At sea. Course N ¾ W at 12.8 knots. Wind NE force 1 with broken cloud. Barometer 20.18 inches rising to 30.20 at noon and remaining steady until midnight. Temperature at noon 79F. 0400. Altered course to NW by ¼ N. 0800. Loosed fore and aft sales. 0915. Mustered by Divisions and read prayers. 1000. Employed as requisite. Party at Morris Aiming Tube.
The Army and Navy accepted a Sub calibre conversion for the Martini Henry on 14 November 1883, accepted formally in LOC 4552, 14th February 1884. The ingenious design, was invented by Richard Morris of the Morris’s Aiming and Sighting tool Company, Morris’s device used an .230” caliber rifled tube, internally smooth from 16.5 inches of the breech, and then eight grooved rifled for the remainder of the bore. The 34” tube was designed to fit loosely inside the .450” diameter barrel of the Martini rifle. It gave the marksman an opportunity to shoot with his regulation arm, with its normal weight and balance issues, but without the heavy recoil, a frequent reason for inaccuracy as the soldier tended to anticipate its report.
The “Morris Aiming Tube” as it became known had a bronze “set nut” attached to the muzzle of the tube, to supplement the tube, two bushes, one sliding and one fixed behind the set nut centered the tube into the bore of the rifle. A “Breech piece”, which was dimensionally that of the .577/450 cartridge chamber, was inserted into the chamber over the extractor like a cartridge and held by a special key tool or “Key”, whilst the key held the tube, in the correct position. (a letter T was stamped on the front of the breech piece) the Morris tube was simply screwed into it from the front by the set nut and locked into position. The action of the rifles extractor acted upon a sliding extractor in the sub calibre base, which in turn ejected the spent cartridge. In late December 1885, a carbine version of the Morris tube was introduced in list of Change 4938, with 22.5” inner tube.
Position at noon. 9.50S 43.19E at 12.5 knots. Wind NNE force 2. 1230. Altered course to NW ¾ N. 1500. Make and mend clothes. 1600. Furled fore and aft sails. 1715 Mustered at Quarters. Exercised “man and arm ship”. 1830. Washed clothes. Coal expended 38 tons 15 cwt. Number on sick list 8.
