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Caption: Royal Navy sailor with a conical-shaped shell, 1892

The conical-shaped shell was used in the new breech-loading guns, introduced from the 1860s. Breech-loading took some time before it was completely accepted in the British services for various technical reasons, but was reintroduced with improvements during the 1870s and 1880s. By then, other powers such as Germany, France and the United States were commonly using this type of loading mechanism.