A note on this page: the following is Gene Slover’s own commentary — his personal observations and conclusions drawn from a career in naval gunnery, not a quotation from an official U.S. Navy publication.
In order for the officers and men of the USN to have the best Gunnery and Fire Control Systems, the USN provided the very best Naval Ordnance textbooks and schools for the men of the USN.
The Naval Ordnance textbooks cover every aspect of USN gunnery and Fire Control down to the smallest detail and contain all of the data needed for each ship to be proficient in gunnery.
One of the things needed in gunnery is gun powder, and it must be of the highest quality.
One of the duties of Dahlgren was to test all powder to make sure that it would perform as required in USN guns in the fleet.
The powder was so perfect that you can read all of the USN Naval Ordnance books that the USN printed and you will not find any mention of the powder causing any variation in gun IV when the powder comes from the same lot of powder, or from different lots of powder made for the same gun.
The USN Naval Ordnance books tell you that the only things that change gun IV when using powder from the same lot are barrel wear, projectile weight, and powder temperature.
If the powder within the same lot had caused any variation in gun IV when firing the same gun with the same weight projectile, then there would have been a lot of written data on the subject.
There is no written data on the subject in any USN Naval Ordnance book, as this does not occur.
Related powder and gun IV pages:
- USN Powder — how powder is mixed to a uniform lot, tested and lot-numbered at Dahlgren, and standardized so a full charge produces the design IV.
- The Effect of Variation of Gun IV Due to Powder — the Dahlgren table showing how wild the range pattern would become if powder IV varied within a lot, and why it does not.
- Powder Index — Lot Numbers and Weight — how to read the powder index and lot numbers off a ship’s ammunition list and off the powder bag itself.