Canister shot

Class of ammunition used by artillery Artillery shot-canister for a 12-pounder cannon from the US Civil War era. From the collection of the Minnesota Historical Society. Note the uniform, regularly shaped projectiles, unlike langrage. Canister shot is a kind of anti-personnel artillery ammunition. It has been used since the advent of gunpowder-firing artillery in Western armies, and saw particularly frequent use on land and at sea in the various wars of the 18th and 19th centuries. Canister is still used today in modern artillery. Description Examples of old case-shot, which predates the canister British case-shot, 1914 Canister shot consists of a closed metal cylinder typically loosely filled with round lead or iron balls packed with sawdust to add more solidity and cohesion to the mass and to prevent the balls from crowding each other when the round was fired. The canister itself was usually made of tin, often dipped in a lacquer of beeswax diluted with turpentine to prevent corrosion of the metal. Iron was substituted for tin for larger-caliber guns. The ends of the canister were closed with wooden or metal disks. A cloth cartridge bag containing the round's gunpowder used to fi