Expanding Shot

The unusual concretion which x-ray studies revealed to contain five pieces of 'langrell' or expanding-shot 

The most surprising Recent Discovery was not made under water but within the conservation laboratories of the York Archaeological Trust. In July 1992 an unusual concretion was recovered by the Alderney Dive Club which, because of its distinctive form, was thought to contain a cluster of bar-shot. Bar-shot were projectiles that consisted of two round, or half-round shot that were fixed to opposite ends of an iron bar. For almost 14 years this identification went unquestioned, then, in February 2006, the concretion was inspected by radiography. To everyone's surprise, it was found to contain 'langrell' shot, or expanding projectiles that were thought not to exist before the first quarter of the seventeenth century. Langrell shot consists of two hemispherical half-shots, each of which has an iron bar protruding from its plane face. The end of each bar loops around the shaft of its opposite number, in such a way that, though attached, they can slide over each other to minimize their width. When expelled from the gun by the ignition of the powder, the centrifugal forces spread the shot so that it cuts a much wider passage through the air. Its purpose was to rip sails, slice rigging, smash spars and, of course, kill and maim people.

The first mention of 'langrell shott' is in the 1620 inventories of the Royal Armouries, where most of it was for demi-cannon and culverins, but there were also 18 pieces for sakers and one for a minion, the type of gun recovered from the wreck.

The earliest literary mention of langrell shot is found in John Smith's Sea Grammer of 1627:

Langrell shot runnes loose with a shackell, to be shortened when you put it into the Peece, and when it flies out it doth spred it selfe, it hath at the end of either barre a halfe Bullet either of lead or iron ... these are used when you are neere a ship to shoot downe Masts, Yards, Shrouds, teare the sails, spoile the men, or any thing that is above the decks ...

Simply put, the importance of this discovery is that it is our earliest evidence of langrell shot, and once more demonstrates that the ship's heavy ordnance, as a unit, was at the forefront of Elizabethan gun technology and artillery science.