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Plate 042 · Pneumatic Gun · Industrial

Zalinski Pneumatic Dynamite Gun

A compressed-air gun built to lob dynamite shells too unstable for gunpowder.

Zalinski Pneumatic Dynamite Gun — U.S. Navy photo, Public Domain
U.S. Navy photo, Public Domain · Public DomainView on Wikimedia Commons →

Historical Record

Provenance & Service

Invented by Edmund Zalinski in the 1880s, the pneumatic dynamite gun used compressed air to fire shells filled with otherwise impossibly shock-sensitive dynamite or guncotton. The cruiser USS Vesuvius mounted three fixed 15-inch tubes; coastal batteries at San Francisco and New York mounted others. Stable smokeless powders made the design obsolete by 1900.