chilled shot

The Sailor's Word-Book

Shot of very rapidly cooled cast-iron, i.e. cast in iron moulds, and thus found to acquire a hardness which renders them of nearly equal efficiency with steel shot for penetrating iron plates, yet produced at about one-quarter the price. They invariably break up on passing through the plates, and their fragments are very destructive on crowded decks; though in the attack of iron war vessels, where the demolishment of guns, carriages, machinery, turrets, &c., is required, the palm must still be awarded to steel shot and shell.

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