Utility Firearms: Meat Processing Industry

In the meat processing industry, there are certain tools that are used to enable a quick humane death of a food animal. There are two basic types of firearms used here: (a) captive bolt type and (b) free bullet type. We will study both types in this post.

The first captive bolt pistol was invented by one Dr. Hugo Heiss of Straubing, Bavaria, Germany in 1903. The captive bolt type of firearm serves to stun an animal into unconsciousness, so it may then be processed. The pistol is placed against the skull of the animal and the trigger is pulled. The captive bolt pistol, as its name indicates, does NOT actually fire a bullet. Instead, it uses the force of compressed air, or a blank cartridge, to push a bolt forward with great force, which drives it into the animal's skull, thereby stunning it. After the blow is struck, spring tension pushes the bolt back into the device, as the figure below illustrates:

There are two types of captive bolt pistol: (a) the penetrating type, where the bolt has a sharpened tip and actually penetrates the skull into the brain of the animal and (b) non-penetrating type, where the bolt has a blunt rounded tip and doesn't penetrate the skull, but uses the concussive force generated to stun the animal. The pictures below show examples of both types:

Captive bolt pistol with penetrating bolt. Click on image to enlarge

Captive bolt pistol with non-penetrating bolt. Click on image to enlarge

Captive bolt penetrating type pistols driven by compressed air are now banned in the United States after a case of BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) was detected in 2004. This is because the compressed air (unlike using a blank cartridge) forces infected brain matter into the bloodstream of the slaughtered animal. Since cattle blood is reprocessed for protein supplements in animal feed and milk replacements for calves, it could potentially spread the disease to other animals. Penetrating type pistols using blank cartridges and non-penetrating types are considered safe.

Since the bolt (i.e. the projectile) does not entirely leave the pistol, captive bolt pistols are not regarded as "firearms" in many jurisdictions and hence do not need any special paperwork.

The other type of firearm used in the meat processing industry is the free bullet type. In this case, a real bullet is indeed fired out. They are essentially small-caliber pistols designed specifically for putting an animal down. One of the first practical ones was designed by the famous English firm W.W. Greener of Birmingham in 1865. Called the Greener Humane Cattle Killer, this device quickly became the standard of the British War Office in the Veterinary and Butchering departments, was adopted by the British Admiralty's Victualling yards and was adopted by many veterinarians and butchers.

It consists of a short rifled barrel with a bell shaped muzzle. The bell serves to muffle the sound of explosion as well as protect the operator from muzzle flash. It has an ordinary spring striker that is struck by a wooden mallet. The piece containing the striker is screwed off the barrel, a cartridge is then inserted into the chamber and the piece screwed back on. The instrument is placed on the animal's forehead and the back end is tapped with a mallet to discharge the weapon. This model uses specially designed low power .310 caliber "cattle killer" cartridges manufactured by Kynoch Ltd.

Even though they weren't considered "firearms", such devices had to undergo proof tests and since W.W. Greener's main factory was located in Birmingham then (the firm's headquarters are now in Chippenham), these devices were marked with Birmingham Proof House markings.

Despite the small caliber bullet, if placed in the correct spot, only a single shot is needed to put an animal down. Since this spot varies for different animals, Greener included a set of diagrams in the package, indicating the best spot to use for different farm animals.

W.W. Greener produced several versions of this, including a pocket version for veterinarians, which was very popular. The model finally became obsolete in the 1960s when its unique .310 caliber cartridges became almost impossible to obtain. Due to demand, the firm has recently started manufacturing a Mark II version that uses a .32 ACP cartridge. W.W. Greener also made other models manufactured in different calibers to put down horses, sheep, pigs etc. and even a special version designed for use on dogs alone.

Utility Firearms: Industrial Shotguns

In our last post, we saw the use of shotguns in geological engineering. In this post, we will look at some more unusual uses of shotguns, in the fields of industry.

In industries like steel and cement, when a lime kiln or a blast furnace is used, there is always a gradual build up of material impurities, such as limestone clinker and excess cement (in the case of a lime kiln) or slag deposits (in the case of a blast furnace). These impurities harden on the inside and form rings, which reduce the efficiency of the kiln or blast furnace. Hence, a worker must periodically go in there and loosen the materials so that they can be removed. The same problem occurs in silos, mines and quarries for pretty much the same reasons.

In the early days, people would shutdown the kiln or furnace and wait for it to cool down. Then they would get inside with large sledgehammers and try to break the deposits manually. Then someone had the bright idea of using a large gauge shotgun to blaze away at the deposits and break them. This meant that they wouldn't have to wait for the kiln to cool down. The image below is a description of the process as it appeared in an issue of Popular Science in February 1933.

Click on image to enlarge.

The guns used in this process are usually 8-gauge or larger. They are mounted on a stand so that the user doesn't have to bear the recoil forces. Winchester and Remington are two major manufacturers of kiln guns. Remington's system is called "Masterblaster" and is usually painted green, while Winchester calls their tools "Western" and "Ringblaster" and usually paint them red.

Remington Masterblaster system. Click on image to enlarge.

Note the control wheels and levers that allow the user to point the shotgun in the designated direction and shoot it. 

A kiln gun in use. Click on image to enlarge

Using such a system allows the manufacturer to speed up the cleaning process and reduce equipment downtime.

Since the shooting happens largely parallel to the kiln surface, there is less risk of blowing holes through the kiln. The video below shows the usage of kiln guns (in this case, Winchester products):

They can also be used for furnace tapping as the video below demonstrates:

As you can see, kiln guns are pretty handy tools to have in industrial environments.

Utility Firearms: Geology and Shotguns

Continuing our series on utility firearms (i.e.) firearms not designed to take human life. We will discuss the use of shotguns in the field of geology and geological engineering in this post.

There is a physical principle called "seismic refraction". Basically, when seismic waves travel through the ground, the waves move at different velocities depending upon the various different layers of soil or rock. Also, the waves get refracted (i.e. they change their angle of travel) when they cross between two different layers of soil or rock. So if one has a source of seismic energy on one side and a detection device (a seismograph or a geophone) a short distance away, one can detect the seismic waves and determine the approximate depth of various layers or the depth to the bedrock, for instance. This is very useful in civil engineering and geological engineering, because engineers need to know if the soil can actually support the structure they're planning to build. Exploration geophysicists also use this technique to detect positions of mineral ores, oil, groundwater, geothermal sources etc.

So where does the shotgun come into all of this? Note in the previous paragraph, we said that there needs to be a source of seismic energy and a detection device. The source of seismic energy is simply something that impacts the earth surface with sufficient force to create seismic waves. For instance, one can use a sledgehammer to strike a metal plate on the ground. The sledgehammer is connected to the geophone recording system via a wire. The moment the sledgehammer impacts the metal plate, the recording starts. Of course, there are problems in using a sledgehammer in that (a) the results are not reliably repeatable as it depends on how tired the person swinging the sledgehammer is (b) it only outputs small amounts of seismic energy and only works on short distances and (c) it generates low frequency waves that mostly travel along the surface and don't penetrate too deep.

Therefore, what many people use is a shotgun (around 8 gauge or larger) to produce the seismic energy. The shotgun is usually mounted on a stand or a cart, so that even a weak person can operate it, without having to feel any recoil. In some cases, the shotgun actually fires a solid slug into the ground and in other cases, they merely use a blank shotgun shell, in which case the pressure energy of the column of air in the barrel is transferred to the ground. Like the sledgehammer method, there is a mechanism to start the geophone recording the instant the slug hits the metal plate placed on the ground. The advantages of this over the sledgehammer method are:

1. Easily transportable and usable by even physically weak people (since it is on a stand and doesn't need to be fired from the shoulder)
2. Highly repeatable source of seismic energy (much more than using a sledgehammer)
3. Outputs higher frequency waves, so they penetrate the ground more.

Such shotguns are often called "Betsy Guns". Here's a couple of examples of what they like:

Public domain image. Click on image to enlarge.

Image courtesy of Thomas M. Boyd @ Colorado school of Mines

Of course, this equipment is a bit more bulky and expensive than a simple sledgehammer and there's also the question of getting permission to use a shotgun in certain countries, but it is still a commonly used method in many places.

For deeper penetration of seismic waves, users generally use something more powerful, such as dynamite. But that's not a firearm and we won't discuss it here :).

Utility Firearms: Powder Actuated Tools

In our previous post, we started a series of posts on firearms being used for purposes other than to take human life. Our previous post dealt with the topic of flare guns (Very pistols). In this post, we will look into uses of firearms in construction (i.e.) a Direct Fastening Tool or Power Actuated Tool.

A powder actuated tool is actually a form of a nail gun, that is used to nail one object to another. Powder actuated tools are used in situations where one needs to nail something on to a hard substrate, such as steel or concrete. The technology relies on exploding a propellant (usually cordite) and using the resulting gas pressure to drive a nail (or, more correctly, a "fastener") instead of a bullet through the surfaces of the objects to be fastened together. The technology was first invented around World War I and used for submarine hunting and there is a US patent from 1921 (US patent # 1365869) describing one. During World War II, the Mine Safety Appliance Corporation (MSA Corp.) designed and built several powder actuated tools for the US Navy, that could be used to temporarily repair steel ship hulls in an emergency.

There are two types of powder actuated tools: high velocity type and low velocity type. In the high velocity type, the propellant directly acts on the fastener. In the low velocity type, the propellant acts on a piston, the other end of which acts on the fastener. A tool is considered low velocity type, if the fastener is driven slower than 492 feet per second. High velocity type tools are illegal to be made or sold in the United States, but there are some made decades ago, still in use by shipbuilding and steel industries, that were grandfathered in because they were made before the law took effect.

Since the fasteners are designed to go through very hard substances, they are usually made from high quality hardened steel. Fasteners need not be just nails, they could be specialized fasteners, such as ones that have a screw thread in the end, to attach a nut.

Powder actuated tools come in several types (e.g.) single shot or magazine type, manually fed (i.e. you load fasteners and cartridges manually) semi-automatic type (i.e. cartridges are automatically loaded from the magazine, but fasteners are manually loaded) or fully automatic type (i.e. both fasteners and cartridges are automatically loaded) etc.

Public domain image of some cartridges used by powder actuated tools.

The main manufacturers of these tools are five companies: Simpsons Strong Tie, Ramset Fastening Systems, Powers Fasteners and Remington from the US and Hilti of Luxembourg. The above images show a Hilti DX E72 and a Simpson PT-25S tool and two strips of cartridges to be used by such tools. The cartridges may be unloaded from the plastic strip and manually loaded one by one for manual type tools, or the entire strip may be loaded directly into the magazine for semi-automatic and automatic type tools. Cartridges are usually sold in boxes of different colors to indicate their relative power. The plastic strip that the cartridges come in is also the same color to indicate the power. The colors used are (in order from weakest to strongest) gray, brown, green, yellow, red and purple. The video below illustrates the use of a powder actuated tool, different fasteners and different cartridge types

In some countries, powder actuated tools are very strictly controlled, e.g. the owner has to register the tool as a firearm and the operator of the tool requires specialized training and has to possess a license to use it. In the US, no new high velocity type tools are allowed to be made or sold, but older high velocity type tools that were made before the laws came in effect are grandfathered in. Low velocity type tools may still be made and sold in the US. US labor law also requires that operators receive special OSHA training before they are allowed to use such tools.

Utility Firearms: Flare Gun or Very Pistol

In this next series of posts, we will look at some utility firearms that were usually not used to take human life. The first one we will look at is the Flare Gun, otherwise known as the Very Pistol.

The name "Very Pistol" is derived from the name of the inventor, Lieutenant Edward W. Very, of the United States Navy. He invented a large caliber single-shot pistol with a single action firing mechanism, that could fire special flares into the air. It was designed to be used by people to send signals and reveal their position, usually to indicate that they were in distress and needed assistance. Flare guns were heavily used in both world wars and are still in use today. The flare guns of World War II era had a 1-inch bore (25.4 mm) and modern ones are smaller (12 gauge (18.53 mm.) diameter) Modern versions are usually made of brightly colored plastic, so that they're easy to find in an emergency situation.

World War I era 1-inch caliber Webley & Scott Mark III flare pistol, British Army, dated 1918. Click on image to enlarge

Image licensed by user Andy Dingley @ wikipedia.org under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Modern 12 gauge flare gun manufactured by Orion Electronics. Note the bright plastics on this model. Click on image to enlarge.

Image licensed by P. Ubriaco (c) 2004, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

The flares come in three colors, red, green and "white star", and have a burn time of anywhere between 5 to 10 seconds, depending on flare type. Distress flares are typically shot straight up in the air, for maximum visibility time of the flare and also to show where the person in trouble is. During World War I and II, flare guns were also used in situations where radio silence was important. By firing sequences of pre-arranged colored flares, aircraft and ground forces could identify each other's positions and send specific signals.

Flare guns aren't made as strongly as normal firearms, so it is extremely unwise to try shooting a normal 12-gauge shotgun cartridge out of a flare gun, as the flare gun is likely to explode in the user's hands.

While flare guns are not designed to be a weapon, there have been instances where they've been used in that role. In World War II, a German pilot, Oberleutnant Arnim Faber, accidentally landed in an airfield in Wales and was captured by the duty pilot, Sgt. Jeffries, who didn't have a normal firearm and hence grabbed the nearest thing available, which was a Very pistol. When the USS Borie was hunting for the German submarine,  U-405, they rammed into each other and hand-to-hand fighting ensued, where at least one of the crew of the U-405 was hit in the chest by a Very flare fired by the crew of the USS Borie.

The most famous use of a flare gun is immortalized in the song, Smoke on the Water, by the British hard rock band, Deep Purple. Many people, even those that never listen to hard-rock or heavy metal music, will instantly recognize the opening guitar riff of this song, even if they don't know the title of the song. The story behind the song is this: the members of Deep Purple were in Montreux, Switzerland, trying to record a new album at an entertainment complex that was part of the Montreux casino. Meanwhile, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention were playing a concert inside the casino theater, as part of the Montreux jazz festival. During the concert, a member of the audience fired a flare gun inside the venue. The ceiling caught fire, but the audience initially thought it was part of the show. The resulting fire ended up burning the entire casino down. The members of Deep Purple were watching the blaze from across the lake and were inspired into writing a classic song that has since been covered by countless hard-rock and heavy metal bands. The lyrics of the song make references to the flare gun.

Shotguns: Different Gauges

Well, we did study shotgun bores/gauges in an earlier post. But it is hard to visualize the effects of the different gauges from just a description.

No fear, the lovely and talented Heather LaCroix is here, demonstrating the effects of 10 gauge vs. 12 gauge vs. 20 gauge vs. .410 caliber (67 gauge). Remember from our earlier discussion of how shotgun gauges work, the smaller the number, the bigger the diameter of the cartridge and the more powerful the gun.

Thanks to Heather LaCroix and Jeff3230 for the demonstration.

Shotguns: Coach Gun

In our first article on shotgun basics, we studied the origin of the term "riding shotgun". This had to do with a particular type of shotgun, which was called the coach gun. A typical coach gun was a double barreled shotgun with barrels between 12-18 inches in length or so. Barrels were invariably placed side-by-side and typically were mostly 12-bore. The sights were typically a bead sight welded on to the barrels, as aim wasn't as critical at close ranges. They were generally loaded with buck shot and very effective at close ranges. Virtually all coach guns had twin triggers and most had external hammers, though there are a few hammerless models made.

The term "coach gun" came into use because of Wells Fargo bank. In 1858, they opened a stage coach route between Tipton, Missouri and the fast growing city of San Francisco, California. Not only did they transport passengers on this route, they also transported mail for the US post office, as well as large sums of paper money and gold to their branches. The route was 2800 miles long and passed through some of the wildest parts of the United States. Naturally, this attracted the attention of bandits and highwaymen and so these stage coaches were pretty heavily guarded. The driver of the stage-coach was at a disadvantage, because he had to concentrate on driving the horses, hence they would put a person next to him with a coach gun, to defend the two of them as needed, and there were additional guards inside the stage coach as well. Since it is difficult to hit a moving target from a bouncing stage coach, which is also moving at speed, the guards preferred a coach gun to a rifle, since all one needed to do was point the gun in the general direction and pull the trigger.

The same idea was also later used in Australia, by banks seeking to transfer large sums of money across different Australian towns.

There was no specific coach gun maker, as many manufacturers were making them: Remington, Lefever, Ithaca, Sharps Arms Manufacturing, Colt, Parker etc. are some of the famous names that made them.

As you can see from the above video, they can pack a punch.

Coach guns are still being manufactured by some companies, but sale may be restricted in certain areas, due to rules about what the minimum length of a shotgun should be.