing the springs together, relieves it.
When there is any hole or roughness in the gun, the distance from the mouth is marked on the outside with chalk.
The other searcher has also a wooden handle, and a point at the fore end, of about an inch long, at right angles to the length: about this point is put some wax, mixed with tallow, which, when introduced into the hole or cavity, is pressed in, when the impression upon the wax gives the depth, and the length is known by the motion of the searcher backwards and forward: if the fissure be one ninth of an inch deep, the gun is rejected. See Instruments.
N. B. The strength of gunpowder having been considerably increased by Col. Congreve, of the British Artillery, the quantity for service has been somewhat reduced. That for proof remaining as heretofore.