August, 1999
More on the Belgium rifles the 2nd Wisconsin had EARLY in
the war.
RJ Samp
Bugler 2nd WVI, Co. K
mailto:rjsamp@ix.netcom.com
A few tips for .69 cartridges.
First, your trapezoid should start out as:
left side 4-1/2, bottom 4-1/4, right side 2-1/2
For paper, buy 3M masking paper in the paint section of your hardware
store.
For a bullet mould exactly to your specifications, call the guy at
Rapine Bullet Moulds at 215-679-5413. He has hunted with a '42 and
recommends a .680 with a cloth patch. (Keep in mind, however, that
the
physics of wrapping a patch around a .680 ball is not the same as when
you do the same thing with your .50 cal Hawken.) If you are going
to
fire a paper patched cartridge, I would recommend a .650, with a spit
patch every five rounds. The .58 minie is superior in that you can
dip
it in Bore Butter and it's lubed. There is no such treatment for a
.69
round. A mould from him will cost you $64.
The "Buck & Ball" was a very popular round. It
contained a round ball
plus three .31 cal. buckshot. If you are too cheap to spend
another $65
for a .310 mould, or lazy to cast zillions of tiny buckshot, buy a bag
of #1 and a bag of #0 buckshot, and use two #0 and one #1. To use
a
buck & ball round, grit your teeth and dramatically rip the tail off
the
cartridge, dump the powder, rip off the excess paper where the powder
was and throw it away, then put the three balls, still wrapped in paper
and string, in the muzzle, buckshot down and ram it. If you're
having a
"Hardtack Shoot" like my club does sometimes, you'll have an
unfair
advantage. You can also wrap nine buckshot in a round. If
you hit the
hardtack square, it will turn to dust.
I bought my '42 and it's the prettiest gun I've ever known. I do
all I
can to keep that mirror finish on it. It's awful impressive when I
fix
bayonet and hoist it to right shoulder shift. It's a couple inches
longer than a '61. One warning, though, buy a .69 cartridge box.
Your
cartridges won't fit in a .58 box.
Have fun with it.
August 27, 1999
Subject: Re: .69 cartridges
Saw your post on the cartridges and I wondered if you would mind sharing
your knowledge on their construction. Where do you shop for your
paper
and twine and how are you constructing them. Are you
using 110
grains? Since Fall/Winter is coming I thought it would make a good
project to pass the time. Cartridges are one area of neglect in my
impression and I'd like to improve it. Anything you could provide
as to
construction and also wrapping bundles would be of benefit.
Sure...
I got interested in the .69s awhile ago when looking at the prevalence
of
these things in the southern ranks in the AoT and Trans-Mississippi, as
well
as the Federals in their pre-Vicksburg days. I finally plunked
down the
plastic and bought one of the ArmiSport M1842 smoothbores at Honey
Springs
early last month. I've always been an Enfield man, but the '42 has
stolen
my heart away ;-) And as a former artilleryman, it's the closest
thing to a
cannon they'll let me carry!
I used Dom Dal Bello's handout on rolling cartridges, contained in the
Hardcracker handbook for reference. I started off rolling live rounds
for a
little personal experimentation with .69 caliber ballistics, and to have
a
couple packs on hand for living history demos. David Fox wrote a
series of
four or five articles in Camp Chase Gazette some years ago, but I wound
up
throwing out most of his recommendations and sticking straight to the
recipe
in Dom's handout. Tim Kindred's posts to the Forum on
"Cartridges 101" a
couple months ago were very helpful as well on the period construction
as
well as the color coding business with the wrappers for the 10-packs.
Projectiles turned out to be a lot harder to find than I thought.
The 1999
Dixie Gun Works catalog didn't have anything relatively close, other
than
buying a mold and melting down your own lead. I finally located
and bought
60 rounds of .648 round ball (3 packs of 20) and a box of 100 .310 round
ball from my local black powder shop. I fired off about 10 rounds
of round
ball just seeing how the weapon fared with ball ammunition (it's
awesome)
and early experiments with rolling and loading the cartridges. For
the
rest, I eventually came up with three 10-packs and three loose rounds of
buck and ball, two packs of round ball, and still have a few loose
rounds to
tinker with.
I got a little confused at first in looking for paper to roll the
cartridges
with. I started with some of the cartridge paper trapezoids from the
Dixie
GW catalog, but these turned out to be way too small for even one
round
ball and a 110-grain powder charge. The "tail" of the
cartridge wound up as
only about an inch to an inch-and a half long. So I recycled these
and
started over. Fox's article recommended Southworth's
20-pound cotton
stationery. Wal-Mart had this on hand in bleached white and a sort
of
yellowish linen color. This proved to be pretty stiff stuff, and
the three
or four experimental rounds didn't look right. So back to the
drawing board
again. Next, I asked our company's master cartridge roller what
_he_ used,
and following his advice, went and got a roll of this 6-inch wide,
brownish
paper tape that's used to plaster over seams in drywall construction.
Wal-Mart didn't have it, but National Home Center did... a big old roll
of
the stuff set me back $1.38.
I used a section of 5/8" dowel as a former, and a ball of cotton
quilting
thread from the sewing section matches the string used on cartridges.
The first thing I did was to cut a number of 6" squares of
cartridge paper
off the roll, and stack them together. Then I cut a template for
the
trapezoid, based on the dimensions given in Dom's handout. Using
the
template, I cut the stack of cartridge paper squares to the right size.
Taking one trapezoid, I ran a thin swipe of a Uhu glue stick across the
long
end of the trapezoid, then rolled it into a 5/8" paper cylinder.
Back the
former out about 3/4 to 1 inch, and then twist the end of the cylinder
(the
end with the long end of the trapezoid) together to get a good tight
closure.
Cut about an 8" piece of string, and tie the twisted end of the
cylinder to
with a double hitch knot. Remove the former, and carefully balance
three of
the .310 buckshot on the end of it. Carefully slide this into the
cylinder,
and seat the shot against the closed end of the cylinder. Take the
string,
and make a loop around the cylinder at the bottom of the shot, between
the
shot and the end of the former. Take a turn of the string back
through the
loop you just made, and cinch it down to form a definite groove between
the
former and the shot, and carefully tighten it until the cylinder is
pulled
tight over the three shot. You should be able to clearly see the
outline of
the three shot under the paper.
Hang on to your cylinder and string to keep the tension up, and with the
other hand, drop a .65 round ball (I used .648, but it's close enough
;-)
down the cylinder. Use the former to push it down and seat it
firmly
against the shot. Take another loop with your twine around between the
bottom of the round ball and the former, pass the string back through
the
loop and cinch it down again . When you've got it tight enough to
suit you,
make another loop around this one, and tie a half hitch to secure the
ball.
Remove the former, and get out your powder and measure. I used 110
grains
of GOEX FFFg black powder, measuring every charge. Pour the powder
into the
cylinder, and if you used a trapezoid to roll your round instead of a
rectangular piece of paper, turn it around until you find the diagonal
"seam" running down the length of the cartridge. Fold
the open end of the
cylinder snugly over the powder to make a nice tight cartridge, and fold
down the sides to form the familiar "tail". Snug
everything up tightly, and
fold the tail flat against the side of the cartridge. With a small
pair of
scissors, trim the tail so that the tip is just above the lower loop of
string. Tuck the tail of the cartridge into the seam; I put a
smidgen of
glue from the glue stick on the tip of the tail to keep it there, for
neatness' sake and to keep the tail from coming un-tucked and wandering
off
someplace. (Just a smidgen -- enough to hold it in place, but not
enough to
be a problem when you remove the cartridge from your box, flick the tail
out
with your thumbnail, and get ready to "tear cartridge.")
With the scissors, trim off the excess string, trim the twist at the top
if
needed, and you're ready to start on the next round.
Rolling ball cartridges is a lot simpler, since you don't have to jockey
around with the three little buckshot that always want to roll off your
former into the corner somewhere, and you only need to tie off the end
of
the cartridge and loop around one time with the string under the ball.
Same
amount of powder -- 110 grains of FFFg.
I used FFFg because of two references I found where someone had examined
a
number of original rounds and found the powder sifted out to be about
the
same consistency as FFFg. Plus, I use FFFg for my blank rounds,
and that's
what I had on hand.
The above instructions, mind you, are for SERVICE AMMUNITION -- Live
Rounds
for range practice and experimentation.
For blank rounds, it depends how much you want to impress the Captain
when
he goes peeping in your cartridge box at morning inspection, or whether
you'll use the blanks in a living history and are concerned about proper
appearance. For my "nice", "inspection" blanks
I use the same procedure as
above, except I substitute a cotton ball for the lead one, and roll it
the
same way as a round ball. For blanks, I also cut the powder charge
back to
75 grains of FFFg and use the cotton ball to take up the extra space in
the
round.
For "cheapie" blanks for memorial services or shoot 'em up
battle
reenactments, 75 grains of FFFg in one of the Paper Lady pre-rolled
tubes
work great ;-)
To package the loose rounds into a 10-round "arsenal pack",
I took an 8
1/2x11" sheet of ArtBright typing paper and cut it to 10 x 7 1/2
inches.
This is about an inch either way larger then what Dom's instructions
called
for, but I found the extra inch gave me a little better overlap and
closure
when folding the packs. Red paper for buck & ball, a dark
green paper for
round ball. I haven't seen original colored wrappers yet
(the photo in
Echoes of Glory showed "ordinary paper" used for the wrapper),
so I'm not
certain that the color is exactly right... but it serves the
purpose until
I can get a better idea of what it should be.
Take another cartridge tube on your former, twist one end closed with
your
fingers as you did when rolling cartridges, and put 12 musket caps in
the
tube. Twist the other end closed, and fold the end down over the
cap tube.
Count off ten rounds, and arrange them in two layers of five rounds
each,
lengthwise, on your wrapper paper. Fold the long ends over to the
center
and pull it tight, then fold and close one of the short ends just like
wrapping a Christmas present. Tuck your caps tube into the open
top, and
then fold the open end in to close the pack. Cut a little over a
foot of
your string, and set the side of your cartridge pack with the folded
ends
down on the string. Bring the ends of the string up over the
packet, cross
them, pull it tight, then do the same on the other side of the packet,
tying
the string off in a bow knot and trimming off any excess length.
As for labels, I made up a sheet from a photograph of a pack of
cartridges
in Echoes of Glory, and changed the name to the local (Little Rock)
Confederate arsenal and stuck an 1862 date on it. Print and cut
this out
with scissors, and then slip it under the string on the completed ammo
pack.
Altogether, I can crank out a 10-pack of buck & ball in about 30
minutes
once I get in the swing of things. To check how close I came, I
used the
cartridge tins in my box to gauge how close I was keeping to the
regulation
size, and to check that all the 10-packs fit easily in the bottoms of
the
tins, individual cartridges consistent in size and that exactly 10
rounds
fit in the top of the tin without sticking or overflowing anywhere.
Once I thought I had a workable product, it was off to the range for
proofing. Selecting an isolated part of the back 40 with a
cement-block
wall as a backstop, I measured off 100 yards, placed a paper target, and
loosed 5 rounds of .65 round ball at it per the "load in 9
times" drill.
The M1842 shot very pleasingly well... from a standing,
free-handed
position, all five rounds were on the target in a loose 12" circle
around
and on the bull, and the sound when you dropped the hammer on 110 grains
and
the ball would make a snapping turtle turn loose. Lots of flash
and smoke,
and since I rammed ball, string, paper, and all, there were a few
smoldering
pieces of cartridge paper and string to go stomp out. The big
surprise was
the effect on the concrete wall, 4 of the 5 rounds struck in the center
of a
block, and punched a 1 1/2" hole through both sides of the block,
with a
significant amount of spalling before departing into the half mile of
cypress swamp behind the backstop. Round #5 struck the seam
between two
blocks and only made a 2" hole diagonally through one side, and
failed to
penetrate the back side of the block. I plan to conduct any
further
ballistic research along these lines with a better, earthen backstop.
All in all, a very educational experience, and a nice set of "40
Dead Men"
for living history display...
your pard,
Tom