8-Inch Rifle Number 50 of USS Lancaster
US Navy 8-Inch Muzzle Loading Rifle Number 50 (with Number 44 in the background) at Patriots Point Soccer Stadium
US Navy 8-Inch Muzzle Loading Rifle Number 50 of USS Lancaster at Patriots Point Soccer Stadium in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. This is one of four 8-Inch Rifles which were carried aboard USS Lancaster in the 1880s which are displayed at the stadium. Previously these 8-Inch MLR were displayed beside the aircraft carrier Yorktown. Before that they were at the Charleston Navy Yard.
8-Inch Rifle Number 50 was originally cast as a 11-Inch Dahlgren Number 69 by Builders Foundry (Providence, Rhode Island) in 1863. As an 11-Inch Smoothbore it weighed 15,770 pounds. It 1879 the smoothbore was taken to the South Boston Foundry. The barrel was reamed out to 13.5-inches and an 8-Inch wrought-iron rifled sleeve was inserted into barrel. The new weight (17,380 pounds) and new registry number (number 50) are stamped on the trunnions - which are heavily painted and hard to read.
To read more about these four Dahlgrens see: https://www.santee1821.net/preserved-artillery/8inch-dahlgren-rifles-at-patriots-point
To read about the process of converting these rifles from 11-Inch Dahlgren smoothbores, see: https://www.santee1821.net/preserved-artillery/the-converted-eight-inch-muzzle-loading-rifle-by-lieutenant-duncan-kennedy-usn
The individual posts on the four surviving rifles of USS Lancaster: Number 44, Number 45, Number 48, Number 50
US Navy 8-Inch Muzzle Loading Rifle Number 50 of USS Lancaster
US Navy 8-Inch Muzzle Loading Rifle Number 50 of USS Lancaster
