doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Dis-assembling antique collectible cartridge

I wish I could post photos here, because when I say the paper patch disintegrated, you could see it yourself. The patches are all already in rough condition. The one I removed was stuck to the inside of the case. The bottom of the patch pulled off altogether and had to be fished out separately. Taking a whole bunch of measurements of the patch on the bullet and off either captured the correct thickness or created a muddle of different results.

The bullet itself is .400�, and appears to be pure lead.
The patch, loosely on the bullet but obviously compressed for measuring, yielded .408-.410� total thickness. When mic�ed by itself, the double wrapped patch measured from .0025�-.003�, which would result in a patched diameter of .405� to .406�, not the .408-.410� with the patch flopping about the bullet. Just finding two wraps to measure became increasingly difficult as the patch fell apart with handling.

Measuring the patch thickness was difficult. It is so light and delicate, just manipulating it into position without destroying it was tough, and each operation caused more of it to flake off. Looking at it, I�m going to hazard a guess it was originally at .408�.

Mike, I hear you on Walsh. But re-reading The Maneaters of Kumaon and Baker�s Wild Beasts and Their Ways for the first time is absorbing my time.

Thank you for the advice to try Brooks. Probably the one mould maker I have not used. Accurate does show pointed bullets in their catalogue.

Of all of this cartridge dissection, the gunpowder was the most surprising.

Was the gunpowder black and shiny like crushed glass?

Brent, absent photos, I was looking for an apt description, and I think this 'crushed glass' will do. Yes, the powder has a high shine polish on it, almost like broken obsidian; the pieces are irregularly shaped; and what really got my eye is that the pieces are different sizes. There are bigger jagged pieces and smaller jagged pieces, all mixed together. When I read about what Curtis's & Harvey's #6 powder was, which this probably is, it was an aggregation or mix of different screen sizes of powder. It was not uniformly sized. I dumped out this Eley's powder (probably C&H #6) and then put a pile of Swiss FFG and a pile of Olde Eynsford 1.5G all lined up. The OE 1.5FG Was the closest to the Eley's/ C&H #6, and yet that was just in grain or kernel size. OE itself is highly uniform, but lacked the high polish of the Eley's. Swiss FFG had much smaller and totally uniform grains but is similarly highly polished like the Eley's / C&H #6.
If I had to pick a powder that to the eye appears close to C&H #6, I would say it is the Olde Eynsford 1.5FG.

It sure behaves like it.

Good to know you think so, Mike. While I have been shooting OE 1.5 and 2FG, I have gone back and forth with Swiss, which really is a nice powder. More range time, coming up, I can see it

I have not seen original C&H #6 that I know was definitively C&H, so I can't comment on appearances, but performance wise, Swiss 1.5fg is generally deemed closest to the haloed C&H. Swiss, however, is not shiny in the same way that my unknown vintage powder is shiny. I see I have several more of those cartridges so I could pull another for comparison with yours, but as you said, shiny like cracked obsidian. Strange stuff. Swiss is shiny from being tumbled with graphite.

OE is dusty stuff and suffers for consistency and is difficult to make precision loads with.

I'd be interested in how thick any lube/wax cookie was in your cartridge. Do you think it was straight beeswax?

Is the shank of the bullet parallel sided or slightly tapered? I'm wagering it may well be the latter, but its a guess. How much paper was sticking out of the case and how deeply was the bullet seated?

Brent, all excellent questions. Given the popularity of C&H #6 in express rifles, it is not a big leap to say these powders, in these popular rounds like Eley and Kynoch, is probably #6. I wouldn't know #6 if it fell on my head, but I felt pretty sure I was looking at it when I saw it the other night. From the old descriptions of it.
The shank of the bullet is straight/ parallel, not tapered.
The 0.85" thick grease wad appeared to be millboard soaked in some kind of grease or oil, either of which would have deteriorated by now. It is not beeswax or some other oil-tallow-wax combination. I was hoping to see the fabled "greased cloth" myself.
About 1/4" of paper patch was sticking out of the case. All of these paper patches are tattered. This one reminded me of a mummy being pulled out of a sarcophagus, with tatters hanging off.
The 228.8-grain bullet is exactly 0.9" long.
The bullet was seated deeply, almost to the place where the ogive begins to turn. A good half inch was in the case, probably a hair more. That surprised me.
OAL was all over the place with these rounds, and one can believe the bullets moved. They are not crimped in place. Average OAL seems to be [EDIT] 3.7" (my cartridges) to 3.8" (Ken's cartridges), which is what Ken found with his antique 450/400 3-1/4" cartridges (sorry if I stole your thunder here, Ken, I just have not heard from you for a while and can't tell if you are away on vacation). I think Ken also has these same Eley paper patched cartridges.
Back to the surface shine on the powders. I now know more about black powders than I did a week ago, as a result of looking at this old stuff. It really grabbed my imagination; it is in great condition, actually like new, and it will surely function properly if touched off. That old surface shine must be from being polished, and not coated with graphite. The Olde Eynsford looks close to this Eley/#6 powder, but it lacks much of a surface shine, which could be a good thing or a bad thing, I don't know.
I have been using Swiss FFG in a lot of my express rifles lately, and it works well, and sometimes it almost seems a little too hot, too fast. With harder lead alloy, it works great.
Anyhow, I hope this answers your questions. Dave Weber, proprietor of this fine website, says he might update its software to include an easier way to post photos. If that happens, I will be able to post pictures of this process, although by then we will also be into hunting season and my mind will be far far away from computers.

You know, for all the "You'll shoot your eye out, kid!" warnings I got last week, it is surprising that no one has asked how I opened up the cartridge.

Josh,

If you are referring to me, the 450/400 3.25" antique cartridges I have are not PP. They are Eley cartridges with a 195 grain hollow point type of bullet. I have 10 rounds and the OAL is 3.7225 to 3.681. Six rounds are over 3.7+, three rounds are 3.68+, and one round was 3.69+. Unfortunately, I don't have original box for the cartridges.

Ken

I am still lost how you get OE to look anything like what's in your case, but regardless, your cartridge is darn interesting.

Personally, I would bet that you pulled the bullet out with your fingers. One does not roll crimp paper patches. Might taper crimp them slightly but that's all. Target cartridges often fall out of the case if inverted. Double guns will require a little resistence to deal with recoil and especially handling in the field. Taper crimping with dedicated die or by removing the core from a FL sizing die and touching it fairly gently gets the job done.

I think I'll pull another one of my cartridges and photo the powder to post it here. Yes, it does, most certainly, ignite. And with plenty of vigor. BP has basically no shelf life limitations if keep at reasonable temperatures.

Brent, first I engraved a channel in the brass using a pocket knife, then an exacto knife, and then an engraving tool. Then I used the Dremel at low RPMs, around 7,000, with the thinnest cutting wheel I could find. Wearing jeweler's glasses that allowed me to get just a couple inches away and see everything perfectly, the Dremel made very slow and shallow passes, with no heat generated. Eventually opened it up without hitting anything below, and I was able to carefully pull the case apart with needle nose pliers and tweezers to pull stuff out. I agree with you about the taper/ sizer crimp in general. These cartridges have paper that stuck to the case wall and which could not be pulled out en toto with the bullet. I did try to pull all of the bullets out with my fingers, and any one that would have been loose was going to be the one I took apart, but none of the bullets were loose. Or rather, all of the bullets were glued in by virtue of their old paper adhering to the case.
The powder looks closest to the 1.5FG size. It might not just be OE, could be Swiss, too, but I only looked at Swiss FFG, not Swiss 1.5FG. Truth is, none of today's powders look anything like the powder in that old Eley case. It has a variety of grain sizes; all of the grains are jagged and highly fractured (your shattered glass) appearing. They are highly polished, unlike the OE. So the high performing old C&H #6 wasn't just its manufacturing quality, it was also the way the different screen size grains mingle with one another and then fire up when ignited. I am not aware of any black powder made today that resembles anything like C&H #6. Then again, what the heck do I know...
Ken! Thank you for posting your data!