If you look at most pre smokeless guns and cannons, you can often see them having a design that makes sense when it comes to their overall thickness. They are typically wider (often having “hoops”) closer to the breach area for obvious reasons as it’s where the explosion happened. But what I don’t understand is why they often had a slightly flared out bit at the extreme end of the barrel often called “muzzle face”, as often they would try to avoid putting a lot of weight on the extreme end as it would make it harder to move (aiming wise).
In: Engineering
The reason that the end of the muzzle often has a thicker ring about it is all about force distribution. When the middle of the barrel is pressurized by gasses inside it it tries to expand. However it is held in place by the tension created around the axle of the barrel. It is also held in place because it is pulling on the barrel ahead of it and behind it. So the load is distributed along 3 directions.
However when you get to the muzzle it only has the axle and the muzzle behind it, it doesn’t have anything ahead of it to help hold it in place. So it needs extra thickening there to help prevent it from turning into a peeled banana.
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