[Illustration:
LARGEST CARTRIDGE EQUALS MORE
THAN 1,000,000 OF SMALLEST
(HELD ON HAND)]
Two large iron cylinders descend in the center, coming down through the
ceiling from above; we are invited to look through an open port in one
of these.
We see nothing but the whitened opposite wall, against which a light
burns.
It appears absolutely empty, though within it is raining such a swift
shower of invisible metal that if we were to stretch our hands into the
apparently vacant space they would be torn from our arms.
A large water tank below is churned into foam with the impact of the
falling shot, and as we look downward we make out finally the haze of
motion. It is so interesting that we take the elevator and rise ten
stories to the source of the shower.
Here high in the air are the large caldrons where many pigs of lead,
with the proper alloy, are melted into a sort of metallic soup. This
is fed into small compartments containing sieves or screens, through
the meshes of which the shining drops appear and then plunge swiftly
downward.
But this only begins the process. Taken from the water tanks and
hoisted up again, the shot pellets, in a second journey down, through
complicated devices, are sorted, tumbled, polished, graded, coated with
graphite, and finally stored.
The pictures shown in this story were prepared especially to
illustrate this story of “How Man Learned to Shoot” by the
Searchlight Library for the Remington Arms Company.
[Illustration: FORGING A MONSTER GUN
Photo by Bethlehem Steel Co.