8-Inch Rifle Number 50 of USS Lancaster
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.
The Wreck of USS Huron and 9-Inch Dahlgren Number 1178
Displayed at Trophy Park at Norfolk Naval Shipyard is US Navy 9-Inch Dahlgren Number 1178. Number 1178 was cast in 1864 at Fort Pitt Foundry. It is one of the last of the type to have been manufactured. (The series of registry numbers ran to 1185.) According to the research of Wayne Stark. Number 1178 was recovered from the wreck of USS Huron.
The 8-Inch Rifles at the University of Maine
Two US Navy 8-Inch (180-Pounder) Muzzle Loading Rifles have been displayed at the University of Maine in Orono since Llewellyn N. Edwards, Class of 1898, facilitated their donation by the Navy in 1932. The cannons, originally cast as 11-Inch Dahlgrens, would serve aboard US Navy ships including USS Pensacola, USS Juniata, and USS Galena in the 1870s and 1880s.
The Manufacture of US Navy 8-Inch Muzzle Loading Rifles from 11-Inch Dahlgren Shell Guns
An excerpt from Augustus Paul Cooke's A Text Book of Naval Ordnance and Gunnery Prepared for the Use of Cadet Midshipmen of the United States Naval Academy describes the manufacture of 8-Inch Muzzle Loading Rifles from existing 11-Inch Dahlgren Smoothbore Shell Guns. The post includes cutaway illustrations from the book and photographs from preserved Dahlgren cannons.