IMPROVING THE BARREL IRON PRODUCTION IN THE URAL MINING PLANTS IN THE SECOND QUARTER OF THE 19TH CENTURY

The article, based on materials from federal and regional archives, describes the problems in the production of iron for gun barrels in the Ural mining plants in the second quarter of the 19th century. It is noted that the mining industry enterprises have been supplying the weapons factories with metal since the 18th century. Despite the approval in the early 19th century of regulatory acts defining the requirements for the properties and dimensions of iron, and quality control by representatives of the military department, no special rules for its acceptance have been developed. The lack of clear verification requirements led to the fact that weapons factories received a significant amount of iron of unsatisfactory quality, unsuitable for gunsmiths to weld barrels. As a result, the amount of defective metal increased, and the debt of mining plants to the military department grew. The mining and military departments began to pay attention to the problem of improving the barrel iron production in the 1820s. Special committees of representatives from both departments developed rules for testing iron, but they were not included in the new instructions for accepting military products from mining plants in 1831. Their development dragged on until the mid-1840s. Improvements in the technology for barrel iron production were made through experiments conducted by both the military department and the Ural mining plants. As a result, during the period under study, it was not possible to obtain iron suitable for weapons factories.