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USA General of the Army
USA Lieutenant Colonel
we already talked about this mate http://www.warofrightsforum.com/show...-Pistol-Reload
Originally Posted by TrustyJam
Revolvers can also be reloaded in reasonable time. And best possible performance is hardly a good source for how soldiers can do in battle.
You can expect a test of it as a feature.
- Trusty
USA Major
I have a good true story to illustrate how useful these weapons were/are:
My brother who at the time was a reenactor and had a number of black powder guns went deer hunting during Virginia's black powder season. He took his Hawken rifle and a Colt pistol. He spent all day hunting without seeing a deer until almost the end of the day. While resting a deer wandered up within 50 feet of him. So he aimed his Hawken at the deer and fired. Or rather attempted to fire. The cap had fallen off. The click hadn't spooked the deer so he took out his Colt and fired it. Unfortunately the warmth of the day had caused the grease used to cover the front of the cylinders to run. All the cylinders went off at once and in the process caused the pin that holds the barrel on the colt to fall out. He was left holding the handle of the gun with no barrel or cylinder. The deer ran off.
And, as a side note most of the standard issue guns at the beginning of the civil war did not take cartridges. They were cap and ball guns and required considerable time to load since you had five to six cylinders to fill with powder, pack a ball into, cover in grease to keep the firing cylinder from igniting the others, and then you had to put caps on all the cylinders.
As far as I can find out, few used the Texas Ranger technique of carrying additional preloaded cylinders. Apparently the practice had died out even in the Texas Rangers by the time of the Civil War and had been largely forgotten. It was revived for a short time by the Texas Rangers after the war and used in the Indian fights.
Lightfoot
CSA Major
But what are all these Good Gentlemen Officers going to fire at if they only have one cylinder?
CSA Major
Paper cartridges have been around since before the civil war, the only thing I think was new was the flash cartridges that made reload faster because you didn't need to tear the paper and pour the powder in.
Jesse S. Crosby, 20th Georgia Infantry, July 15, 1861 - May 6, 1864
Samuel T. McKenzie, 20th Georgia Infantry, July 15, 1861 - September 2, 1862
Joseph C. McKenzie, 20th Georgia Infantry, July 15, 1861 - October 1, 1863
Henry C. McKenzie, 3rd Georgia Infantry, June 1, 1861 - January 28, 1863
Charles R. Beddingfield, 38th Alabama Infantry
Samuel L. Cowart, Cobb's Legion
CSA Major
A chain fire is usually caused by one of two things
1. The ball is undersized. The ball should be oversized enough so that when seating the ball, the chamber cuts off a ring of lead. This basically swages the ball, and creates a tight seal around the ball. With the tight seal, and a felt wad under the ball, there should be no way for a spark to reach the powder. If the ball is undersized, there will be minute gaps around the bullet, potentially allowing a spark to make it past the ball.
2. The percussion caps are too loose, or the cone itself is loose. Loose caps or cones could allow sparks to enter the chamber.
Also, loading a C&B revolver with pre-made paper cartridges is still a time consuming process. You still have to seat all six cartridges, and cap all six cones. All this while your company is looking to you to make decisions and give commands.
Lastly, my 1848 Colt Army "Dragoon" sights were designed for point of aim at 75 yards....so Mr. Colt sure didn't think his pistols were limited to four yards.
Pvt. L.J. Perreira
USA Major
They used paper cartridges but that only provided them with a premeasured powder. It might speed loading a little bit but not much. The procedures was still rather involved as shown below and more so if you were under fire at the time.
Loading with paper based cartridges
There was a very definite order to loading a revolver, and many manuals of the day had printed instructions for carrying out this procedure. A detailed description of loading a Colt style revolver as listed in Civil War manuals will show how a paper cartridge was used. I will not give the exact method of loading as was listed by Army regulations because there is much unnecessary information, which would confuse the reader. Instead, I will provide an accurate working method, condensed from original manuals.
A) Draw Pistol: At the command PISTOL, the soldier would draw his pistol from its holster and hold it pointed upwards in front of himself, holding the pistol in his left hand. The holster was on the soldiers right side, with the butt facing forward. This required the soldier to draw the gun with his left hand and then, if shooting it, transfer it to his right hand. The reason for this is antiquated war practices. The Military at the time of the civil war still considered the sword as a necessary implement of war. The sword or sabre was to be kept on the left side of the solider, so he could draw it with his right hand, ready for action.
B) Load: Place your left thumb on the hammer, your index finger beside the trigger guard, and pull the hammer aft to Half-Cock position. Half Cock is a position of the hammer where the cylinder of the pistol will rotate freely, but the hammer cannot be pushed forward. If the gun is dropped the hammer cannot slam forward and strike a cap. The cylinder can be spun around to any position by manually spinning it, usually with your thumb of the left hand.
C) Handle-Cartridge: At this command a soldier would remove a cartridge from his cartridge box, or ammunition pouch using his right hand, and hold the cartridge ready for use.
D) Charge-Cartridge:
1) Lift the cartridge to your mouth and tear open the base of the cartridge, pour the powder into the chamber of the revolver. It should be noted here to readers that the soldier is pouring the powder directly into the chamber of the revolver, not down the barrel of the revolver. The cylinder being much wider then the barrel of the gun, there is a special carved area in the body of the pistol on the right side. This carved area, allows a soldier easy access to each chamber of the cylinder, as it is rotated to this position. On almost all revolvers, this position is just to the right of the barrel.
2) Insert ball. The soldier would now remove the ball from the rest of the paper cartridge and place the ball over the chamber opening where he just poured the powder, press the ball firmly into the chamber using your thumb.
3) Rotate the cylinder using your left thumb until the ball is underneath the loading lever. This is generally a position on the bottom of the pistol, and just underneath the barrel. At the same time as you rotate the cylinder, use your right hand and begin to depress the loading lever into alignment with the ball.
This would be step 2 and 3 above as outlined in the basic steps. Step 1 measure the powder has been already done in the self contained paper cartridge.
If a soldier had a combustible cartridge at this command Charge-Cartridge he would place the entire cartridge inside the cylinder, push it down firmly with his thumb, and rotate the cylinder underneath the loading lever. This would eliminate the above outlined basic steps 1, 2, and 3: all in one smooth easy step.
At this point, any reader can see that a combustible paper cartridge was a large time saver.
E) Ram-Cartridge: At this command the soldier using his right hand, forces the loading lever down, and firmly seats the ball into the chamber. If a ball was not seated firmly upon its powder, when the powder ignites it will expand, and create excessive pressure in the chamber. This could easily cause the revolver to explode.
Load, Handle-Cartridge, Charge-Cartridge, Ram-Cartridge would all now be repeated for how ever many chambers a revolver had.
It should be noted here that at this time, basic step 5 Grease would also be applied to the top of each ball, however field manuals do not clearly state this. It may have not been stated because many cartridges had the ball already encased in grease, and it was not necessary to list this. If you are loading revolvers yourself, PLEASE do not forget this very important step. Today we are forced to load our revolvers manually, Crisco or similar fatty oil may be placed over each ball.
F) Prime: After all chambers were loaded the command Prime would be ordered. At the command Prime a soldier would lower the barrel of his revolver towards the ground, and place a cap over the nipple of each chamber. Caps are tiny objects that look like a cup, and just a little bit smaller then a pencil eraser. These caps are the primary ignition source for a revolver and for pistols and rifles as well. A soldier would rotate the cylinder with the right hand, or the index finger of the left hand, and place one cap upon each of the chambers nipples.
The revolver would now be capable of being fired. The soldier would draw the hammer all the way back to full-cock position, and then gently lower it forward until it rested on a special detent between the chambers of a Remington style revolver. This detent was necessary so that if the gun fell, the hammer striking the ground would not explode a chamber. Colt style revolvers had no detent however. If a soldier had a Colt style revolver, he would either leave the hammer resting directly upon the cap of the chamber. This would be a dangerous condition. If a revolver did not have any detent between cylinders, a soldier could leave one cylinder of his revolver empty and the hammer would be placed over the empty cylinder. In battle, it is presumed a soldier would load all chambers.
When the gun was ready to fire, the hammer would be drawn back to full-cock position, and then the trigger pulled. The hammer falls forward and strikes the cap. The cap will explode sending flame through a tiny hole in the nipple, and into the chamber of the gun. The powder now explodes and the projectile is shot forth from the barrel. If combustible cartridges were used, the nitride paper will burn, igniting the powder and all is consumed in the process.
Lightfoot
USA Lieutenant General
Just a quick thought on the matter. As it stands now I don't want officers to be able to reload because ramboing is a big enough problem as it is, but perhaps if revolver reloads are introduced they could deal the same kind of damage as the bayonet now does? A single shot in the chest causes the "seriously wounded" effect but gives the other guy a moment to fight back, but a shot to the head could still be an instant kill. Officers could still get potentially between 3-6 rapid kills depending on how good their aim is, but more often than not I'd imagine they'll go for body shots. It would discourage ramboing slightly because your kills aren't guaranteed and reloading in the midst of your enemy is complete suicide.
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