The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #78333 Message #1413084
Posted By: Rex
17-Feb-05 - 01:20 PM
Thread Name: BS: Firearms of the 1840s and 1850s
Subject: RE: BS: Firearms of the 1840s and 1850s
Oho! Didn't know there was such a discussion going on. A look back at the cap and ball revolvers and reloading. It's true that once you fired all rounds in the cylinder in battle, it was not handy to reload. A solution was to carry extra cylinders. Some carried this idea further and just carried say, four revolvers. Another means to quicker reloading was paper cartridges. Instead of a round ball, you use a conical bullet, cut from a pattern a nitrated paper cartridge. Then a set charge of powder is placed in the cartridge with the bullet seated/glued in the top. These cartridges would be kept in a cartridge box. I use these. The primary difference between the idea of the paper cartridge and later metal ones is they cannot be removed after loading except to fire them.