Gunpowder projectiles, history of the cartridge from paper tube to solid-drawn case. Contemporary information on loading.
James Dixon & Sons, Cornish Place, Sheffield, manufactured a huge variety of implements for muzzle loading, pin fire and centre fire breech-loading arms. Included were cartridge creasers and this short article features that for the .577 cartridge.
Problems in the measurement of gun powder charges resulting from the use of different terminologies. De Witt Bailey and Bill Curtis investigated a wide variety of authors from Benjamin Robins in 1742 to Sir Henry Halford in 1888, with a view to finding out if these writers meant what they said. The basic conclusion was that while most did, for a certain period in the early 19th Century, a number became involved in the perpetuation of what appears to have begun as an incorrect translation of a French measure late in the 18th Century.
The term 'Cartridge' in the context of the muzzle loading era did not always mean 'a complete round with powder'. In shotgun terms, it meant a package containing the shot charge and possibly the wadding which could be loaded intact onto the powder charge already in the barrel.
This biography of Joshua Shaw, Artist and Inventor, from 1869 also features the early history of the copper percussion cap. Many people claimed invention of this system but it was such an obvious development from the patch lock that it must have occurred to a good many people almost simultaneously - Research Press.
The manufacture of percussion-caps. The first process in this light and delicate work is the stamping of sheet-copper into pieces of the required form to make the caps. For this purpose the copper is placed beneath the punch of the machine, and immediately it is put into action, small crosses of metal are seen to fall from it into a box in a continual stream, whilst the sheet itself is transposed by the punching process into a kind of trellis work.
Some of William Metford's letters to Sir Henry Halford survive and give a fascinating insight into the experimentation conducted by these gentlemen in the pursuit of accuracy. This short collection of extracts from their correspondence covers work with bullet alloys.
For a period during the 1870s long range target shooting captivated the public and much coverage of the sport was given by the press. Some reports referred to technical detail and this article includes contemporary comment from the 1870s on bullet alloys and in particular the use of quicksilver (mercury) as a bullet-hardener.
In the Annual Report of the National Rifle Association for 1875, General Alexander Shaler (President 1875-1877) reported on experiments with powder charges for long range shooting. The experiments commenced during the summer 1875 and were concluded that December. The aim was to determine the proper charge of powder to use in long range shooting in the Remington Creedmoor Rifle. Swaged bullets weighing 550 grains were used, and interestingly made of a hard alloy composed of fifteen parts lead and one of tin.
It’s 1879, and since the 1874 International Match at Creedmoor there have been a lot of changes. Edwin Perry shares, in his Third Edition of Modern Observations on Rifle Shooting (1880), some of the major changes / advancements at Creedmoor in just a short 5 years. When it comes to bullet alloys, much of what has been passed around on the internet as fact about the advent of harder alloy bullets is, frankly, nothing but conjecture. And what has been passed off as fact is in effect WRONG. Very hard alloy bullets, were in vogue by 1879 for long range competition and were sold by Sharps and Remington. Factory ammo was no longer used by any of the big name shooters. Most had, after careful study, found that their own reloads had much better performance on the long range targets. Make no mistake about it, rapid advances in long range shooting were going on, and much of it we knew little about, until now.
Pictorial feature of boxed sets of long range bullets for the Sharps rifle, manufactured by the Winchester Repeating Arms Co.
Research Press Digest
The Story of Creedmoor