No Groove Bullets

[Miker91]

Leaving the Whitworth out of this question, it seems like a large number of bullets were manufactured (or imported ?) Why ? What advantage was there in the use of these bullets ? Thanks in advance for your replies.An example is attached. This one is a .54 used by the Army of Tennessee but there is a large varition and number of these bullets.

 

[thomas aagaard]

Not sure exactly what the story is with that 54cal but when we look at the enfield... You need to look at the entire cartridge.

The US self expanding bullet was loaded without paper around it. The paper cartridge was just a way to hold powder and bullet.
They had serious issues with accuracy and fouling. And are slower to load since you need to remove the bullet from the paper.
And there is only one thickness of paper used. Trying to balance durability and easy of opening. So the simplified version use dduring the war was also often a bit hard to open without tearing the paper and spilling some power.

But they where very easy to make and the paper thickness and quality did not really matter that much.


The brits made the bullets for the P1853 like this. And they are loaded with the creased paper.
And the csa imported them by the millions.
They where way way superior in all ways... save one.
Better accuracy, much easier to load and no to little issue with fouling.

But production is the downside.
The cartridge are more complex to make and require high quality paper. Down to 1000th of an inch.
It use different thicknesses of paper. Allowing for high durability for most of the cylinder, but a much thinner top so it is very easy to just tear open with your fingers.

The csa ordonnance department tried to make their own, but never managed to get it to work properly.
Even despite importing paper for it.

Here Brett is firing 4 round in a minute with them. and explain why they are so good.

oh, and if you have 4 minutes, take a look at this one.
This present one way to look at the british cartridge compared to the us one... obviously made for fun.

 

[Old Soldier]

Most of the .54 weapons were rifles mainly US rifles or carbines and Austrian rifles. That one has not been fired. Does it have a base hollow or pug? The groove is not essential but ungrooved bullets were used in pistols and some carbines - this one looks too large for a pistol.

BTW - Enfield bullet was coated initially in a wax/grease mix - six parts tallow (rendered animal fat) to one of beeswax but later changed to 100% beeswax due to decomposition in hot climates and in production by the time of the Civil War.

A useful reference is: http://4thla.weebly.com/uploads/3/7/9/6/37969349/enfield_cartridges_by_bruce_carins.pdf and includes bullets with no groove.

 

[Don Dixon]

Known Facts: Between 30 July 1862 and 5 August 1863 MAJ Caleb Huse purchased a minimum of 1,210,000 rounds of "Austrian" ammunition from the English ammunition manufacturing firm Eley Brothers for the Confederate Army. In June 1863 CPT Charles F. Vanderford, ordnance officer, Cleburne's Division, Army of Tennessee, tested lots of Confederate Augusta Arsenal manufactured .54 caliber ammunition and British made Austrian ammunition in the Army of Tennessee's new Muster 1854 System Lorenz rifle muskets.

The Question: What were the parameters of Eley's "Austrian" ammunition? I suspect that it was paper patched, because British military ammunition of the period was and the Confederates had moved to using and manufacturing paper patched ammunition, and approximately .540 caliber in the paper patch. But, did they use a System Lorenz compression bullet, a Minnie style expansion bullet, or a smooth sided Pritchett expansion bullet in loading their "Austrian" ammunition? I sent an email to the modern Eley company asking if they had any data on the ammunition and unsurprisingly received no response. I have also asked if anyone knew the parameters of the Eley ammunition on several web sites with no effective response.

The above might be an explanation for your bullet.

Regards,
Don Dixon

 

[Old Soldier]

"The McRae Papers contain several invoices from the famous English ammunition manufacturer Eley Brothers that include "Austrian Ammunition". One such invoice is dated July 18, 1863, some two weeks after the Battle of Gettysburg and the fall of Vicksburg, MS. The invoice is for a total of 700,000 paper cartridges. The order included "600,000 Austrian Rifle Cartridges " Marked A" and "100,000 Ball & Buck Short Musket Cartridges " Marked M". While the caliber of the Austrian cartridges is not specified, it seems clear that the order would be for Austrian pattern ammunition appropriate for the unaltered .547" (13.9mm) bore of the Austrian Lorenz rifle musket." (from College Hill Arsenal ad)

Lorenz bullet (Austrian) - solid base.

The only straight sided bullet I can find for the Lorenz is this one:

This was for the Deutscher Bund - a loose confederation of Hapsburg and South German states who decided on a common caliber (NATO Standard?), the Süddeutsche Conventions-Kaliber = 13.9mm
There were three versions - one for the Austro-Hungarian Army (standard Lorenz - ribbed, flat base), one for Hessen-Darmstadt (Hess. Ordz) with a plug and one for Württemberg (Württemb. Ordz) with an expanding base. Although they may have fitted the Lorenz, they were not necessarily used with it. Both these rounds were paper-patched, hence the slightly smaller caliber (13.5mm as opposed to 13.9mm)

The Pritchett bullet had a hollowed base.

 

[Miker91]

Leaving the Whitworth out of this question, it seems like a large number of bullets were manufactured (or imported ?) Why ? What advantage was there in the use of these bullets ? Thanks in advance for your replies.An example is attached. This one is a .54 used by the Army of Tennessee but there is a large varition and number of these bullets.

View attachment 448591

 

[Miker91]

 

[Miker91]

Not sure exactly what the story is with that 54cal but when we look at the enfield... You need to look at the entire cartridge.

The US self expanding bullet was loaded without paper around it. The paper cartridge was just a way to hold powder and bullet.
They had serious issues with accuracy and fouling. And are slower to load since you need to remove the bullet from the paper.
And there is only one thickness of paper used. Trying to balance durability and easy of opening. So the simplified version use dduring the war was also often a bit hard to open without tearing the paper and spilling some power.

But they where very easy to make and the paper thickness and quality did not really matter that much.


The brits made the bullets for the P1853 like this. And they are loaded with the creased paper.
And the csa imported them by the millions.
They where way way superior in all ways... save one.
Better accuracy, much easier to load and no to little issue with fouling.

But production is the downside.
The cartridge are more complex to make and require high quality paper. Down to 1000th of an inch.
It use different thicknesses of paper. Allowing for high durability for most of the cylinder, but a much thinner top so it is very easy to just tear open with your fingers.

The csa ordonnance department tried to make their own, but never managed to get it to work properly.
Even despite importing paper for it.

Here Brett is firing 4 round in a minute with them. and explain why they are so good.

oh, and if you have 4 minutes, take a look at this one.
This present one way to look at the british cartridge compared to the us one... obviously made for fun.

I added a picture of the cavity for the bullet. However examining this one bullet wasn't what I was asking about. It is just òne out of many. As we know many many bullets of different sizes and shapes were made with no grooves. My question is why were they used when numerous bullets had grooves. Was there a specific advantage to the no groove bullets ?

 

[Don Dixon]

I added a picture of the cavity for the bullet. However examining this one bullet wasn't what I was asking about. It is just òne out of many. As we know many many bullets of different sizes and shapes were made with no grooves. My question is why were they used when numerous bullets had grooves. Was there a specific advantage to the no groove bullets ?

Bullets fired with black powder as the propellant require lubrication to function properly. If the lubrication is in the form of a greased paper patch, then one can use a bullet which has no grooves. If one loads the bullet "naked" - that is without a greased paper or cloth patch - the bullet needs grooves to hold the grease.

The Federal Army loaded its bullets naked and consequently used greased, grooved, Minnie bullets. Most European armies loaded their bullets in greased paper cartridges with the paper covered bullet inserted into the bore. Hence there was no need for grease grooves, like the British Pritchett bullet, although many European military bullets were grooved. They just weren't grease grooves.

Leaving off the grooves made the bullets simpler to swage and reduced the rejection rate.

Regards,
Don Dixon

 

[Don Dixon]

"The McRae Papers contain several invoices from the famous English ammunition manufacturer Eley Brothers that include "Austrian Ammunition". One such invoice is dated July 18, 1863, some two weeks after the Battle of Gettysburg and the fall of Vicksburg, MS. The invoice is for a total of 700,000 paper cartridges. The order included "600,000 Austrian Rifle Cartridges " Marked A" and "100,000 Ball & Buck Short Musket Cartridges " Marked M". While the caliber of the Austrian cartridges is not specified, it seems clear that the order would be for Austrian pattern ammunition appropriate for the unaltered .547" (13.9mm) bore of the Austrian Lorenz rifle musket." (from College Hill Arsenal ad)

View attachment 448644
Lorenz bullet (Austrian) - solid base.

The only straight sided bullet I can find for the Lorenz is this one:
View attachment 448645
This was for the Deutscher Bund - a loose confederation of Hapsburg and South German states who decided on a common caliber (NATO Standard?), the Süddeutsche Conventions-Kaliber = 13.9mm
There were three versions - one for the Austro-Hungarian Army (standard Lorenz - ribbed, flat base), one for Hessen-Darmstadt (Hess. Ordz) with a plug and one for Württemberg (Württemb. Ordz) with an expanding base. Although they may have fitted the Lorenz, they were not necessarily used with it. Both these rounds were paper-patched, hence the slightly smaller caliber (13.5mm as opposed to 13.9mm)

The Pritchett bullet had a hollowed base.

My statement that MAJ Caleb Huse purchased a minimum of 1,210,000 rounds of "Austrian" ammunition from the English ammunition manufacturing firm Eley Brothers was based on the invoices in the McRae papers.

Just because Eley's invoices said it was producing "Austrian" cartridges, I would by no means conclude that they were manufacturing a System Lorenz bullet to put in their cartridge. Absent someone finding an unopened pack of Eley "Austrian" ammunition and opening or x-raying the cartridges we will probably never know.

In addition to the System Lorenz rifle muskets in their inventory, the Confederates also had to feed Model 1841 Mississippi rifles in .540 caliber. By the middle of the war the packages of Confederate manufactured .54 caliber ammunition were marked as being for "Mississippi or Austrian Rifles" and the paper wrapped cartridge was .540 inches. This militates against the Eley ammunition being 13.9 mm/.547 inches.

The South German Caliber Convention could have served as a model for NATO's adoption of a standard 7.62mm caliber 100 years later. The Convention specified a standard 13.9mm caliber with the intent that ammunition would be freely interchangeable between all the signatory powers. They were looking forward to a future war with either the traditional French enemy across the southern border, or with the Prussians to the north. That happened with the Seven Weeks War in 1866 and the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. While the signatory powers were free to use their own design bullets in their ammunition, they discovered in testing that the ballistics of all the signatory's ammunition were essentially the same: same caliber, same weight bullet, and similar velocity.

Regards,
Don Dixon

 

[Miker91]

Bullets fired with black powder as the propellant require lubrication to function properly. If the lubrication is in the form of a greased paper patch, then one can use a bullet which has no grooves. If one loads the bullet "naked" - that is without a greased paper or cloth patch - the bullet needs grooves to hold the grease.

The Federal Army loaded its bullets naked and consequently used greased, grooved, Minnie bullets. Most European armies loaded their bullets in greased paper cartridges with the paper covered bullet inserted into the bore. Hence there was no need for grease grooves, like the British Pritchett bullet, although many European military bullets were grooved. They just weren't grease grooves.

Leaving off the grooves made the bullets simpler to swage and reduced the rejection rate.

Regards,
Don Dixon

Thank you Don. Makes sense.

 

[Old Soldier]

Just because Eley's invoices said it was producing "Austrian" cartridges, I would by no means conclude that they were manufacturing a System Lorenz bullet to put in their cartridge. Absent someone finding an unopened pack of Eley "Austrian" ammunition and opening or x-raying the cartridges we will probably never know.

And THAT is the big problem isn't it? We just .... don't know. This bullet MAY even have been for an old Mississippi rifle (1842)! What does this 'Austrian' mean? Caliber? Bullet? Charge? (Eley at the time were not thinking about people enquiring 150 years afterwards) I think we may rely on the fact that it was for an Austrian rifle (Lorenz?) so will follow the basic charge and calibre. It looks like this is a Pritchett-type bullet so will have been used with a paper patch - if it was fired. We will have to rely on 'good guess' - again. Oh, the joys of research!