Delayed commissioning and brief Pacific service

Commissioned in 1877, Shannon remained in dock into 1878 because she was overweight and her installed machinery was troublesome. A shakedown with the Channel Fleet did not resolve matters, and an April dispatch toward China ended in a July recall for further alterations. After recommissioning and service with the Channel and Mediterranean Fleets, she finally reached the Pacific in 1879 and returned in 1881. There the expense of supplying unique ten-inch ammunition meant her largest guns were never exercised, revealing how poor readiness and poor logistics reinforced each other. The Navy would probably have found a way to send ammunition had it considered Shannon worth the expense, making the empty stockpile evidence of institutional loss of confidence.