BL 6-inch gun Mk V

The BL 6 inch gun Mk V [note 1] was an early Elswick Ordnance Company breech-loading naval gun originally designed to use the old gunpowder propellants.

This was an Elswick Ordnance export design, completely different from and longer (30-calibres, 183.5 inch bore) than the contemporary 26-calibres British naval service 6-inch Mk III, IV and VI guns designed by the Royal Gun Factory, although it fired the same 100-pound projectiles.

Several were acquired by the British government for coast defence in the UK and were given the designation 6-inch gun Mark V. The breech fittings and firing mechanism were modified in British service to standardize them with the British service guns, Mark IV and VI.

[10] During the 1890s, when the new "QF" technology of loading propellant charges in brass cases to increase the rate of fire was in favour, 4 guns were returned from New South Wales, Australia to the UK to be converted to QF.

2 of the resulting QFC guns are known to have been still in commission until 1945, in the Princess Royal Fortress defending the port of Albany, Western Australia.

Gun construction and rifling diagram
Mk V in the upper casemate battery at Georges Head , Sydney, 1892
QFC gun, Albany defences, March 1943