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Mle. 1866 Chassepot Cartridge Construction - DIY Insanity!
EDIT ON 5-28-2018! If you're just coming to this party, I've learned a lot since this project began. I've recently come into some excellent guidance on how to properly construct the original cartridge for this animal, and that information is getting posted on page 6 of this thread beginning at post #118. You're probably going to want to read through my adventures since some of the tools and techniques remain constant, but if you're looking to construct the real French deal, don't start cutting anything until you get to page 6! Thanks Chap! :drinks:
Thanks to all who assisted on the other thread in helping Dad & I get started with the necessary missing bolt parts. Especially to Yulzari, who's been a tremendous resource all around.
I figured a re-launch was in order, and figured it would be fun to share, as this is without question the weirdest, most bizarre system for sending a bullet down a barrel that I have come across. For those who are unfamiliar, here is the launch platform:
Attachment 148079
The French 1866 Chassepot, which can probably be best described as an improvement on the Austrian Dreyse needle gun of the late 1840's. The Dreyse used a paper powder cartridge with a percussion primer attached to the BACK OF THE BULLET. The firing pin was a long, slender needle that pierced all the way through the powder charge to ignite the primer. The piercing was asking a lot of the needle structurally, and surrounding it with burning black powder was asking a lot of it chemically.
The Chassepot moved the primer - a top-hat style musket cap - to the back of the paper cartridge. Oddly enough, the cap faces backwards, AWAY from the powder charge. The Chassepot manages to deal with this, among other technical problems faced by the ballistician of the early cartridge age. The solutions are pretty involved as you'll see, and are not the solutions we're all comfortable with today.
Here's our earliest prototype version of what it shoots:
Attachment 148081
What you're looking at is a paper-patched bullet that does not have the normal twist and tuck of the paper that you'd normally see for a Sharps, Martini, or similar wrapped slug. The back is left open and a silk-wrapped paper cylinder containing the charge, priming mechanism, and rubber disk is inserted and tied on. We've yet to progress that far, but the original rounds were dipped in beeswax and tallow as a bore lube and waterproofing measure. We'll probably be painting it with Ben's Liquid Lube.
Next up: What goes on inside a Chassepot!