Enfield Paper Cartridges

David Minshall ©2004

The bases of the finished bullet were fitted with a plug, the purpose of which was to insure the expansion of the bullet into the grooves of the rifling. Those plugs described by Hawes are wooden. He goes into considerable detail describing the machinery used in their manufacture, which could turn out 10,000 plugs in a working day.

On completion the plugs were dipped into a composition of beeswax and a very small quantity of spirits, "to prevent alteration of size and shape." The plugs were inserted by the simple operation of pressing the base of the bullet upon the small end of the plug as it lay on a table, taking care to ensure that the plug was flush with the sides of the bullet, i.e., placed evenly into the cavity. The bullets were then gauged by passing them through a steel ring gauge .001 of an inch larger in diameter than that of the bullet.