Bullet Points

Public Domain

Every once in a while I get involved with some project or other relating to my hobby of collecting and shooting antique firearms and while individually these may not justify a separate GP article, I wondered if when gathered together they might warrant posting? I’ll let you be the judge.

1. Shooting an 1860 Colt Army revolver with detachable butt stock.

I’ve commented elsewhere https://going-postal.com/2019/01/milestones-in-nineteenth-century-firearms-development-part-four/ that the one firearm in my collection that is guaranteed to put a smile on anyone’s face is my replica single-action 1860 Colt .44 Army cap-and-ball revolver. Anyone who has tried shooting a handgun of whatever type or calibre will, I am sure, agree that it is a very difficult skill to master, especially at 25 or 50 metres range when shooting single-handed and unsupported. In order to enable more accurate shooting at ranges of 50 yards and beyond the US Army provided wooden detachable shoulder stocks to convert their issue Colt revolvers into eight inch-barrelled cavalry carbines.

1860 Colt Army revolver with shoulder stock attached

These stocks never proved popular with the cavalry largely because at 2lb 3oz they were heavy and were yet something else that had to be carried on campaign along with all their other kit. In response to this complaint some hollow metal stocks intended to serve as water canteens were issued but these too were never popular. As a consequence few original stocks have survived and when they do occasionally come to auction they invariably realise high prices due to their rarity. Even a typical Italian replica like the one shown will (when available) cost somewhere in the region of £250 while a new revolver costs only about £90 more.

When some time ago a friend gave me a replica butt stock for my revolver I jumped at the chance to take it to the range to find out for myself whether or not the soldiers’ criticisms of the device were justified.

My first impression was that the stock is indeed heavy and that it certainly would have been a burden to have to lug around. Fitting the stock to the revolver though is simplicity itself; its forward brass prongs are slid under the cut-outs in the recoil shield and the clamp is tightened against the hollow in the revolver’s butt to give a very solid and secure attachment.

The stock dismounted showing the means of attachment
Here you can see where the bottom of the recoil shield has been milled off to accept the stock. Also note the large stock mounting screw head above the trigger
The hook on the stock seats in this depression below the butt

In service the revolvers would have been loaded with combustible paper cartridges containing powder and a pointed ‘picket’ bullet. Having the stock fitted makes no difference to ease of loading but two major problems quickly became evident, firstly where do you hold the ‘carbine’ when shooting and second how do you use the rudimentary sights without risking damage to the eyes?

My Colt Army at the moment of ignition

You can see in the picture what happens when a cap-and-ball revolver is fired. Jets of flame seem to emanate from all areas of the gun, particularly from the gap between the cylinder and the barrel forcing cone. Revolvers of this era (approximately 1850 to 1870) are notorious for occasionally producing ‘chain-fires’ where chambers other than the one indexed in line with the barrel go off simultaneously. I originally thought that this was some sort of urban myth, well I did until it happened to me one day when four chambers discharged at the same time sending lethal amounts of lead down the sides of the barrel amid a vast sheet of flame. Fortunately, I shoot hand guns (badly) one-handed in the traditional duelling stance so my left hand was well out of the way and no harm was done either to pistol or, more importantly to person. Had this happened with the stock attached and my hand forward of the cylinder supporting the barrel, I would certainly have lost some fingers and been severely burned in the process.  It is essential, therefore, that the supporting hand is kept well to the rear of the revolver either by grasping the butt or by being tucked into the armpit when using a shoulder stock.

On Colt cap-and-ball revolvers the rear sight is a tiny V-notch in the rear of the hammer spur which can only be seen when the gun is fully cocked and ready to fire. With the stock attached one has to get one’s cheek right down against the comb of the stock in order to align the sights with the target. This places the eyes uncomfortably close to the rear of the revolver from where flames and fragments of the small, brass percussion caps used to ignite the gunpowder in the cylinder are liable to be ejected violently.  It is for this reason that our club insists that anyone using a muzzle-loading firearm at our range must wear eye protection.

The sights on the 1860 Colt are set at a fixed 50 yards and at that range most people will find it extremely hard to hit a two foot by two foot board with any regularity when shooting unsupported. With a stock attached, however, the revolver becomes much more controllable and hence far more accurate at this distance so I have to conclude that they are beneficial at least in so far as accuracy is concerned but weighing the equivalent of a bag of sugar I would have to agree with the soldiers that the stocks are burdensome to carry while being inherently dangerous to use. This was also true of the short-lived and not very popular revolving rifles of the era.

Clearly the removable stocks were a flawed design and the money spent on them would have been far better spent on equipping the cavalry with a decent repeating carbine such as the seven-shot 1860 Spencer. Having said that, they are great fun to use and they certainly attract attention at the range.

2. Double-action revolver development

Most of the mid-nineteenth century cap-and-ball revolvers like the Colts and Remingtons were single-action, that is once loaded the hammer had to be thumbed back before it could be fired. Pulling back the hammer rotated the cylinder until one of its chambers was indexed in line with the barrel and locked in that position while it was fired. This was repeated until all shots had been discharged. In practice the mechanism that achieved this was simple, reliable and easily maintained and single-action revolvers were ideal under most circumstances. In close-quarter combat, however, and particularly when fighting in a melée as often occurred during the Crimean War (1853-1856) and the Sepoy Rebellion (1857-1858), single-action revolvers could prove to be too slow to discharge thus endangering the lives of their users. Robert Adams (1809-1870) patented the first successful double-action revolver (available in .36, .442 and .50 calibres) in 1851 which while fast to use could not be manually cocked to permit more leisurely, accurate shooting and was inherently inaccurate due to a very heavy trigger pull. In 1855, Lieutenant Frederick Beaumont modified the Adams revolver mechanism and added a trigger spur to allow it to be used either single- or double-action.

From a letter to Robert Adams from an officer of the 88th Regiment:

I had one of your largest-sized Revolver Pistols at the bloody battle of Inkermann, and by some chance got surrounded by Russians. I then found the advantages of your pistol over that of Colonel Colt’s, for had I to cock before each shot I would have lost my life. I should not have had time to cock, as they were too close to me, being only a few yards from me: so close that I was bayoneted through the thigh immediately after shooting the fourth man. I hope this may be of service to you, as I certainly owe my life to your invention of the Revolver Pistol.

In 1896 Lieutenant Colonel Fosbery recalled an incident that underlined the need for larger calibre revolvers in close combat:

An officer, who especially prided himself on his pistol-shooting, was attacked by a stalwart mutineer armed with a heavy sword. The officer, unfortunately for himself, carried a Colt’s Navy pistol, which, as you may remember, was of small calibre (.36 inch), and fired a sharp-pointed picket bullet of 60 to the pound and a heavy charge of powder, its range being at least 600 yards, as I have frequently proved. This he proceeded to empty into the sepoy as he advanced, but, having done so, he waited just one second too long to see the effect of his shooting, and was cloven to the teeth by his antagonist, who then dropped down and died beside him. My informant, who witnessed the affair, told me that five of the six bullets had struck the sepoy close together in the chest, and had all passed through him and out at his back.

In 1856, William Tranter modified an Adams Patent revolver to convert it so as to be capable of being fired either single- or double-action without the need to manually cock the hammer. This he achieved by incorporating a second trigger that both cocked the hammer and rotated the cylinder.  Although I knew of Tranter’s designs I had never seen one outside of a museum so it was a great thrill to have one of his first model revolvers put into my hands at the range one morning and to be asked if I could ‘get it shooting again.’

Here you can see the stud directly below the cylinder face on which the loading lever would have pivoted

One of my shooting buddies is a Registered Firearms Dealer (RFD) who had recently been called in by the police to clear a deceased club member’s flat of firearms and ammunition. Unknown to me, my friend had already designated me a ‘servant’ of his RFD licence and registered this with the police making it legal for me to transport the revolver to my home for cleaning after use and to return it to his custody afterwards..

As you can see, the hammer does not have a spur so it cannot be manually cocked with the thumb. Below the trigger guard is the second trigger which when pulled back by the second finger cocks the weapon which can then be fired by light pressure on the main trigger above it using the index finger. One problem I immediately encountered was that the loading lever was missing having not come to light during the flat clearance. On the very early Tranters this lever was made intentionally removable so it is not uncommon for them to come onto the market missing their loading levers. This was easily overcome by removing the cylinder and loading it separately on the bench.

A third-model Tranter revolver, in 1863 given to Confederate Major General James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart by his Prussian Staff Major Heros von Borcke (1835-1895). On this model the loading lever is permanently attached by a screw. (Wikipedia CC-BY SA 3.0)

In common with many British revolvers of the period the larger bore Tranter has only five chambers as opposed to the more common six on American-made revolvers.

The Tranter with its cylinder removed to show the five chambers

When I measured the chamber diameters I was pleased to find that the revolver is .442 inch or 54 bore (i.e. 54 round balls could be cast for it from one pound of lead) so it was a simple matter to load five of the .457 inch paper cartridges that I use in my 1860 Colt pressing them down with the ‘short starter’ that I use when loading single shot muzzle-loading pistols and rifles. With the cylinder back in place all that was necessary was to cap the nipples and fire the weapon.

Shooting the Tranter took some getting used to as pulling back the lower trigger with the second finger didn’t come naturally and required a heavy pull but it worked perfectly and I could hold the weapon at full cock and then shoot it slowly and deliberately at the target just like a single-action. After shooting a couple of cylinders I tried shooting it in full double-action mode by pulling both triggers at the same time which proved surprisingly quick and effective and I even managed to hit the target board a couple of times with it at 50 metres.

The two-trigger mechanism clearly wasn’t the answer to the problem but it was certainly a step in the right direction and Tranter went on to develop single trigger, double-action cap-and-ball, rim fire and centre fire revolvers. Such was his success that in 1878 he was given a contract to supply the British Army with .45 inch centre fire cartridge revolvers that were used during the Zulu Wars alongside the .577/450 Martini-Henry rifle..

3. In pursuit of the ‘perfect’ 1860s Enfield Cartridge

The P56 Enfield Rifle-musket

One of my favourite rifles is my .577 inch calibre Pattern 1856 Enfield two-band rifle-musket that was made in Chester for Mr WH Churton, a solicitor and founder member of the Cheshire Rifle Volunteers, one of many such groups that were formed in 1859 to counter the perceived threat of invasion by the forces of Napoleon III. The Volunteers who were very enthusiastic marksmen went on to become the Territorial Army in 1908.

Today most people who shoot original and reproduction two- and three-band Enfields do so using separate pre-measured powder charges and lubricated US Burton-style pure lead bullets, generally referred to as Minié or ‘Minnie’ balls, as used by Union forces during the American Civil War. My rifle would never have been loaded like that by its original owner so in order to stay period correct I have set myself the task of developing authentic 1860s pattern replica paper cartridges incorporating Boxer-designed smooth sided, paper-patched bullets.

Some of my early attempts at making Enfield cartridges using Pritchett .566 inch bullets.

It follows that in order to be able to load a muzzle-loading firearm quickly and easily the bullet must be of a smaller diameter than that of the rifle barrel but when fired it must also grip the barrel rifling so that it is spun and gyroscopically stabilised by the time it leaves the muzzle.  This problem was overcome in the late 1840s when French engineers Delvigne and Minié developed a hollow based bullet containing an iron cup which on firing was driven into and thus expanded the base of the bullet firmly into the rifling. The increased accuracy that resulted from this innovation was truly amazing.

The British Army was quick to adopt this new technology which immediately changed the face of the battlefield and in 1853 the Enfield series of .577 inch rifle-muskets was adopted. Soldiers were provided with packs of ten greased paper cartridges each containing a smooth sided Pritchett-designed bullet of .568 inch diameter with a boxwood and later baked clay expander plug in the base together with 2.5 drams (68 grains) of black powder.  To load the rifle the end of the cartridge was bitten or torn off and the powder was poured down the barrel. The cartridge was then inverted, its greased end containing the bullet was thumbed into the muzzle, the remainder of the cartridge being snapped off and discarded, and the bullet was rammed down onto the powder in the breech. With a musket cap placed on the nipple the rifle was ready to fire.

I have experimented with both types of cartridge that were used in the 1850s but even using .566 inch bullets I had little real success as I had no means of expanding them to grip the rifling and consequently the bore soon became fouled with powder residues. The two wraps of onionskin paper increase the bullet diameter by .008 to .009 inch which leaves only around .002 to .003 inch clearance  or ‘windage’ for loading and as the base of the bullet was not sealing the bore when fired, fouling soon meant that I was unable to seat a bullet easily onto the powder. On one memorable occasion I was unable to withdraw a stuck bullet from the barrel even using a slide hammer. Cutting up a solid lead bullet lodged halfway down a rifle barrel without damaging the bore needs expert attention which thankfully I can readily access. Apparently this problem with loading was common during military campaigns with soldiers often resorting to hammering their ramrods against trees and walls in an attempt to seat their bullets.

To overcome this problem, Colonel Edward M Boxer, the then Superintendent of the Royal Laboratory of the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich proposed reducing the bullet diameter to .550 inch to increase the windage substantially thereby making the rifle much easier to load. At the time Boxer faced stiff opposition as no one believed that such an undersized bullet could be made to expand the .019 inch or thereabouts needed to fill the grooves of the rifling. Exhaustive trials on the ranges at the Army School of Musketry at Hythe however showed that not only was the new cartridge much easier to load than its predecessor but that it was every bit as accurate, shot with a lower trajectory and had the same penetration at extreme range. This new ‘English Cartridge’ was eventually hailed as being ‘perfect’ and is today considered to be the pinnacle of muzzle-loading cartridge design. So why hadn’t I been able to get it to work?

The breakthrough came while I was watching a video on Brett Gibbons’ YouTube ‘Paper Cartridges’ channel in which he discusses making bullet expansion plugs using epoxy putty as opposed to car body filler resin. This slower curing and much less messy epoxy of which I was previously unaware makes it possible to cast base plugs in the well-lubricated base cavities of the bullets themselves. Eureka! My cartridges were now loading without ramming, the bore was being cleaned and lubricated as the greased bullets went down the barrel onto the powder and the bases of the bullets were expanding exactly as they were supposed to sealing the bore and reducing fouling significantly. But best of all, my bullets were now grouping on paper into very tight groups for the first time. Hallelujah!

The spotters who were monitoring my experiments with the Boxer cartridge both advised me not to fire a fifth shot and to quit while I was ahead but I of course ignored them – and ruined the group!

Now that I’ve cracked the cartridge mechanics, all that remains is to dress them up to resemble those made by E and A Ludlow of Birmingham in the 1860s which were exported in their hundreds of thousands to the Confederacy. These had a distinctive printed green paper band that joined the two parts of the cartridge together and were left strewn over practically every US Civil War battlefield much to the annoyance of Union officers.

Some further fine-tuning is required to the labels to add thin horizontal lines above and below the text and then I’ll be happy. These need dipping in molten lubricant, filling with gunpowder and twisting closed and they will then be ready to use.

The next step? To have a rubber stamp made so that I can make up authentic-looking brown paper packs of ten cartridges as originally issued to the infantry.

What do you mean I’ve got too much time on my hands?
 

© text & images except where indicated; Tom Pudding 2025