p. 5 | How Guns Are Named

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jan 10, 1911

How Guns Are Named

MANY people are puzzled as to the difference between a 12-inch and a 13.5-inch gun. Guns are measured by the bore or caliber, just as motor-car engine cylinders are. A 12-inch gun therefore is a gun that fires a shot which is twelve inches in diameter. The length of a gun is reckoned in calibers. For instance, a 50-caliber 12-inch gun is one fifty times the length of its bore — that is to say, fifty feet long. A 50-caliber 6-inch gun would be twenty-five feet long, and so on.—London Standard.