cordite

Eastriggs is home to the Devil's Porridge Museum which tells the story of HM Factory Gretna, the UK's biggest cordite factory in World War One.

But the majority of his career was spent developing cordite and other propellants used to drive rounds of ammunition during the war, and for postwar commercial use.

The following year Cordite, a stick-type smokeless propellant composed of nitroglycerine, gun-cotton, and mineral jelly, was adopted for use in the new rifle.

(Similar formulae were also used during the transition between black powder and the smokeless Cordite. The .500 black powder express was loaded with 136 grains of Curtis and Harvey's No.

NOSTRILS filled with cordite A crashing bang, a flashing light A crater now exists Bodies contorted in unspeakable twists Blood and guts spattered all around Covering the mud soaked ground "Over the top" came the cry Not knowing how many men would die The barbed wire of No Man's Land Holding each corpse; a grasping hand " Gas!

The girls worked all day long with highly explosive materials, TNT and cordite among them, the explosive powder to fill the shells and bombs came sealed in cloth bags which were discarded afterwards.

In those days the main use of acetone was in the production of cordite, the propellant used in the standard British rifle cartridge.

The "phoney war" of warm-up matches, as England manager Martin Johnson described it, is over and Lawes is desperate for a whiff of Rugby World Cup cordite.

The new technology developed by Birmingham University researchers will allow the players to sniff out cordite, diesel fumes, and burning rubber.

That was a nice article by Steve Gash (December '08), but there were some omissions, We are led to believe the Mk VII cordite round followed the Mk I black powder round.

"Cordite hung in the air." was a statement in a recent national LE magazine (not ours, by the way!).