% CSA use of Breech Loaders/ Repeaters

Big Yehudah

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Okay I've read a bit on wikipedia and some articles on the net about CSA usage of Breech loading firearms and repeaters. I cannot find a percentage however (including captured ones). Wikipedia says 3000 Maynard carbines were used. I know they also had captured weapons and produced their own Sharps rifles. However, I am inclined to think that the level of production was not extremely low in spite of their small industrial capacity. The North had maybe something over 200k of single shot breech loaders and multi shot repeaters (not including pistols.) Is there any authoritative information on how many the South possessed both by capture, purchase, and manufacture? CSA cavalry held there own throughout the war so I tend to think that they had a lot of these types of weapons. Jeb Stuart was ambushed during Gettysburg with a smaller number of men and managed to shoe the North off... By that time, most of the Northern cavalry were no longer using muzzle loaders to my recollection. I can't imagine Rifled Musket Carbines can stand up against repeaters and breech loaders.

Although correct me if I am wrong, but rifled muskets using the minie ball (with percussion cap) CAN be reloaded faster than smoothbore muskets prior to the mid 1800s right? I'm fairly certain they can be ebcause you no longer need measure powder for rifles since the cartridge is prepackaged... If that is the case, then the reloading gab between a rfiled musket carbine and a breech loading carbine is lessened?
 
On the comparison of the speed of reloading a rifled musket, minie ball combo versus the smooth bore I think I can safely say from shooting live ammo from both that a smoothbore is faster to load. Actually I always found it a bit faster to load when the smooth bore was a flintlock. I find dumping some 10 grains of powder into the pan to prime faster than fumbling around in a cap box for the percussion cap. Whether the musket is flint lock or percussion cap lock there is little resistance to ramming a loose fitting buck and ball cartridge down the barrel. There is more resistance to the minie ball especially after a few shots and the barrel begins to foul. In the civil War soldiers were sometimes forced to hammer the ramrod with rocks to seat minie balls and I don't think they ever had to do that with the loose fitting round balls. It might be instructive for members who do live round shooting to try this themselves and see if that is their experience, (except for the rock part).

As for your query about the Confederate use of breechloaders the major problem was that some of these firearms used metallic cartridges that the South could not manufacture (could not spin the metal) so the guns were of limited use when captured. The Sharps used a paper or linen cartridge that they could manufacture so that breechloader was just fine, which is why Richmond manufactured several thousand for Southern use, because they could make the cartridges for them.
 
Although correct me if I am wrong, but rifled muskets using the minie ball (with percussion cap) CAN be reloaded faster than smoothbore muskets prior to the mid 1800s right? I'm fairly certain they can be ebcause you no longer need measure powder for rifles since the cartridge is prepackaged... If that is the case, then the reloading gab between a rfiled musket carbine and a breech loading carbine is lessened?

The prepackaged paper cartridge dates back to the 1500's. It was not introduced with the minie ball. Militia using their own weapons may have loaded using a powder horn, but soldiers never did.
 
EDIT:

OOps. You are right pre packaged cartrigdes began widespreed use in the 17th century. What i am looking for is self contained cartridges which do not require you to break them and put part of the powder into the pan. This is the point of percussion caps as it takes out a part of the reloading process which should make it faster. right?
 
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If you are talking about the Sharps, one did not have to do anything to the paper or linen cartridge except insert it. When the breech block was raised it sheared open the cartridge and exposed the powder. If you are referring to the paper cartridge with the minie ball, yes, some private firm provided .58 paper cartridges that could just be inserted and rammed. The paper was impregnated with something, potassium nitrate, maybe, and this did speed up the process. I have a large book collection of historic firearms. I will research this later today and see if I can find more on these cartridges,
 
OKay I apologize I've made my thread too complicated.

Question 1: How many repeaters, breech loaders, did the CSA capture and produce?
Question 2: Does the advances in technology, self contained cartridge, percussion cap, minie ball (which removed the need to patch a rifle ball because the bullet expands on it's own) speed up the process of reloading and firing?
 
If you mean did the .58 minie ball cartridge speed up the loading process over the round ball and patch, you bet. The former could be done, by an experienced shooter in 15-20 seconds, the latter could take a full minute
 
The prepackaged paper cartridge dates back to the 1500's. It was not introduced with the minie ball. Militia using their own weapons may have loaded using a powder horn, but soldiers never did.
I never understood why modern muzzleloader hunters dont use paper cartridges.
 
We do, that is compressed paper cartridges or plastic tubes with measured powder and ball (usually what is called a Maxi ball). Pull off the bullet, dump the powder (drop the tube), ram the lubricated bullet. Pretty close to Civil War loading in time.
 
We do, that is compressed paper cartridges or plastic tubes with measured powder and ball (usually what is called a Maxi ball). Pull off the bullet, dump the powder (drop the tube), ram the lubricated bullet. Pretty close to Civil War loading in time.
The guy that took me muzzleload hunting said he had never heard of guys doing it. After years of reenacting, it only seemed natural to me. He thought I was weird.
 
OKay I apologize I've made my thread too complicated.

Question 1: How many repeaters, breech loaders, did the CSA capture and produce?
Question 2: Does the advances in technology, self contained cartridge, percussion cap, minie ball (which removed the need to patch a rifle ball because the bullet expands on it's own) speed up the process of reloading and firing?

The CS produced no Henry repeating rifles nor did they produce any Spencer repeaters. They could not even produce the ammunition for them. They capture a few hundred (100 to 500) Henry rifles and a few hundred Spencer repeaters.
 
I found the article on the .58 minie ball cartridge that did not have to be bitten open. This is from the January, 07 edition of the publication, America's Civil War, p.55 Three different manufacturers made them, two did not work out well, the third did OK . The Hazard Powder company made a cartridge that had the powder compressed into a pellet substance coated with collodion that also made them waterproof. A box of similar ammo is pictured in the article. One soldier from the 4th NJ furnished with this kind of ammo at Gaines Mill in 1862 reported that once the barrels got warm the soldier could just drop the whole thing into the barrel and it went down with just a bit of shaking. No biting open the cartridge, no ramming. Thanks to James Ripley only a small number were purchased. They were still sporadically issued in 1863 and one West Virginia regiment still had then in July of 1864.
 
Confederate General Wade Hampton and his men captured some Henry Rifles and ammunition on the "Beefsteak Raid". Hampton carried the rifle for the rest of the war.
 
OKay I apologize I've made my thread too complicated.

Question 1: How many repeaters, breech loaders, did the CSA capture and produce?
Question 2: Does the advances in technology, self contained cartridge, percussion cap, minie ball (which removed the need to patch a rifle ball because the bullet expands on it's own) speed up the process of reloading and firing?

You still have a question that is too complicated.

Yes, the introduction of the minie ball made it faster to load a rifle, however, it was not faster to load than a smoothbore musket. Prior to the minie ball being introduced the musket was the standard infantry weapon, while rifles were issued to a relatively small number of soldiers for a variety of purposes. Consequently, the chief benefit of introducing the minie ball was to allow a rifled arm to equip the majority of soldiers, not to increase the rate of fire. Thus, the simple answer to your question is no, so long as we are talking about the majority of the infantry.

The context of your question indicates that you are more interested in cavalry though. In that case, the answer would be yes, the introduction of breech-loaders significantly increased the rate of fire of cavalry. The introduction of the minie ball had nothing to do with breech-loaders though, so the minie ball had little impact on equipping cavalry. The introduction of the self contained cartridge, on the other hand, was critical to the success of the breech-loader.

The benefit of the percussion cap was more along the lines of speeding up the actual ignition process and making it more reliable. There may have been a slight gain in rate of fire, but it would have been very small.

Hope this helps.
 
Thanks it does help. So is there a difference between the reloading speed of a smoothbore musket and a standard issue rifle of the civil war period?
 
Rob63. If you are saying "NO" to the question "Is there a difference in the reloading speed of a smoothbore musket and a minie ball rifled musket?", I must disagree. Initially, the reloading time is about the same but as I mentioned above, the round ball in a smooth bore is sub caliber so as fouling builds up it does not much affect the force needed to seat the bullet. In the minie rifle as the fouling builds up, since the caliber of the bullet is almost the same as the diameter of the barrel, it gets harder and harder to ram that minie ball down the barrel. I am sure you have read accounts of Civil War soldiers sometimes having to pound the minies down the barrels with rocks, which certainly retards the loading speed. I have fired any number of rounds at my shooting range. With my original Enfield I start to get resistance to ramming the minie ball after just, maybe seven or eight firings. At ten or twelve it's hard, and slow pushing on that rammer. With my original model 1842 Springfield I can just drop in the first few rounds (.66 ball) with no ramming at all and even after twenty to twenty five rounds the fouling seems to have no effect on my being able to seat the ball easily and quickly. Other shooters here might want to try this and report their experiences to see if they duplicate these results.
 
Is there any reliable data on how many in number and percentage breech loading single shot firearms they had? The CSA cavalry did well enough I think. By 1863 I thought most of the Union cavalry was using breech loaders but this didn't seem to give them a colossal advantage. Am I wrong? Did the CSA have anything to even the odds (strictly in terms of cavalry firearms)? Ex: Would the use of revolvers offset the disparity in firepower?
 
I think that when cavalry fought on horseback the most effective weapon southerners employed was the buck shot loaded double barreled,sawed off shotgun. Hitting anything with any kind of rifle from a moving horse at a guy on another moving horse was difficult. Loading a Sharps or Smith or Burnside was not easy from that same moving platform. Revolvers were excellent if you got right into the faces of your adversaries but at that range a saber was almost as good and it was always loaded, so to speak.

The game changer was the repeater, specifically the Spenser. Reliable, easy to chamber new cartridges, this rifle could and was used effectively by horsemen, especially when the riders learned to get off the horse and empty saddles form 30 or 40 yards away. The Confederates captured any number of good cartridge arms from the battlefield but could not manufacture the ammo to go with them. Spenser carrying cavalry were taught to bend the loading tubes if it looked like they might be captured. Without the loading tubes the Spenser was no longer a repeater. By 1864 Union cavalry had learned how to handle their Confederate counterparts (unless Forrest was leading the Rebs).
 
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