Working on the 60# Parrott, as Cumberland had for her aft pivot gun, got me thinking about the 10 inch guns she and other vessels were armed with. I found a drawing that John Dahlgren submitted in July of 1850 propossing frigates be armed with 6 10 inch pivots on their spar decks, and 26 9 inch carriage guns on the gun deck. The 10 inch gun in the drawing is exactly the same as the diagram for the Traversing Carriage and Slide from the Instructions... I have the 1852 version of, but Dahlgren changed the drawing's gun (except for the breech) to one of his guns.

I went looking for the dimentions for a 10 inch Dahlgren and the best I could find was the maximum diameter was 29.1 inches. I basically scaled the 11 inch tube I already made down to this diameter and compared it to Dahlgrens drawing. I then used the Traversing carriage diagram to make the carriage, and took the slide from my 10" shell-gun pivot, and adjusted it to Dahlgrens drawing which was shorter, but the same in all other details. Spencer Tucker in his Arming the Fleet says the carriage was the same as that for for the Columbiads (the Traversing Carriage shown), but widened to accommodate the larger Dahlgren gun body. So this is the model so far...

While I work on this gun, I'm wondering about Constellation. She was armed with two "10 inch guns on pivot carriages." The Mississippi plan, dated June 23 1855 shows a 10" gun of 86cwt (8600 pounds). The restoration folks presume that Constellation got the same thing because they looked for a 10" pivot gun at the Archives, and that's the plan they found. Constellation was launched on August 26 1854, and commissioned on July 28 1855.
Dahlgren's drawing, on-the-other-hand, is from 5 July 31 1850, 5 years prior, and refers to the pivot gun simply as a "10 inch gun on pivot carriage." I'm beginning to question which 10" pivot gun Constellation was actually armed with.
Furthermore, a 10 inch Dahlgren tube weighed 12,000 pounds, 3,400 pounds more than the Mississippi gun. When the ship was leaving for the African Station on July 15 1859, her captain felt the pivot guns we too heavy too high, and made the ship "crank," so had them taken off. I can't help but think that would be a concern regarding 2 12,000 pound guns over 2 8,600 pound guns. So, I'm trying to find out where any records regarding what guns were issued to what ships would be, and if I can access them, but I'm personally leaning toward replacing the pivot guns on the model with 10 inch Dahlgren pivots.

The guns I've printed for my Constellation display so far, got some paint, including her new 10 inch Dahlgrens and the Armstrong's tube.

Constellation's 1870's Gun-deck Pivots: A bit more has been done on the iron carriage XI inch Dahlgren, but there's still details I have to figure out to complete it. The pics show the 3D models of the Dahlgren and the 100# Parrott Constellation carried on her gun-deck in the 1870's and the drawing of how they were arranged.

Selling Guns Overseas