Eley 450/400 3-1/8" Dissection

[Huvius]

Sorry... should read 2-3/8"...

After a brief discussion on another thread about copper tubed boolits, I decided I would dismantle a vintage cartridge to see for myself.

I have a quantity of Eley 450/400 2-3/8" BPE cases and pulled apart one of the rough ones.
Here is what I found...

The PP boolit is 230grs.
The paper is .001" with two wraps.
Wrapped dia. is .401" +/-

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg312/Huvius/Eley400.jpg (http://s251.photobucket.com/user/Huvius/media/Eley400.jpg.html)

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg312/Huvius/Eley40010.jpg (http://s251.photobucket.com/user/Huvius/media/Eley40010.jpg.html)

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg312/Huvius/Eley4002.jpg (http://s251.photobucket.com/user/Huvius/media/Eley4002.jpg.html)

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg312/Huvius/Eley4008.jpg (http://s251.photobucket.com/user/Huvius/media/Eley4008.jpg.html)

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg312/Huvius/Eley4007.jpg (http://s251.photobucket.com/user/Huvius/media/Eley4007.jpg.html)

The tube is .155" in dia. and .515" long

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg312/Huvius/Eley4006.jpg (http://s251.photobucket.com/user/Huvius/media/Eley4006.jpg.html)

Three wads below the boolit.
.025" - .100" - .025"
80grs of black powder

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg312/Huvius/Eley4005.jpg (http://s251.photobucket.com/user/Huvius/media/Eley4005.jpg.html)

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg312/Huvius/Eley4004.jpg (http://s251.photobucket.com/user/Huvius/media/Eley4004.jpg.html)

Inside the base of the case is raised and I cannot see where the primer spark would travel to the powder charge.
Will have to take a closer look...

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg312/Huvius/Eley4003.jpg (http://s251.photobucket.com/user/Huvius/media/Eley4003.jpg.html)

[bigted]

thanks for showing that. is the loaded cartridge a factory load do you know?

I find a couple things interesting here. first is the diameter of the wrapped boolit ... being at .401 inch which I assume makes the slick around .397 inch ... correct? and my book tells of a bullet diameter of .407 according to my copy of "the handloaders manual of cartridge conversions".

I assume the 'dent' in the boolit is from rough handling of the cartridge right?

I am also interested in the wad stack. seems like a strange arrangement what with the 3 different wads ... that is fun to contemplate.

the powder is different as well in the coal-like chunks instead of the flakes I am familiar with. and shiny so prolly been polished in some manner in the same likeness of Express or Cartridge powder from GOEX. also does not appear to have been compressed unless the powder is very hard in texture.

the hollow base is not unlike the better hollow bases I have seen ... instead of the deep hollow I see in other boolits of modern manufacture.

again ... thankyou for the show n tell of a neat old cartridge. it is telling to see the way the 'tail' is twisted on the boolit base and covers the entire diameter of the boolit. also the thickness of the paper ... can you tell what the fabric in the paper is likened to in modern paper? grainy?

thanks again for this post.

[Huvius]

Yes, these are originals.
The dent on the boolit is from the stab crimp on the original case. They have two little dents 180deg from each other. You can see one in the first picture.
I think the diameter is in keeping with these being sized for bore rather than groove diameter.
The paper is very slick feeling, almost like wax paper. No real discernable grain to it. I suppose this is from being lubed with something which has hardened over the last 120yrs or so...

The powder was very compressed. I used a pick to get it loose and the granules do seem to be quite hard and shiny, almost like they are laquered or coated.
I suspect that the powder was compressed when seating the wads because the top wad definitely had a bit of concavity.
I will attempt a crush comparison when I get a little time and compare the granule size against modern F-FFF granulation.
They do look like coal chunks, don't they!

[Lead pot]

Is that thinner wad on the right metallic? and can you tell what the center wad is made off? lube?
Thank you for sharing.

Kurt

[Huvius]

Is that thinner wad on the right metallic? and can you tell what the center wad is made off? lube?
Thank you for sharing.

Kurt

The thin wads are like stiff waxed stock. I can imagine that a card stock coated with paste wax would be very similar.
The middle .100" wad is stiff dense card too. Much like a masonite but not as dense. As you can see, I knarfed it up getting it out with a straight tweezer. It was really tight in there. Maybe the lube on it hardened over the years and made it adhere to the inner wall of the case.

[1886nut]

Neat stuff, thanks for these nice pictures, I have printed them out and put them in my loading folder for reference.

Looks like the flash hole has some kind of mini disc wad over it...some kind of attempt to distribute the primer flame radially? Or maybe to keep moisture / humidity away from the BP charge? The latter would presume, of course, that the primer was less susceptible than the powder change.

I'm pretty sure the gunpowder is like that from being corned with water first and then sent through some kind of simple tumbling or grinding operation to break it apart into particulate. Goex and Swiss probably have some pretty sophisticated processes that werent around 130 years ago.

[Lead pot]

Thank you.

[bigted]

yes that would make sense if the middle .100 inch wad was a lubed felt or some such. do the thin card wads feel like maybe a playing card?

also the kernels must be hard as woodpecker lips if it were compressed to the digging out state and still remain chunky like that.

did the powder have fines in the mix or all the chunky's we see?

the style of that crimp makes me wonder how they kept the gas from going along side the boolit upon firing.

as for the patch itself ... does the base twisted paper have the same "feel" as the sides as being waxy/slick?

again ... very cool ... thanks! ... guess I should buy some original cartridges and explore for myself ... LOL

[Huvius]

bigted,
There was some fine powder in with the granules, but not very much.
The entire patch has that slick feel. To the touch, it feels something like a Starburst candy wrapper as far as slickness, but the paper itself feels more crisp. I again assume that the lube has hardened over time.
In will try to lay it out flat and get some measurements and a better assessment of the paper itself later today.

[bigted]

thanks

[Huvius]

Here are some pictures of the patch all ironed out as flat as I could get it.

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg312/Huvius/Paperpatchlength.jpg (http://s251.photobucket.com/user/Huvius/media/Paperpatchlength.jpg.html)

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg312/Huvius/Paperpatch3.jpg (http://s251.photobucket.com/user/Huvius/media/Paperpatch3.jpg.html)

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg312/Huvius/Paperpatch2.jpg (http://s251.photobucket.com/user/Huvius/media/Paperpatch2.jpg.html)

[Huvius]

The wad material, at least the thin wads, is very similar to thin gasket material. Pictured is the wad on top of a piece of cardboard box from a Totinos pizza. Very similar looking although the pizza box is a bit thinner.
The original wad has a very slick coating on it like a laquer. I thought it was absorbed lube but now see that it is a laquer - very smooth and slick.

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg312/Huvius/Wadmaterial.jpg (http://s251.photobucket.com/user/Huvius/media/Wadmaterial.jpg.html)

[bigted]

that is all very cool. I really appreciate you sharing this piece of history with us. I like to inquire as to what was and how it was done ... kinda gives at least a starting place for modern loads.

these materials are probably going to be hard to duplicate completely but enough to maybe get close.

thanks again.

[johnson1942]

wow, thanks for shareing that post. i read once that those cases came from the factory dented and not perfect like we expect to day. when they came out of the gun they were fireformed and looked better. didnt seem at all to affect the accracy and that cartridge had quite a good reputation.

[Huvius]

You guys are very welcome!
The dents are actually stab crimps. Normally, the patched bullet is slipped into the case mouth with little resistance so the stab crimps hold the bullet from slipping out. I suspect that these originals were jostled around quite a bit while in transit on rail to the far flung reaches of the empire.
The lesson learned for me here is that I should be sizing my bare boolits to use the thinnest paper (that is durable enough) so that my PP boolit has the best fit into a fired case.
Secondly, I had been patching my boolits long, twisting the patch, and then snipping the tail prior to tucking the tail into the base. I see now that the patches were cut to width to just allow for the tail to be tucked. Don't know how they got the twisted tail though. The paper must have been quite pliable when wet. I am starting to think that the nice ladies patching these boolits must have had some sort of rolling machine to accomplish this...
Also, that the hollow base on a PP boolit is simply to provide a space for the patch tail to be tucked. I always figured that it helped the boolit to "bump up" to fit the groove diameter but the solid wad column on this original case makes me doubt that this is the true purpose. The cavity allows the base of the patched boolit to be as flat as possible.
What I REALLY want to see is an original example of a Gibbs copper coated bullet form the tail end of the 461 Gibbs development to see if it has a flat base. Anybody know?

[bigted]

nope ... don't know but I do have an answer for the twisted but no tail detail of these boolits. I do this all the time.

I first off patch with paper that has been dunked underwater while on a sponge. it is very wet and when I wrap the boolit I do so by hand and eyesight only ... not with the aid of any "wrapping board" or other devise or help. after I wrap the boolit with the paper I put my thumb on the base and twist the boolit with my fingers to twirl the base in a twist without getting a "tail". after I do the twist on my thumb i put the wrapped boolit in a plastic cartridge loading trey and upon setting it in the hole ... I twist the boolit in the same direction before I let go of it. then it stays in this position as I put the trey of wrapped boolits in the oven for a bake to dry/shrink them and after I remove them from the oven i turn em over so the base is up and this allows them to further cool/dry in this position. to get this result I cut the paper to overlap the base by 3/16th of an inch so the overlap is what gets the twirl in the direction of the wrap.

this is the reason I am so interested in this factory patched boolit. I also get my "tail/boolit base" to look like the base of this boolit that you pulled. looks like I got one thing rite maybe?

thanks again ... and by the by I also wrap solid base boolits and I must say that getting them to look and function the same as the hollow base boolits has thus far been impossible for me. so I cut my paper long enough to get the "twisted tail" that I later clip off after complete drying.

[johnson1942]

first i want to ask the question and forgive me if i missed it in all the good post here. was their lube on the paper and what kind was it.? also one day i was snipping off tails with a regular sizzors and not snipping them as close as i would have liked and the idea struck me why not a curved sissors. so the next time i went to town i went to the pharmacy and found a very good small sharp sissor for nail trimming that had a pronounced curve in the blade. it cost about 12.00 bucks so i thought it would last. with this sissors i can tightly twist the tails and cut them so close to the base that it turns out just like the ones in the pictures. i have tried diff lubes and im not satisfied with any of them really. again if lube was used on the paper of bullet shown, what was it? some lubes coat and some make the paper look like waxed paper. maybe no lube at all is better? thanks

[Huvius]

There is definitely a lube of some sort on the patch.
I have read a lot about lubing/not lubing and have tried both with little discernable difference with me behind the wheel. I suspect match shooters come up with the system which works for them and stick with it.
Back to the patch lube, I have used spray chain wax on my heeled 310 boolits and plan on trying that on the PP boolits. Makes a nice even coat and dries nice without being tacky.
I suspect that a lube of some sort would mitigate the concerns of clay content in the paper, while a dry unlubed patch may be more abrasive... Dunno for sure.

I patched a few boolits last night and started to wonder about wetting the patch with alcohol to see if they dry faster and if the paper needs to be wetted with H2O in order to shrink.
Then, I thought about dissolving a lube in the alcohol so the patch is soaked in the residual lube once the alcohol evaporates. Can't help but think that the lube would help the patch adhere to itself, but might adhere to the boolit a little too well and not let go as we would hope.
Looks like another avenue of experimentation...

[johnson1942]

ive heard so many ways of doing the lube that i agree with you on saturating the lube into the paper may make it stick together too much. i know one real successful shooter that i trust uses chap stick. i think that the lube should be on the paper and not in the paper. how ever joba joba oil that goes into the paper works real well for some. it takes a lot of powder and expermentation to get what is right for some guns. my 1/18 twist .45 is a exception, it shoots anything i feed it very well. my 2 .50/s that are 1/23 twist are very fussy. i may even give up paperpatch on the 2 .50/s and do cast bullets in them. i just ordered this morning a new swageing base punch for the .50/s swageing die and if that doesnt work they go to cast bullets. please keep shareing what you do, this has been a very interesting post.