Gun Wad
Description
Very roughly circular shaped tightly packed “ball” of fibres, brown/grey in colour. There are some trailing fibres which have become detached in places. There are also a number of accretions and concretions on the surface and within the fibres.
A wad for a 32-pounder gun, made from pieces of old rope. When loading the gun it was essential, that both cartridge and projectile were retained in place. The gun wads performed this necessary function. There were always two wads; one to retain the powder cartridge and the shot as a seal. Another was put in after the shot to stop it rolling out of the barrel with the motion of the ship. The wad is composed of recycled rope fibres. Wads were usually made up on board the ship, and the gunner was issued with pieces of old rope and cable, known as junk, for this purpose and a 74-gun ship was issued with five tins of junk. A 32-pounder calibre gun would require two pounds of wadding to be effective.
See full details
Object Detail
Width: 140mm
Depth: 64mm (2 1/2")