45/55

[bear-kodiak]

Hello to the group: Can anyone tell me the evolution of the 45-55 internal primed casing. Trying to find the changes made and dates of these changes.....thanks for any and all help....jim

[NickSS]

I do not know when they happened but the first ones were loaded using card wads under the bullet. It was found that sometimes the card wads stuck in the hollow base of the bullet and made for inaccuracy. So they went to using a cardboard tube inside the shell to reduce capacity. I believe that this load remained the same until 1881 when the internal primed copper shell was finally abandoned for a boxer primed brass case. At that point the carbine ammo was loaded with 55 gr of powder and the bullet was seated lower in the case with no wads or cardboard cylinders in use.