Mle. 1866 Chassepot Cartridge Construction - DIY Insanity!

[Bigslug]

OK. . .reboot of the construction technique started up on the previous page. Also having difficulties uploading some of the photos of rolling the paper patch - hopefully can splice them in later. Suffice to say for the moment that we went back to the template from original blueprint's design and found it works quite well with the Accurate Molds bullet after all:



Pop constructed the patch forming mandrel to provide a handle as the patch is rolled. Hopefully I can get the pics to behave, but the trick is to put an index mark right at the ogive on the bullet used for the mandrel and start one corner there. The front of the patch will come off line a little when you get toward the middle of it, but it will even up as you finish the roll and glue down the back edge.



Insert bullet into back of cone and follow it with the powder case. We still need to tinker with dimensions somewhere, as the powder case takes CONSIDERABLE finagling get shoved fully in.



Start with about 10" of dental floss and tie the first half of a square knot on one side of the cartridge case, just behind where the top wad sits. Cinch this down REALLY. . .FREAKING. . .TIGHT! Then take the ends of your floss around to the opposite side of the case and tie a complete square knot - again, REALLY. . .FREAKING. . .TIGHT!



For the moment, we smeared the paper patches and the tail end with a blob of SPG lube we had handy. These are snug going into a clean chamber, but they do go. Some dimensional tweaking may be in order, but we have seen the light. Range reports to follow!

[yulzari]

Splendid work! Well done. It is all confirming my experience that the closer you get to the original the better it works and the better the historical validity. Of course one can begin from first principles and modern materials and there is no reason why not but you don't get a Chassepot cartridge for a Chassepot rifle. The scourge of the Prussian infantry! Bravo on finding the silk gauze. The period one was a sort of open mesh rather than smooth cloth from the originals I have seen.

The reference on the other thread of grease soaked leather for bolt washers makes perfect sense as a period alternative to natural rubber. I can imagine that it is vulnerable to ambient and firing temperatures. Also mice. Forcing home the bolt in a Canadian style winter would be a challenge. Leather was a frequent material for seals. I can still recall bicycle pump cup washers being in leather and also in airguns. Synthetic rubbers have superceded them as seals but I believe that ultra thin leather is still used a pressure seal in a very few items as very thin synthetic rubber will tear readily whilst the structure of leather will resist tearing.

It makes recreating Westley Richards No9 lubricant for a Monkey Tail cartridge seem easy by comparison.

[Bigslug]

Now Hozier, sometimes surprisingly, on the rival weapons systems:

The Chassepot has a longer range, but less precision, than the Prussian needle-gun. The Chassepot has an incipient velocity of 1328 feet per second, the needle-gun only 990 but the semi-diameter of the scattering circle at 300 paces is as much as 13½ inches in the case of the former, and only 7¼ inches in that of the latter.

. . . Perhaps you shouldn't feel bad about the accuracy you are getting.

"Semi-diameter" referring to radius would seem to indicate that the Chassepot was, in modern parlance, "as much as" a 9-MOA rifle, and the Dreyse just a shade better than 5-MOA. My gut feeling is that the Achilles Heel of the system is lack of proper alignment of the bullet in the bore. The taper of the bullet, the technique for patching it, and the method for attaching it to the powder bag is in no way anything that lends itself to super-consistent manufacture, staying consistent in the field, or remaining consistent as the gun fouls up. Some perfection of Zen origami folding will no doubt help this, and that will probably illustrate the extremes of proper, arsenal ammo and rush-job wartime rounds.

(quoting Hozier again)
"The effective range of the Chassepot is 1800 paces, and that of the needle-gun only 600. Such a superiority in range was severely felt on several occasions by the Prussians in charging when they had to traverse a distance of 1200 paces entirely exposed to a destructive fire to which they were entirely powerless to reply. It is inexplicable, however why the French did not make use of the boasted long range of their Chassepots to pick off the Prussian gunners on many occasions, especially at the battle of Gravelotte, where the Prussian artillery was extremely destructive."

One has to wonder, in studying these combined statements, what attributes made for "effective range" at the time. A 9-minute rifle at 1800 yards ("paces"???) is putting bullets into a 13-foot circle, and you'll be missing a man as often as hitting him at 400 yards. If you think of that in terms of it taking two men firing one shot each to hit a man at 400 yards, or four men firing one shot each to hit a man at 800, this "math" at least on the surface, is not awful. . .provided your groups roughly center on the sights to begin with.

We're going to wring this original cartridge technique out to some logical conclusion that finds the performance edge of the system as it was used back in the day. The bug that's currently crawling between my synapses is suggesting that some of the simplified options of using a lube-groove .45-70 bullet seated directly on top of a card wad inside the powder tube may provide better accuracy - at least so far as ability to properly align the bullet goes.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

One has to wonder, in studying these combined statements, what attributes made for "effective range" at the time. A 13-minute rifle at 1800 yards ("paces"???) is putting bullets into a 19-foot circle, and you'll be missing a man as often as hitting him at 300 yards. If you think of that in terms of it taking two men firing one shot each to hit a man at 300 yards, or four men firing one shot each to hit a man at 600, this "math" at least on the surface, is not awful. . .provided your groups roughly center on the sights to begin with.

We have to remember that a lot of shots can be fired while men are marching 1200 yards. While it is difficult to be sure exactly what the combination of tactics and topography was, there are certainly contemporary engravings showing rank after rank of Prussian infantry with officers out front, advancing across extremely wide expanses of open ground. I can believe it, for I knew old men who saw the same thing in the first weeks of war in 1914, and after all those years were close to tears they would never have shown for their own. For they found that prisoners were student volunteers with no military training at all, or any idea how to defend themselves, and the German emperor had used them to do murder.

I'd compare it with a very grim piece of mathematics about losses to forces of different sizes. An outnumbered force must inflict losses proportional to the odds against it - four for one if the enemy is double its numbers, and so on - if the enemy is to arrive at breaking-point first. This applies in a linear exchange, which could be everybody engaging everybody at once, or champions sallying forth for single combat one after another in the Homeric manner. The job of an army commander, guerrilla or major league, is to oppose a large part of his force to a locally smaller part of the enemy's.

For similar reasons, one rifle might inflict non-sustainable losses on that long walk - as long as Pickett's charge - while another wouldn't. I don't think the Franco-Prussian was won by massed charges across wide open ground, against the modern or nearly-modern rifle. Deficiencies of organisation or supply are another way of bringing only part of your force into action. Another point is that the Prussians outclassed the French in artillery, to such effect that by 1914 the French had provided themselves with the 75, the best field-gun of the war.

I think it could be quite important to take a chamber cast with cerrosafe or car body filler. For I think that conical bullet with a narrow bearing surface would have been extremely liable to tip, unless it was supported by contact with a similarly tapered throat. Even a conventional .45-70 bullet touching the rifling could tip, if it is unsupported by a metallic case at its rear.

I've mentioned W. Milton Farrow the American, author of the modestly entitled "How I Became a Crack Shot". He made a match-shooting tour of Europe, in which he found the Germans the worst losers imaginable, while the French couldn't have been more pleasant about being beaten. He was invited to fire the 1874 Gras rifle, which in early conversions had the Chassepot barrel, and I'm not aware of changes in purpose-built versions. Used to American scheutzen rifles, he considered the rifling far too deep for the best results.

[Bigslug]

I think it could be quite important to take a chamber cast with cerrosafe or car body filler. For I think that conical bullet with a narrow bearing surface would have been extremely liable to tip, unless it was supported by contact with a similarly tapered throat. Even a conventional .45-70 bullet touching the rifling could tip, if it is unsupported by a metallic case at its rear.

Indeed. . .and the puzzle may be a bit more complex than this. . .

The Chap's technique is what got us to run this latest "most authentic" batch with the heavy brown post paper for both powder case and bullet patch. A thicker patch of this design, properly rolled, is going to have a pretty significant aligning (or mis-aligning) effect of its own.

An observation on making these authentic cartridges is that a truly square interface between the base of the bullet and the twisted and stuffed top of the powder case isn't likely to happen.

The bee that's currently buzzing in my brain is that maybe the slight gap we're seeing between the bullet base and the powder case due to too tight of a fit between the case and the patch cone is not necessarily a bad thing. If the patch is properly rolled, that little bit of wiggle might actually serve to help the bullet line up in the forcing cone. Dunno. . .at the best of times it's going to be far behind a Redding competition seating die.

BUT HOW COOL IS THIS??? We now have two Chassepot threads going simultaneously that are chasing this demon from COMPLETELY different directions. A pretty exclusive club, I'm thinking.

[Bigslug]

OK. . .Two new chunks of data acquired on the Callebaud Cartridge:

First data source is from The Chap of Bloke on the Range fame. He's got two advantages working for him - familiarity with the Chassepot and fluency in French. He did a study of the source documents and provided the following, as relayed by Bloke:

"It is very sketchy about the construction of the cartridge but with a bit of deduction we can garner the essentials of the cartridge.

1. Wooden tube (13mm diameter?)
2. 13mm rubber disc sealing off the base of the cartridge
3. Ignition seems to be identical to Chassepot since the premise is that the rifle remains unchanged.
4. The cartridge tube is wrapped in jaconas (cotton fabric) treated with a waterproofing varnish giving an external diametre of 13.5mm.
5. OAL is 4.5mm longer than the 1866 cartridge, therefore +/- 73mm long. The length is to ensure the bullet is firmly seated in the forcing cone. This length is longer than a typical Chassepot chamber but it is stated that the bolt head pushes slightly into the base of the cartridge, against the rubber disk spanning the base, for the remaining bolt travel once the bullet is firmly set up. It further states that compressibility of the powder allows this excess bolt travel into the cartridge base, indicating that powder compression is lower than in a 1866 cartridge.
6. The wooden case is thin enough that (when fired?), when pushed through the forcing cone, it is crushed and breaks down into a series of slats extending back to the base, this forming a mass which supposedly cleans the barrel as it is expelled.

From the above clues it seems to me that the case consists of a simple wooden tube sealed at one end by a rubber disc, wrapped in cotton fabric and lacquered. The ignition appears to be of the 1866 percussion cap sort dispensing with the now redundant internal rubber disc. My guess is the powder is poured in and moderately compressed and followed by the bullet. There is no mention of any wadding present. It is also stated that the bullet is firmly joined to the case "as firmly as in a metallic case". Was it glued or just an interference fit? It is further stated that in dire need, the case body can simply be made of rolled paper.

The Chap has also inquired on a French collectors forum to see if anyone has any pictorial evidence to support his deductions."

The second bit was from a book we discovered the existence of when I ran across a video that Ian of Forgotten Weapons made to cover it. This is titled The Needle-Ignition System of The Modele 1866 Chassepot by Guy & Leonard A-R West. There only one line covering the Callebaud that I have found in the whole 145 pages, but it does shed some light:

"1873. Calebrand cartridge. Case made from beech or walnut"

So this does confirm that we are in fact dealing with a wooden tube. It also suggests that those who may be closer to the original French arms museums might request searches for "Calebrand" as well as some of the other spellings we've been tossing around.

Hopefully someone more familiar with period woodworking can chime in on how this might be done. On the one hand, I tend to think that boring or lathe-turning tubes from solid pieces of hardwood would be a very inefficient use of tools, raw materials, and time. On the other hand, I'm not sure how successfully you could roll a sub-1mm thick veneer into something as tight as a 13-ish mm diameter tube.

But at any rate, these are probably the most solid pieces of the Callebaud puzzle we have found to date, to the point that some of us might be able to undertake construction.

Have yet to fire the original cartridges made over the last few posts. Was going to yesterday, but needed to go see a gunsmith about other projects instead of going to the range, so. . .two week delay. Sorry guys!

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Aha! Here is a website which gives a rather unclear version of the French "Gazette des Armes", a very garbled text version which you can feed into Google Translate if you need to, and the opportunity to buy a better PDF download for one euro. I have just used that website, as I sometimes have in the past, to identify the issue and buy an original magazine on eBay for 5.40 euros including postage to the UK.

http://fr.1001mags.com/parution/gaze...texte-integral

Various pre-war and wartime variations in the cartridge are mentioned, some tentatively ascribed to the siege of Paris or the Army of the Loire, a hastily organised force more or less unconnected with the Imperial army which remained in being until the armistice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm%C3%A9e_de_la_Loire

There were several post-war improvements, probably by inventors who were told "That's very interesting, but have you seen what Westley Richards have just patented in drawn brass?" Of the Callebaut cartridge it gives only the same information, that the case was of beech or walnut wood. My money would be on veneer, since I think some woods would roll up if steamed or dampened. Cedar does, presumably dry, in cigar tubes. Well even their version is a slight addition, in that it suggests we aren't talking about an early wood-bullet blank.

A very interesting one, though, is the January 1873 cartridge of Gaupillat, later or even already a maker of metallic revolver cartridges. In this the powder was compressed into a hollow cylinder filled with priming powder, which I believe would just be fine black powder. The cap was fixed in the end of this channel, and the end covered with a paper star, or which the points were glued to the case, which was otherwise a single piece of cartridge paper. This sounds good for anyone who wants to make an unaltered Chassepot perform, and the compressed powder pellet was already used in the extremely large (and conventionally-cased and primed) cartridge of the Mitrailleuse machine-gun. But only 200 Gaupillat cartridges of five models were tested by the commission on musketry in Versailles.

[Bigslug]

Hmmmmm. . .

While I'm not ruling out the rolled veneer theory at all. . .

Check out #6 on The Chap's list. . .this mention of "slats". . .

Maybe this is just how the rolled veneer tube disintegrates on firing, but I'm wondering if maybe this thing was made of a series of wooden "planks", glued to a strip of this "jaconas" fabric, which was then wrapped around a mandrel and glued into a tube, then lacquered into submission. The wood would then provide most of the lengthwise rigidity, and the packed gunpowder would ensure outward pressure to keep the thing round. Hmmmm....

[yulzari]

I will see what I can do with a translation of the Gazette article.

[yulzari]

Well I have the raw translation (i.e. less any bias from my interpretation) but no idea of how to put it on here. Any advice on how to do this? I can't even put on photographs without storing them on some external site.

[yulzari]

Ah. I think that I have beaten the ..**! into submission so here is the raw translated text. Non francophones can sit with this, and the original linked above, with a French dictionary and make your choice of translation. This is what the translation machine does and it chooses the best fit to whatever the program decided are the parameters. You can choose based upon context and meaning.

Chassepot Gazette.pdf

Regarding the fabled Callebaud cartridge. It seems to me that it is a rolled veneer. That would be too thick for an overlap joint and too thin for a butt joint so I interpret this as being held together with the cotton fabric outer wrap. On firing the longitudinal grain would mean that it split along the grain into thin strip which would be carried down the barrel. Hence Callebaud's assurance that no wood remains in the barrel.

German thoughts on using the Boxer cartridge in the Chassepot:

tab193551.pdf
Chassepot Boxer.pdf

[Ballistics in Scotland]

That was well worth doing for something as delightful as "A ministerial order under the February shock of a 1863 needle." Well, that's politics.

Guncotton had existed, in forms too fast-igniting for smallarms use, for about twenty years, and Captain Schultze had patented his nitrated wood powder, with a small admixture of saltpetre or barium nitrate, in 1863. This was too fast for military rifles, but became quite popular for shotgun use. I believe it consisted of quite recognisable little woody chunks, and it is possible that the wood used in the Callebaud cartridge was similarly treated. It wouldn't add materially to peak pressures... er... I think... but would disappear in the bore. It doesn't sound like the little information available on the Callebaud cartridge came from a patent, and if it got no closer to adoption than Gaupullat's, there most likely never was one. It is quite possible that the information came from someone who had heard a partial and perhaps secretive description of the Callebaud system.

[yulzari]

and from P. Ganidel:

cartouche pour fusil chassepot.pdf

Incidentally for stiffening the Chassepot cartridge M. Bousier of 44 rue Voltaire, Marseilles (Bonches-du-Rhone) gives a mix of 900cc of alcohol, 300 grams of shellac and 100cc of oil as a bath in which to dip the cartridge and make it more rigid. I am not certain that this is to the casing or the entire powder case complete but I would suspect the latter were it not for the oil.

These proposed improvements to the original are all rather a set of jigsaw puzzles with only some of the pieces and a written description of the depiction but no picture. With the original we at least have all the pieces and the whole picture.

For those coming new to the subject of loading for the Chassepot may I recommend a look at http://jp.sedent.free.fr/UNE%20CARTO...0CHASSEPOT.htm

Some interesting period books concerning the Chassepot: http://gallica.bnf.fr/services/engine/search/sru?operation=searchRetrieve&version=1.2&query=%28 dc.title%20all%20"Le%20fusil%20chassepot"%29&sugge st=3

Further trivia (and I do not recommend doing this) from 'A Dictionary of Explosives' by Cundill:
Brugere's Powder consists of 54 parts of picrate
of ammonia, and 46 of saltpetre. It is stable, safe to
manufacture and handle, but rather expensive. It gives
good results in a Chassepot rifle. There is little smoke,
and the residue is small, and consists of carbonate of
potash. (D., p. 740.)

For those who have not seen how the Chassepot works here is a short 3D video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX0cEXXydro

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Ganidel's booklet is interesting. It would be useful to know just what office M. Ganivel occupied, for he just describes himself as engineer, formerly officer and the organisation publishing his work isn't named either. It isn't without errors, for he describes the original Chassepot cartridge as combustible, which it wasn't, and I think he is fighting a losing battle against the metallic cartridge. But there is a lot of interesting material there.

He quotes Monsieur Thiers (the president now best or worst remembered for the extremely bloody suppression of the Commune de Paris revolt after the siege), as saying that all men of war recognised the Chassepot as the best military rifle in use, and appealed for the necessary perfection of its cartridge which all the countries of Europe were striving to improve upon. The trouble was that several of them already had.

I'm sure that as an urgently needed stopgap, Thiers was perfectly right, and France would have breathed more easily with a really good cartridge for the unaltered Chassepot. But Ganidel published in 1873 when the decisions leading to the Gras metallic-cartridge conversion and later purpose-made Gras rifles had probably been taken. He probably hadn't examined the Martini-Henry or 1871 Mauser, but they existed.

It is a pity he doesn't give more detail on what the Gallebaud cartridge actually was. But perhaps he was writing for people who had the test cartridges at their disposal. He does say that with the covering of varnished jaconas fabric, the cartridges were as waterproof as metallic ones, and river crossings needn't be feared. Well, maybe... But it does make it pretty certain that the fabric was stuck to the wood, and did give it some strength.

He does comment on the fragility of the original Chassepot cartridge (an estimated 20% coming to pieces in transit), the inferior quality produced by small new manufacturers, and the necessity for metallic cartridges to be made in centralised factories equipped with expensive machinery. I don't know if he saw any contradiction there. He makes some very valid comments on the rubber obturator, but says the rifle, in the hands of trained men, will never produce gas leaks harmful to the vigilant shooter. This seems all the more fanciful when juxtaposed with his claim that the metallic-cased cartridge will inevitably produce tearing around the conical point of the firing-pin.

We seem to have got on top of this problem quite nicely, but I think I see its origin. The 1873 French ordnance revolver has a sharp pointed firing-pin with what we would now consider excessive protrusion, while my Dutch 1873 has a firing-pin entirely up to modern standards for shape and protrusion. Ganidel is writing in the very early days of centrefire firearms,and this may not have been fully appreciated in France.

He does stress the contrast with Britain, Belgium and the US, where ammunition manufacture was largely uncontrolled, while France thought it necessary to keep it as a government monopoly. Well, I don't believe the Prussians reached St. Etienne or Tulle, but 20,000 communards, or people who looked like they might have been communards, had died in the taking of Paris, a lot of them with their hands up at the time. The government probably wasn't thinking of foreign foes.

It might be that rubber was expensive or in short supply at the time. Otherwise I wonder if they would have been better off building the obturator into the base of the cartridge? It would have had to be extracted, but the rest of the casing could have been as light and combustible as they liked.

[yulzari]

Not to put people off but to be safe below is a relatively recent report of an accident with a Chassepot:
Thirty years ago , I was at the firing point for a special black powder day
I lent my Chassepot to a friend who wanted to fire off a few cartridges that remained in the back of my box.
At the last remaining one he offered to let me fire this one, I accepted.
I pushed the cartridge into the breech with a finger and went to close the breech and ...... huge explosion, surprise unexpected detonation.
I thought I had my hand severed on my wrist, I had the bolt handle rammed into the palm of my hand, I had to put my foot on the rifle to tear off the hand with the remaining hand! Immediately: Huge stream of blood and emergency direction.
3 hours of operation by a specialist in the hand and 1.5 months of complete hospitalization.
Explanation of the accident: very simple! the needle broke between the two cartridges and pushing the bolt, the needle hit the primer before locking, the recoil then exerted in the breech and ... my hand.
So recommendation to all of you: check your needle after each shot !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This accident was common at the time of the endowment of the Chassepot, many were leaving the battlefield after such an injury.
The hospitalization was very long because fragments of paper and grains of black powder came out constantly and infected the wound.
after a big rehabilitation I recovered everything but with a reduced strength.
The poster of this will not object it being copied here I am sure. Fortunately this was in France where all his hospital costs are covered by social medicine and top up insurance.

This was a known issue when it was a service rifle. The lesson to us is to check the front of the bolt head to ensure that the needle is not stuck out when the bolt is open and to check that the obturator will rotate. On the target range we are not in a hurry and can take the time to be safe. This will avoid issues from broken needles and torn or stuck obturators. Both originate with fouling accumulating. In particular in the hole for the needle. Also always wear eye protection. This chap did have his eyes protected. Hands can be repaired. Eyes not.

More safety information is readable and downloadable at: gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k8833192.image.or is available as a book at Abebooks as Des Causes et du mécanisme des accidents occasionnés par le maniement du fusil Chassepot, par M. Treille,. Treille, Alcide-Marie (Dr).

[Bigslug]

Yulzari - good safety tip!

I suppose if the questions at the time were: "How do you get all this stuff out of the barrel so it's clear for the next shot?", and "What do I want to bet my tender and valuable backside on?" and your choices are:

1. A pour-it-down-the-muzzle Minie ball cartridge
2. A chop-open-on-loading Sharps paper cartridge
3. A Snider cartridge with it's bizarre assembly of metal base and paper tubing
4. An early Martini cartridge with its crinkly foil body
5. A Callebaud or other efforts at making a Chassepot MKII round. . .

I'd be inclined to put some serious thought into the matter. Of all of that, I've probably got the most confidence in the muzzle loader (to work) - though the reasons to seek its replacement were many and valid. Wood and cloth was the mature technology of the time - they'd been sailing around the world with it for centuries. As one who fears and distrusts the new, I can see why they weren't rushing headlong to the brass that there was no infrastructure for.

[yulzari]

Given the available engineering and French infrastructure I would have gone for Boxer cartridge. Easy stampings and hand assembly that even the Tibetans managed to do. Save some money with tinned steel instead of brass. A straight wall case so no complex machine crimping like the Martini version. See the Comblain cartridge for the M1870 rifle. Doing a bolt with an extractor was quite possible. I had an 1871 Samain which was, essentially, a flintlock of Napoleon I converted to a bolt action centre fire rifle via a stream of intermediate updates. It used the Gevelot M1866 centre fire cartridge as also used in the Tabatiere breech loader conversion. Perhaps Gevelot could make a Chassepot size version? It is a sort of Boxerish construction.

German illustration of the Gevelot M1866 Tabatiere cartridge

Boxer Comblain round used from 1867 until the drawn cases came in 1875.

The actual service Chassepot round clearly does the unpleasant work required of it per this extract from the Engineer 1868 p.188:

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Westley Richards had patented very modern-looking solid-drawn brass cases in 1869, no doubt using Mr. Armstrong's hydraulic presses. But leaving that aside (as no doubt Enfield too would have wished), the French already had an elongated pasteboard cartridge, with a conventionally centrefire metal base, before the war. It was the very large 13mm cartridge for the mitrailleuse machine-gun- or some might call it a volley gun, for you just dropped in a block containing twenty-five cartridges, like a square and non-rotating revolver cylinder, and a lever tripped the firing-pins in complete or partial bursts of five shots.

It was in many ways a rather good weapon, introduced I believe at a time when the Gatling had got as far as reusable steel "cartridges" loaded with a rifle musket paper cartridge. The Gatling would spit out a misfired round but would be seriously jammed by a stuck case, while the mitrailleuse could have the blocks loaded as a 24-round gun even if a case was irremediably stuck. The trouble was that they saw it as an artillery weapon, to be used at long range by artillery crews, and like the early Gatlings, anything beyond very limited traversing hd to be done by moving the trail of a carriage very like the Napoleon light smoothbore shell gun which was used so much in the American Civil War.

The cartridge probably originated with the "system Lancaster" shotgun, and on a reduced scale it would have made an excellent military cartridge, very much like those used for big game until all-brass cases came in. It could have adapted easily to hose when they arrived on the scene, and could have had a tin lining for much of its length. Here is a cartridge with a similar fibre filled head but brass all the way up, used in the 1873 ordnance revolver. This had its origin in their Lafaucheux naval round of (in theory) 1870, and civilian production, probably by Gevelot, even earlier. The issue cartridge seems to have been unnecessarily underloaded, but the revolver, A reliable double-action with all its internal parts exposed and still not liberated by undoing a single large screw, was far ahead of what the heirs of Col. Colt were doing in that year.




That was a shocking accident. I don't know what would be worse, suffering an accident like that, or having a friend suffer it, possibly with a needle he had made. Clearly great care is needed in doing so. The steels used for jet turbine blades should be far better than the nineteenth century knew, but I don't know if they can be obtained in round rods. Piano wire was well known, and isn't as easy to anneal by heat as some other high-carbon steels. Every year or two I try and break another tap on a piece of ¼in. piano wire I plan to make into a cleaning rod. In the other thread tungsten welding rods are recommended, and they should certainly stand heat extremely well. But welding rods are guaranteed only for welding, and tungsten and some of its alloys can be brittle.

It is noteworthy that Ganivel suggests doubling the diameter of the needle to 3mm., and I don't see why the bolt head shouldn't cover the needle to very close to its tip. The larger diameter might permit giving the needle a sort of bowler-hat shape, with sharp edges that would scrape fouling from its channel.

[Bigslug]

Unfortunately, there are some dimensional issues to sort out with the new construction technique - that which chambered snugly, but willingly in the workshop two weeks ago SIMPLY WOULD NOT at the range yesterday. Probably time to bite the weenie and see about a chamber casting.

There was a happy discovery of the day though - the range was too crowded for frequent trips downrange to set out paper, so we started cracking at the communal bowling pin uphill at 175 yards, and the sights seem to be spot on for elevation at that distance. MUCH easier to hold only right, instead of low AND right. We may start shooting for group at that distance to simplify things.

[Racing]

I vote it would be REALLY interesting to see such a group on paper.
Of course to eventually see any difference,if any,vs the shrink sleeve cartridge now in the making. IMO that could be real revealing.