Difference between Confederate and British Enfield cartridges?

[erik]

Re: Difference between Confederate and British Enfield cartridges?

Steve,
The reprint of Hawes by Thomas is more detailed than the on line portion. The suppliments referred to are absent from the on line version.
While none of my references give a date for a particular method, I will copy the relevant sections of Instruction of Musketry and send them to you.

Erik Simundson

[maillemaker]

Re: Difference between Confederate and British Enfield cartridges?

Thanks Erik! I will look for the Thomas reprint via inter-library loan.

Here is tonight's progress for doing load workups at the range this weekend:

http://imgur.com/a/0wMah

I have British 1860 pattern cartridges using .550" diameter bullets, British 1855 pattern cartridges using .566" diameter bullets, and CSA copies of British 1855 pattern cartridges using .550" diameter bullets.

I'm going to shoot these with my Pedersoli P1853, Pedersoli P1858, and my Euroarms P1853 with Whitacre barrel with progressive-depth rifling.



Steve

[maillemaker]

Re: Difference between Confederate and British Enfield cartridges?

I got a chance to shoot them today. The CSA replicas of the 1855 Enfield cartridge with the .550" diameter bullet shot better than the ones made from 9# onion paper using the .566 diameter bullet, just as they found in period.

I did not see much difference between bullets with the 3 slits vs. those without - they all seemed to shred pretty vigorously about 10 feet from the muzzle.

I was able to achieve about a 6-8" group at 100 yards off a bench using my Euroarms P53 with Whitacre barrel with progressive-depth rifling.

Steve