The Lorenz manual

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Brev. Brig. Gen'l
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The Lorenz was not always used properly during the Civil War. One of the issues is that no one from the North or South appears to have thought to secure a copy of the Austrian Officer's Manual, Osterrichische Infantrrie-Feurgewher, Wien, 1857. This manual could have helped both sides understand the proper use of the Lorenz which they purchased. The Lorenz had a higher velocity round than a traditional minie bullet and so had a flatter trajectory. The sight was marked in Austrian schritt rather than yards. It was important to use the proper stolid-base bullets for the Lorenz to function as designed. Proper understand of the Loewnz would have allowed both sides to more effectively used their Lorenz.
 
How would the manual have helped if they insisted on using hollow based ammunition?
J.
It would not change the fact the the wrong ammunition was being issed. But they would know the markings on the sights would not match the flight path of the bullets. It could have been possible to give instructions on what the sight setting should be set at when using the wrong ammunition.
 
With the majority of Lorenz Rifle Muskets imported having the non-adjustable single notch block rear sight, I don't think instruction was much of a problem! From the first hand accounts I have read the soldiers were usually being told to "...aim low..."
J.
 
Glad you enjoyed the translation. Let me count just a few of the ways the manual would have mattered if anyone had bothered to translate it:

Civil War soldiers complained that System Lorenz firearms fouled, particularly at the breech. Werkführer Lorenz had designed a variation of progressive rifling in his system. The rifling in the breech was relieved for about six inches. When the rifle was fired, the bullet slugged up in the relieved breech section and was then squeezed down in the remainder of the bore. That ensured that the bullet was a tight fit in the bore. But, the rifles -- particuarly the breech -- required very careful cleaning, which the manual is positively anal about (The soldier will do. The NCO will inspect. The officer will inspect. Etc.) Additionally, the troops -- Federals at least - were not issued proper Austrian cleaning equipment in the quantities called for in the manual. A square patch used on an American style barracks cleaning rod, for example, will almost always come off in the breech and then have to be fished out with a worm, in addition to doing a very inadequate job of cleaning the breech.

When one compares the Muster 1854, Type I, rifle's enblock rear sight on a weapon used in the Civil War with the Type I sight, as issued, one sees that almost all of them were seriously filed down. That was because the soldiers were never taught the hold-offs shown in the manual for different ranges and were trying to produce sights that were point of aim point of impact, such as they had used for hunting at home. Such modified sights were essentially useless beyond 100 yards.

Without the manual, how does one understand that the range markings on the Muster 1854 rifle's Type II sight are in Schritt (29.5 inches) rather than yards? If you assume that the markings are in yards, and aim accordinly based upon your range estimation, your miss ratios will go up apreciably as the range increases. That coupled with the fact that the Austrian sights were not calibrated for Federal or Confederate manufactured ammunition -- and neither side produced replacement range plates for the Type II sights that were calibrated for their ammunition -- should have emphasized to a competent commander that range practice was required to figure out where these things shot. My research indicates that in units that actually engaged in marksmanship training with their System Lorenz rifles -- i.e., units that had competent officers and were properly led -- the troops had confidence in their weapons and generally liked them.

Given the lack of effective marksmanship training, most units would have been just as effective with percussion smoothbores rather than any sort of rifled weapon. It takes training to use military weapons at militarily useful distances. It is hard to emphasize exactly how technically incompetent most members of the Federal and Confederate army officer corps were. The European assessment that both armies were armed, uniformed mobs from which nothing useful could be learned was not too far off the mark.

Regards,
Don Dixon
 
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I know the Lorenz gained a poor reputation during the Civil War but in general the Austrian Army were not known to use inferior weapons during the pre Civil War years.
 
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I have wondered if the Lorenz bullet compression design, was better than the Minie design...anyone with an opinion on that?

Kevin Dally
 
"I have wondered if the Lorenz bullet compression design, was better than the Minie design...anyone with an opinion on that?"

Having shot System Lorenz bullets in reproduction .54 caliber Muster 1854 System Lorenz Jäger rifles, a reproduction .58 caliber Richmond carbine, reproduction .577 caliber Pattern 1858 Enfield rifles, and original Muster 1854 System Lorenz rifles, I believe that the Lorenz bullet is a considerably better bullet than the Minie design. Both the Lorenz and Minie bullets were swaged in original production. Since I know of no one with the capability of doing that today, the following comments are based upon cast bullet production:

1.The Lorenz bullet is much easier to cast than the Minie.

2. The rejection rate resulting from visual inspection and inspection by weighing cast Lorenz bullets is MUCH lower than on cast Minie bullets. The Minie bullets frequently have flaws in the skirts. But, I am very picky about what I shoot in competiton.

3. The compression grooves on the bullet are very effective in scraping black powder fouling out of the barrel.

4. Velocity is higher and trajectory flatter with the Lorenz bullet than the Minie given similar loads of powder.

5. Most importantly, the Lorenz bullet is very accurate.

The down sides. These comments are based upon the fact that the North-South Skirmish Association (N-SSA) requires that we shoot bullets that are not paper patched.

1. To be most acurate, the Lorenz bullet should be sized no more than .002 inches under bore diameter. The Lorenz bullet is VERY sensitive to windage in the barrel. So, you need to measure your bore carefully -- with machinist's plug guages -- and size the bullets accordingly. One of the problems Lorenz was aware of was that his bullet did not necessarily work well in outsized or worn barrels.

2. The only modern made moulds for casting Lorenz bullets are in .540 and .580 caliber. Since original System Lorenz weapons were manufactured in a nominal .547 (13.9 mm) caliber, the modern .540 bullets will not work effectively in an original System Lorenz barrel without paper patching. If the bullets are paper patched, no lubrication goes in the compression grooves, only on the outside of the patching. See the following:

3. The compression grooves in the bullets are exactly that: compression grooves. They are not lubrication grooves. If one fills the compression grooves with lubricant -- particularly with a Lubrisizer -- the bullet cannot compress properly and is very inaccurate; as in sideways in the target at 50 yards. Most failures with properly sized Lorenz bullets result from a failure to understand how to properly lubricate the bullets. N-SSA shooters generally use plastic tubes to hold the powder charge, with the nose of the bullet pushed into the tube. A quick swish of the exposed base of the bullet in good melted lubricant provides adequate lubrication for the Lorenz bullet. I've shot as many as 120 rounds in practice, with the last bullet going down the bore as smoothly as the first.

In English language publications, compression bullets are generally referred to as "Wilkinson" bullets. Wilkinson and Lorenz developed the compression concept independently. Lorenz's design worked, Wilkinson's did not. The British Army wanted the bullets in greased paper cartridges. Wilkinson's design did not necessarily shed the paper wrap after it was fired and was inaccurate beyond 300 yards. Lorenz's design did.

Regards,
Don Dixon
 
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It is one of the oddities of history that the two men (Wilkinson and Lorenz) came up with such similar designs independently of each other and at about the same point in time. It is also odd, as in hard to understand, that neither side in the US Civil War imported the correct ammunition for the model 1854 Austrian rifle, but such are the exigencies of procurement in war times.
 
"I have wondered if the Lorenz bullet compression design, was better than the Minie design...anyone with an opinion on that?"

Having shot System Lorenz bullets in reproduction .54 caliber Muster 1854 System Lorenz Jäger rifles, a reproduction .58 caliber Richmond carbine, reproduction .577 caliber Pattern 1858 Enfield rifles, and original Muster 1854 System Lorenz rifles, I believe that the Lorenz bullet is a considerably better bullet than the Minie design. Both the Lorenz and Minie bullets were swaged in original production. Since I know of no one with the capability of doing that today, the following comments are based upon cast bullet production:

1.The Lorenz bullet is much easier to cast than the Minie.
Regards,
Don Dixon

Can you post pictures of the actual bullets you work with?

Kevin Dally
 
I think it is shown in the youtube movie I linked to earlier?

It is also odd, as in hard to understand, that neither side in the US Civil War imported the correct ammunition for the model 1854 Austrian rifle, but such are the exigencies of procurement in war times.
The men who did the actual buying in Europe... did they know anything about the different types of round used?
Was the Austrian empire able to sell the correct ammo? (or did they only produce the amount they needed for their own armies?)

Both had to be a yes other wise buying the correct ammo would not happen.

You can argue that most men armed with enfields didn't use the correct ammo... since the brits used cartridges where you loaded with the paper... something that properly helped with fouling.


Btw Iam starting to realise that the minie cartridges that was used was actually rather bad at keeping the barrel clean.
The danish taprifle M/1849 (using the Thouvenin system) had no problem with fouling. One test had them firing 120-130 (don't remember the correct number) rounds... split over two days. And the last round was just as easy to load as the first.

And the Lorenz bullet did the same.
 
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The bullets that I use are quite similar to those shown in the video, and similar to Lorenz's original design. Greg Edington came up with single and double compression groove designs and had aluminium moulds manufactured by Lee [no longer available]. Northwest Trade had a batch of iron moulds built [no longer available]. And, Moose Molds currently produces a "Wilkinson" -- actually Lorenz -- design mould. All of the above were/are available only in .540 and .580. I have asked Moose to produce a .547 - .550 mould to no avail.

Regarding the U.S. Army's knowledge of k.k. Army arms and ammunition, the following may be helpful. In 1855 Secretary of War Jefferson Davis dispatched the Delafield Commission to observe the Crimean War and study the major armies of Europe. The members of the Commission were the first diplomatically accredited U.S. military attaches. In late December 1855 and early January 1856, the Commission visited Vienna and was given full access to the Vienna Arsenal, including meetings with Baron von Augustin and Werkfürher Lorenz. The k.k. Army “kindly” provided Major Mordecai, Major Delafield, and Captain McClellan [yes that McClellan] with four System Lorenz firearms and a quantity of ammunition, which they brought back to the United States. Modecai, who was the ordnance expert on the Commission, did not say which models of arms were provided in his official reports, nor did he mention the gift in the extensive notes he kept in his diary during the Commission’s vist to the Vienna arsenal. I believe that the weapons were a Muster 1854 Type I, Infanteriegewehr; a Muster 1854 Type II, Infanteriegewehr; a Muster 1854 Jägerstutzen; and a Muster 1854 Dornstutzen, since those were the four System Lorenz firearms in production at the Vienna Arsenal at the time. One of the Infanteriegewehr the ordnance test report does not say which one – was tested in an extremely limited way at the Washington, DC, Arsenal on 10 July 1856. The ordnance testers fired 23 rounds at a 10 foot by 10 foot target 300 yards away. Seventeen of the shots hit the target, with a mean vertical deviation of 15.5 inches [5.17 minutes of angle] and a mean horizontal deviation of 12.1 inches [4.03 minutes of angle]. If one ignores the six shots that missed the target, for which there is no explanation in the very brief test report, this is a standard roughly comparable to the acceptance standards for service 1903 Springfield, M-1, M-14 and M-16 rifles with service ball ammunition, which were in the range of six minutes of angle.

The limited scope of the tests would tend to indicate that the Infanteriegewehr was superior to the Mississippi rifle used with round ball ammunition, but that the U.S. arms had the edge using U.S. elongated ball [Minié type] bullets. There are several things about the test which are curious, however. The testers used an Infanteriegewehr rather than a Jägerstutzen, which should have been more accurate. Secondly, the Austrian rifle was tested only at 300 yards, rather than across the full range of distances at which the U.S. arms had been tested during the development of the Model 1855 family of Springfield arms. One of the important considerations in foreign materiel intelligence exploitation is using the same test protocols for both the foreign arms being evaluated and any U.S. weapons used as test controls. Having just gone to the time and expense of adopting the Model 1855 rifle and rifle musket, however, it probably would have been very embarrassing for the Ordnance Department to have produced an evaluation which indicated that a foreign rifle and ammunition was superior to the new Springfield/Harpers Ferry designed arms. The test report also clearly indicates that the testers understood that the Austrian arms were “.55 caliber,” and used a 450 grain compression type ball with a 62 grain powder charge.

Despite the Ordnance Department's own intelligence exploitation of the k.k. Army arms and ammunition, there was a blind insistance on the part of the Department during the war that you could effectively use U.S. .54 caliber ammunition in System Lorenz rifles. The U.S. Army's .54 caliber ball was .537 inches in diameter, weighed 400 grains, and used a 50 grain powder charge. So, even if the cartridge had worked in System Lorenz rifles the weapons' sights were not calibrated for it. The Federals imported no k.k. Army ammunition that I know of. The Confederates imported some k.k. Army ammunition, and some "Austrian" [NFI] ammunition manufactured in Britain by Eley, but generally used their own rather poor quality stuff.

Regards,
Don Dixon
 
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Thanks for a well written and educational reply to my question.

If I should try argue why issuing the wring ammo was ok Í would point out that most soldiers dind't have the marksman skills to take advantage of the accuracy the weapons was cable of...

I long been of the opinion that 80% of the soldiers would have been better of with a smoothbore firing buckshot. (this was the system in Denmark until 1861, when the army rifled many of the remaining french M1822/1848... a mistake in my opinion)

But not something I can prove in anyway...
 
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The rifling in the breech was relieved for about six inches. When the rifle was fired, the bullet slugged up in the relieved breech section and was then squeezed down in the remainder of the bore. That ensured that the bullet was a tight fit in the bore. But, the rifles -- particuarly the breech -- required very careful cleaning, which the manual is positively anal about
This now solves a mystery, I have read numerous accounts, complaining about the Lorenz, in fact have an identified piece from the 12 VA, with the stock completely shattered at the breech. A very good friend has a beautiful Lorenz picked up off of the Williamsburg battlefield, we always pull the rammer, make sure it is properly threaded and put down the barrel, followed by a bore light, before purchase. The piece would not allow the rammer all of the way down and the bore light would not go all of the way either. The piece was taken to a reputable gunsmith, who notified us that it was clogged with lead about 1/4th of the circumference. This would appear to explain why my piece was shattered at the breech and it would also appear as if the Williamsburg piece was fired with hollow based ammunition and then tossed upon the field when no longer serviceable. The Williamsburg piece was thought to have belonged to a member of the 3rd Maine a regiment supplied as such in July '61 and had complained about the fouling after extended firing:

"During this time, the 3rd Maine exchanged their 1822 Springfield .69 caliber smoothbore muskets for the “new” government issued Austrian made Lorenz .54 caliber rifled-musket with the unusual quadrangular bayonet. Although accurate, the Lorezes tended to foul after extended firing in battle. The Bath City Grays (Co. A) was initially equipped with 1816 Springfield .69 caliber smoothbore-muskets."
 
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