Stupid Question for Reloaders

"The Army idiots later tried copper case cartridges (cheaper), which separated in the chambers rendering the rifle useless in battle, and screwed a bunch of other stuff up..."

Jeep, your characterization of the Army's reason for using copper instead of brass in its early rifle cartridge is wrong.

It was a matter of the manufacturing capabilities of the day.

Forming brass, which is much harder than copper, into suitable length rifle cases through the deep draw process was still being developed in the years just after the Civil War.

Simply put, it wasn't reliably possible to do so using brass until the middle to 1870s, and it wasn't developed into a flawless process until the 1880s.

During the Civil War cartridges for the Gallagher carbine were made from brass. But, because of the same issue, the ability to draw the cases, Gallagher cases were made by "spinning" them to length on a lathe. Basically, the same process as forming a clay pot.

Spinning works, but it's VERY slow and quite inefficient.

Copper is more than strong enough to serve as a rifle cartridge loaded with black powder.

The true failure point with the rifles of the day wasn't simply that the case was copper, it was a combination of the case, the blackpowder fouling, and the completely deficient design of the extractor on early trapdoor model conversions. The extractor had such a tiny bearing surface on the cartridge rim that it might as well have been a knife edge.

It wasn't until a Miller-type extractor was adopted on the Model 1868 Trapdoor that reliable extraction of fired cartridges became a more sure (but not absolute) thing.

Interestingly, the developer of the Miller extractor apparently sued the US government over patent infringement, claiming that the ordnance dept. simply copied his design.

Not sure how it worked out in the end, but given that the Ordnance Dept. copied a number of patented designs from a number of inventors around this time, they probably did.

To bring this full circle, Hiram Berdan's widow sued the government, and won, over a patent infringement issue relating to his designs being used in the Trapdoors without compensation.
 
Mike, that is all correct. She has been obsessively reading about the battles..she saw the battlefield, and unlike other people, she came home marked forever. we saw Shiloh and were rendered speechless. Gatlinburg? I've seen Gettysburg and Appomattox, the federal cemetery. Forgive me for not remembering, I had a brain tumor, and memory centers were injured.

To the point, I believe that it was renos command that had men assigned to ram rod stuck cartridges out and reload, then hand them back. One of the battles at Gettysburg had men reloading and passing them back, they had a huge surplus of rifles. Bob was apparently one of the worst screw ups in history.
 
Brian,

The standard issue weapon of the American Civil War, on both sides, was a rifled musket muzzleloader.

Some troops did have cartridge-firing weapons (either two part cartridges, like the Smith, Gallagher, or Burnside carbines), or a self-contained rimfire like the Spencer.

While those firearms did occasionally have sticky extraction issues related to fouling and the early cartridges, as far as I know none of them had an extractor design of the kind found on the early Trapdoors.

Perhaps the best known incident in which the deficiencies of the early extractor design showed up was the Battle of Beecher Island in 1868.

The unit that fought at Beecher Island was a hybrid, a number of US Army soldiers armed with conversion trapdoors, probably model 1866s or 1867s, but primarily a group of recruited frontiersmen/scouts (analagous to a militia), who were armed with Spencer repeating rifles.

There were numerous reports of the shells sticking in the chambers of the Trapdoors with the tiny extractor ripping through the cartridge rims, but the Spencers performed admirably and in fact provided the firepower needed to keep the unit from being utterly destroyed.

Remember, the US Army wasn't the only command to have issues with sticky cases in single shot rifles.

The British had numerous issues with their Martini-Henry rifles becoming extremely difficult to operate once they got hot and the chambers became fouled.

They were using composite cases for the .577-.450 consisting of an iron washer rim, a brass cup head and a brass foil and paper body, all held together with a primer that acted like a rivet.

When the case stuck in the chamber, the response by many soldiers was to yank the action lever very hard and very fast.

That didn't cause the extractor to tear through the case rim (iron washer), it served to rip the case head off at the primer rivet, leaving the foil and paper case body in the chamber.

To solve this issue, the British adopted a slightly different case design that proved to be more durable, apparently issued a tool that could be used to quickly and roughly clear fouling out of the chamber, and most importantly, adopted the Long Lever Pattern Martini-Henry, which allowed greater extraction power and did away with the need to yank the lever hard and fast.

It wasn't long, however, until brass drawing techniques allowed the adoption and issue of all-brass cases.
 
I don't recall how long it took them to catch on, but the Army started issuing broken cartridge extractors before they "modernized" to brass cases.


There are youtubes out there on how to convert the good quality but Berdan primed 7.5 Swiss cases to Boxer. Kind of a kluge, with the anvil gone, the primer pocket is just slightly larger than .210" so the process includes peening the edge of the pocket to hold a Large Rifle primer.

Trivia: Norma had "Re" in the headstamp for Reloadable back when Boxer primers were unusual in European ammo.
 
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Austin 1776 wrote:
...if I can't sell the brass cases to reloaders, as I do with other ammo, that may make it not worth it to me.
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This history lesson (and is disagreements it provoked) aside, you are correct that if you are looking to sell once-fired cases to reloaders as a way to help defray the cost of shooting, then you will need to buy boxer primed brass cases. Even if issues with availability of Berdan primers were worked out, few reloaders want to get involved with the Berdan system and that limits your market.

If you don't reload, you will probably find that shooting steel case or berdan-primed imported ammunition is going to be cheaper.

If you do go with Boxer-primed brass cases to sell, keep in mind when setting your price that you have a premium product. When someone buys once-fired cases from an internet seller, what they are really getting is brass that has been previously fired. It may have been fired a dozen times before. It may have been fired in a machine gun. It may have been fired in a gun with a fluted chamber. The cases you have are truly only once-fired because you bought them new and shot them the one time and the prospective purchaser can see the rifle they came from.
 
Mike, that's what I meant about Gettysburg. Muskets. I think that they had one freeloader for two or three shooters. That's iirc, this whole thing could be off.
 
I would really like to have a few of the single shots, hopefully in modern cartridges, and good condition. Martinii, rolling block,falling block, even trap door. I just like classic single shots. Wouldn't that Browning I saw once have been a prize? I loved that thing.
 
Two disclaimers here,
1, I'm an avid Sharps fan, not the modern knock-offs, but the actual Sharps rifles, so bias is mandatory!
2, I'm military educated, not a history buff.

As for #2, military education of long range shooting will teach you a lot about failure...

While drawn & pin punched cases were available, even at the time of the civil war, the army chose to reduce costs by using copper cases which had already shown their short comings.
The earliest reference to a roughly 70/30 brass/zinc case reference I've ever seen was the recommendation by Sharps/Berdan, to the Union Department Of War, and it's the earliest reference to 'Cartridge Brass' I've ever seen.

The reference to 'Cartridge Brass' was picked up by brass producers after a patent filing by Berdan and was included in something I read from a brass producer in their literature about cartridge brass, not from the military.

The biggest failure point of copper cases according to the multiple military investigations, including the 'Little Big Horn', was the black powder mixture attacking the copper, corroding & chemically hardening the copper in as little as 1 year of storage,
Resulting in swelling of the cartridge, case separations that rendered the ammo either unchangeable or un-extractable, either way rendering the rifle useless.

It's note worthy the PISTOL rounds purchased by the department of the Army specifically required Berdan's 'Cartridge Brass' alloy (without crediting Berdan, or paying royalties).

Both UMC & Winchester had previous employees working at the department of the army at the time, and those employees went back to work for UMC & Winchester after they worked for the Department Of The Army... And got the UMC/Winchester supply contracts approved.

The copper rifle cartridge supplier was a brother in law to the vice president when the copper case contract was awarded.
That same brother in law to the vice president didn't stand any charges even though Congress found clear evidence of a failed product that got military members killed...
Corruption & Pork isn't new!

Anyway, the point was, Berdan INSISTED on the first (lathe) drawn cases, then pin punched cases (current way of making cases), for his men, to the point of paying for the cases himself from time to time.
Sharps was the first manufacturer to wholly support the 70/30 drawn brass cases finding in testing they out performed everything else available at the time.

Berdan's men were the only military unit during the civil war to reload ammo cases, being issued hand presses, bullet molds, and actual scales for bullets & powder.
I've got one of the Berdan unit scales, but no one will let go of the hand presses, and the bullet molds were common issue.
Units were also issued powder strength testers, something seriously unusual for military units.
One resides at the Cody museum, another at the Army Marksmanship Unit museum.

Sharps/Berdan put the pieces together...
Between steel from the Bessemer process used by Sharps, steam over hydraulic powered pin punches (industral revolution) 70/30 brass alloy formula, mass annealing, mercury fulminate primers, coke carbon instead of charcoal or plain coal in the gunpowder, and a bunch of other details, the first mission specific, hyper accurate (for the time) long range rifles were born...

Shooting an original .45-120 Sharps to this day, I wouldn't want to be down range of it well past 1,000 yards!
Even over 100 years later, who knows how many thousand rounds through it, it will hold MOA groups @800yds with my old, blind butt behind it...
Think what they could have done with reasonable optics on top that 30" barrel!
 
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Jeep,

Good run down, but still some issues with the timeline.

The first Bessemer steel in the United States wasn't manufactured until middle 1864, in Michigan. Sharps didn't begin using Bessemer-made steel in its rifles until after the Civil War when it became more readily available.

As I noted, early attempts at drawing usable brass cases in lengths usable for the .50-70 cartridge produced enormous amounts of wastage. As with just about any new process, it has to be developed and refined, and that took a number of years to do.

The Army wasn't, rightly, about to adopt a manufacturing process that produced more unusable cases than usable ones. The Army wasn't interested in developing the process -- they let private industry do that. That wasn't the first time that happened, and it certainly wasn't the last.

I should note that the Army used drawing to manufacture its copper cases. They weren't against Berdan's innovations. They simply wanted a process that would work.

The powder attacking the copper case was a known issue, and workarounds were developed and tried, ranging from using a thin paper insert to applying a lacquer inside the case during manufacture. Ultimately, the use of copper alloy resistant to powder corrosion was used.

Remember, too, that the Army had to develop workarounds for the propensity of brass to corrode in salt environments, leading to the adoption of tinned cases.

I have nearly a dozen copper cased US Army loaded rounds in my personal collection -- .50-70, .45-70, .45 Colt, and .45 S&W -- and all are in sound condition after almost 140 years in contact with the powder inside.

Note, too, that copper alloy cases were the standard for .22 Long Rifle ammunition in the US until Remington developed the first high pressure, high speed rounds in the 1920s/1930s.



"It's note worthy the PISTOL rounds purchased by the department of the Army specifically required Berdan's 'Cartridge Brass' alloy (without crediting Berdan, or paying royalties)."

OK, you're going to have to identify which Civil War era pistol cartridges purchased by the military specified brass, because the military purchased a LOT of copper cased rounds in .22 and .32 for various handguns.

Once again, though, the deep draw process worked just fine with short cartridges like pistol rounds.
 
Berdan's men were the only military unit during the civil war to reload ammo cases,
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Can you provide a source with some details on this? I was not aware that Sharps made any cartridge rifles until well after the war. The earliest Flayderman shows is the 1866 .50 rimfire and that one invisibly scarce.


Shooting an original .45-120 Sharps
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I have read a lot of debates as to whether Sharps ever made a rifle originally in .45 x 3 1/4" or if the few seen were rechambered in the waning days of the Sharps Rifle Co. Or do you refer to the .45 X 2 7/8" case, now called .45-110 but available with heavier loads in the day?
 
Good catch, Jim.

I also find it absolutely unlikely that Berdan's Sharpshooters reloaded their own centerfire metallic cartridges because...

There were none in use during the Civil War.

While conceptually the centerfire had been invented at the beginning of the 18th century, it wasn't until Boxer and Berdan perfected their systems AFTER the Civil War.

Berdan receive a patent for his system in 1866, and Boxer received an English patent for his system in, I believe, 1867.


As far as I know, the ONLY reloadable cases in widespread use during the Civil War were for the Lefauchaux-system, and those were pinfires.


After the Civil War many of the Sharps rifles and carbines were converted to .50-70 centerfire.
 
Now I'm wondering when the first thousand yard black powder rifle matches were started. Then, I wonder at what point they stopped being front loader, then breech loaded cartridges, both with loose bullets in the chamber and actual loaded rounds.

I know that there are so many differing explanations for this sort of thing. Now, I'm also wondering whether harry popes progressive rifling has ever been used with smokeless cartridges.
 
Well, the Creedmoor Long Range matches started in 1874.
Rather famous for the Irish team shooting Rigby muzzleloaders and the US team shooting Remington and Sharps breechloaders.
The Rigby was plenty accurate but the breechloaders had the advantage of being easily wiped between shots and easily loaded without the gymnastics of plying the ramrod.

And if you call up Bartlein Barrels, they will cheerfully make you a progressive twist barrel in any caliber you like. http://bartleinbarrels.com/t-style-rifling/
 
Nobody ever did progressive rifling quite like the H&H paradox, going from smoothbore to rifled in a couple inches.
 
'The History Of Steel', last known printing was 1903, explains that 'Bessimer' process actually started around/about 1820-1825 in Pennsylvania, raw air was blown through the liquid iron, reducing carbon and creating steel.

The blower was adapted from an air mover used in coal & iron ore mining, to ventilate mine shafts.

Up to that point, steel was an elusive and almost magical thing, only made in small billets, about the size of a common flower pot (crucible).

A few points here,
1. The industral revolution allowed an air mover/blower sufficient to create 'Air Blast' furnaces,
All over PA, WV, VA you will find town names with 'Forge', 'Furnace', and to a lesser extent, 'Kiln'.

2. These towns all had Forges, IE, they smelted iron ore into pig iron,
OR,
They baked coal into much pure carbon called Coke.

3. With the Advent of the MUCH hotter burning Coke, and a mechanical (steam engine powered) air blower system, pig iron was completely liquified, common air was forced through the liquified and highly refined iron to burn the carbon off, making it steel.

4. The 'Bessimer' process simply used a much higher oxygen content, an oxygen enriched air which made the iron burn off the carbon FASTER, not produced any better results in the resulting steel.

While the 'Forge' would have to remelt the steel three or four times to burn off carbon to an acceptable level, simply because the air would cool/harden the iron, the oxygen enrichment would do the job in a single shot (more efficient, so Bessimer made a fortune)

5. Forge steel was referred to as 'Bessimer' process steel, common useage, not technically correct...

6. Before the air/oxygen injection process, molten iron was poured through open air to allow oxygen to burn off carbon, sometimes as many as 30 remelts and pours to remove excess carbon.
The air injection was a BIG step forward from 30 remelts!

Also, the remelted steel was spotty in consistency, unreliable.
Air injection made reliable steel, and made 'Steel' (gray metal to a machinist), cannons possible,
And made rifles cannons possible for the Civil War...
Today, we call it gray steel, some people call it (incorrectly) high grade cast iron.

7. Joseph Sharps, first cousin to Christian Sharps, was one of the leading authorities on high volume steel making, and was a co-founder of a machine tool company in Bridgeport CT, which later became the Bridgeport machine tool company.
While not credited, Joseph Sharps refined the first practical breech loading cannon, and invented the first identifiable multi-angle head milling machine.

8. 'Drawing' is a forming process by which a metal disk is formed over a solid mold, or 'Buck'.
The metal is 'Drawn Tight' over the 'Buck'.

When a lathe is involved, it's called 'Spring' to differentiate the two processes, although the spinning metal disk is also drawn tight over a buck, made to take on the shape of the buck.

I don't blame people for confusing the processes, or using common useage, but you guys want to get technical...
I've seen the propaganda from cartridge companies saying cases are currently 'Drawn', but that's just not accurate.

'Drawing' is PULLING the metal into shape, current cases are pressure formed, IE, they are PUSHED into shape, not pulled.
The correct term is pressure die formed, (correct) common useage is 'Punched'
This is the tell of the tale, PUNCH PRESSES & DIES are used to form cases, not drawing machines.

Here is some trivia,
The first brass die forming punch press was patented in 1821, used gunpowder to power the ram.
Brass punches MUST increase pressure constantly to get brass to flow, not even the early steam power over hydraulic could continuously increase pressure without hesitation/stalling, forming a defect ring in the brass when it stalls.

I know this first hand since I screwed it up when I started making my own cases...
Ruined the first 7 batches until I got enough hydraulic press & the correct bypass/regulation valve.

The first working hydraulic punch press for brass forming was patented in 1853 by a button manufacturer.

Black powder burns at a consistent rate, making it somewhat effective, constantly increasing pressure to punch brass to the point of being 'Plastic' and steadily increasing pressure.
I would think it dangerous considering the steel pressure vessels of the time...

Punched or drawn, brass cases were around at the time, expensive, but available.
Christan Sharps was an excellent firearms builder, had access to one of the true genius machine tool builders & metallurgists, & Hiram Berdan was a firearms genius in his own right, WAY underestimated and grossly ripped off by EVERYONE in the firearms businesses & by his own government.

Everyone goes on and on about Colt, who invented nothing... Simply combining the already existing revolving cylinder with a ships wheel lock to create his pistol.

Everyone wets themselves when Eugene Stoner is mentioned, but direct gas impengmen was already used, so was rotating bolts, he just used light weight alloys...

John Moses Browning used sewing machine mechanics adapted to make machine guns work, got the pants sued off him several times for stealing patented mechanics.

Sharps & Berdan solved virtually all the problems with long cartridge rifles & ammunition, since most had simply given up thinking the problems were insurmountable or simply lost interest & wanted to stop bleeding money,
And they did it the most simply way possible, in some cases inventing processes to manufacture.

Not Nicola Tesla genius, but pretty darn smart & creative!
Most certainly the biggest influence in long range rifles to date since we are still using the basic concepts to this day...
And like I said, I'm military educated, so the guys that influenced the military I'm going to know the most about having seen their work first hand enshrined.

Now, want to know the real history of the 'Sniper'? I'm sure I can set a bunch of people off in that conversation... ;)
 
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It's interesting to see you go off on these technology tangents. I honestly don't know if there are any flaws in it, but I can read enough to know that it's founded in accuracy. Keep it up.

Don't expect me to understand your post on how brass is tempered. I have better things to do with my time. I've been trying to understand string theory and the GUT for forty years and that still consumes several hours of my day.
 
Jeep,

Please read my messages again regarding brass deep draw. I'm not saying it wasn't possible. I'm saying the technology took a fairly long time to work through to where it could be reliably be used to make draws long enough to make rifle brass.

Buttons are not particularly deep draws. Pistol-caliber cartridges are not particularly deep draws compared to the 2+ inch draw needed to form a .45-70 case.

Getting the process worked out to where it would reliably form cases of such length took time and effort. As I said, the military was not interested in converting to a 40 or 50% solution and working out the bugs. They let the private industry do that.
 
And an odd tech fact that has successfully resisted time itself.

Lock washers are a piece of junk and proscribed by SAE in 1969

They still use them.
 
Getting back to the OP . . .

If you have a drill press, you can pretty easily convert the Berdan primed cases to Boxer. You basically drill one hole then use an appropriately sized reamer bit to shave off the rest of the bottom of the Berdan primer.
 
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