"Rifled muskets and the undersize bullet?" Topic
18 Posts
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| wtjcom | 28 Feb 2023 8:15 p.m. PST |
Not sure if anyone has read this before, it is an interesting article outlining the problems that arose from the 1861 rush to buy rifled muskets, which resulted in weapons of varying bores being issued to troops. To get around the related ammo supply problem, the ordnance bureau ordered the use of a single undersize bullet that fit in all rifle-muskets. Unfortunately, the most common rifled musket made by Springfield had the largest relative bore diameter, so it would have been the most negatively affected by the change: link I am curious if anyone on TMP was familiar with this story. The article also gives a good background to US bullet design previous to the war. It is particularly interesting to me, because it supports the various positions by Griffith, Hess and Nosworthy regarding civil war combat. These positions were – among other things – based on a comparison of Napoleonic versus Civil War casualties (esp. Griffith) which I felt was an interesting consideration. But I never agreed with the additional claims of alleged inaccuracy of the rifled musket itself, which was supported with weak or outright incorrect evidence regarding the weapons. Those claims also ignored pre-war testing and combat use in the Crimean War which indicated that the new rifled muskets had far longer effective ranges than smoothbores. One of the key sources for this article is Round Ball to Rimfire, by Dean Thomas, whose first volume on the subject is now difficult to find and costs quite a bit. The Thomas book does not appear in the bibliographies by the above authors, at least none that I have double-checked so far. I also don't recall them mentioning this line of evidence in any of their books, but I don't have them all, so who knows. Any suggestions or comments appreciated. |
Shagnasty  | 01 Mar 2023 8:48 a.m. PST |
Didn't know about the sub-caliber bullet issue for the Feds but did know that the Enfield round would fit nicely into the Springfield but not vice/versa. |
| donlowry | 01 Mar 2023 8:55 a.m. PST |
I actually read the article. I never heard of the supposedly famous Harper's Ferry experiments. Anyway, I think the whole thing is needlessly pedantic. Minie' or Minnie balls is what the troops called the things at the time, and so that is their name, as far as I am concerned. |
| 35thOVI | 01 Mar 2023 8:55 a.m. PST |
I had both a 58 caliber Springfield and .577 caliber Enfield. Granted both are reproductions. 58 caliber Miniι would fire successfully out of both. I had been told that the ammunition was interchangeable by multiple people and had read as such. But I never fired originals, so will not vouch for that information and my books are now sold. |
| wtjcom | 01 Mar 2023 11:59 a.m. PST |
The author calls his own article pedantic, so if someone is not really into the ammo topic, you probably won't like it. The interesting part for me that bears directly on combat results was the last paragraph that mentions the ordnance department instructing arsenals in 1862 to produce only .570" sub-caliber bullets that negatively affected accuracy in the field. The next question then would be how the Confederates dealt with the varied weapon selection. Did they just stock the different ammo types and accept the occasional confusion? The article claims that at the time, Enfield ammo could not be fired out of a Springfield. I don't know period hardware enough to know if that's definitely true. |
| ZULUPAUL | 02 Mar 2023 2:16 p.m. PST |
Minie bullets were hollow based (a skirt it was called AFAIK) which expanded in the barrel at firing to fit into the rifling. I've fired a number of 58 cal bullets & accuracy wasn't bad at all. There are other factors to inaccuracy such as fouled barrel, someone shooting at you, excitement etc. |
| donlowry | 03 Mar 2023 3:04 p.m. PST |
I believe the greatest factor concerning the accuracy of any weapon is the shooter. |
| Blutarski | 04 Mar 2023 5:17 p.m. PST |
wtjcom wrote -
quote Not sure if anyone has read this before, it is an interesting article outlining the problems that arose from the 1861 rush to buy rifled muskets, which resulted in weapons of varying bores being issued to troops. To get around the related ammo supply problem, the ordnance bureau ordered the use of a single undersize bullet that fit in all rifle-muskets. Unfortunately, the most common rifled musket made by Springfield had the largest relative bore diameter, so it would have been the most negatively affected by the change. unquote
Sorry for being slow on the uptake, but the following information may be of assistance. Source is "Notes on Ammunition of the American Civil War 1861-1865" by Colonel Berkeley R Lewis, Ordnance Corps, United States Army (ret), copyright 1959 by the American Ordnance Association, Washington DC. This slim but informative volume was prepared in anticipation of the Centennial of the ACW.
During most of the war, the basic arm, the M1855, 1861 or 1863 rifle-musket, used the .577 Minie bullet in a paper cartridge. - - Performance of the various service small arms was determined by tests which extended over a period of years. They were made with machine rests under controlled conditions and give a fair idea of what might be expected in the hands of a well-trained soldier - - The British M1851 Enfield made 25 out of 25 hits at 500 yards, with mean vertical and horizontal deviations of only 20 and 17 inches respectively. The M1855 rifle and rifle-musket shot equally well, giving mean vertical and horizontal deviations at 500 yards of only 15 and 13 inches. - - Interesting sidelight: there is a section of this booklet entitled "Ordnance and Ordnance Stores purchased by the Ordnance Department, U.S.A. January 1 1861 to June 30, 1866. It shows the following number of rifled-muskets procured, as follows - Springfield rifle muskets 670,617
Enfield rifle muskets 428,292 I was surprised by those procurement figures; one would have thought many more domestically produced Springfields to have been procured. - - Here is another quite surprising statistic regarding cartridge procurement over that same enumerated time period - 46,409,514 rifle, caliber .58, &c
58,238,924 Spencer Wouldn't have believed it had I not seen it in print.
B
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| wtjcom | 05 Mar 2023 10:22 p.m. PST |
I wouldn't have thought so many Enfields vs Springfields, same for the cartridge production numbers. Both pretty surprising. In some cases the ammunition for .58 was "for use in .58" even if that was not the diameter of the bullets. I found an article referencing a crate that was returned because the men thought the rounds would not fit in their weapons because of the crate markings. That was followed by a reply from the arsenal that they were .570" and *would* fit. This is the second time I've read of a back and forth between the arsenals and units in the field. |
| bobm1959 | 06 Mar 2023 6:32 a.m. PST |
As an aside Griffith didn't argue the weapons were inaccurate but that in combat sights weren't adjusted for range… |
| Blutarski | 06 Mar 2023 3:42 p.m. PST |
bobm1959 wrote
As an aside Griffith didn't argue the weapons were inaccurate but that in combat sights weren't adjusted for range… I agree that sight-setting merits examination. The sight of the Springfield rifled musket had three settings 100 yds, 300 yds and 500 yds. The Model 1842 smoothbore musket had neither an adjustable sight nor a rear sight, only a simple front blade sight. It is estimated that upwards of 70pct of the Confederate Army was armed with smoothbores of various ilk (even flintlocks) in the early part of the war with the problem lasting even longer with the Confederate army in the western theater of operations. Regarding ballistics of Union small arms, I highly recommend Claud Fuller's book, "The Rifled Musket", which included painstaking test firings of upwards of 20 firearms either employed or being evaluated by the Union Ordnance Corps. Here is a brief excerpt - Fire by File
10 men firing total of 50 rounds at a 10x10ft target
SB = Model 1842 SB Musket cal .69
RM = US Rifled Musket, cal .58 Range -100 200 300 500 yds
SB 76% 40% 18%
RM 100% -74% 58% 38% Comparative ballistic accuracy only!
I confess to having a "love/hate" relationship with the firefight range arguments laid out in Paddy Griffith's "Battle Tactics of the Civil War" … i.e., I agree with some aspects but disagree with many other aspects of his evaluation mostly his assessment of visibility distances in the various campaign locales. Antietam is a good example Hooker's initial assault was confronted by Confederates positioned in a fully mature cornfield; Sumner's assault was only engaged (by ambush) after physically entering into the West woods; the Confederate position along the Bloody Lane was a reverse slope position invisible to assaulting Union troops until topping the ridge crest less than 50yds distant. Burnside Bridge was IIRC less than 100yds from the Confederate defensive position overlooking the crossing point from a wooded hillside.
I think Paddy underestimated the degree to which restricted visibility dictated battle events. Strictly my opinion, of course. B |
| wtjcom | 07 Mar 2023 9:40 p.m. PST |
@bobm1959
Agree 100%, that is why I noted in the OP that it was Griffith who compared Napoleonic against Civil War casualties as part of his logic (which was excellent logic in my opinion). The "additional claims" I mentioned were primarily from the other sources, sorry for not making that clearer. Much of the published ordnance department test results were from weapons using ammunition that matched recommended diameters, powder charge and windage. Many of the muskets used for the tests were built at the ordnance department machine shops so they had careful control over the bore, rifling, etc. This meant that the tests were able to maintain carefully controlled windage in the .0025" range, which was the recommended tolerance IIRC. The questions about combat effectiveness comes from indications that some factories used a +.010" tolerance on rifle-musket bores, and the sub-caliber ammo issued after 1862 was as small as -.015" from nominal. The resulting .010" to .025" windage in the field (depending on make) meant that some troops were firing rifle-muskets whose bullets started tumbling as soon as they left the muzzle – based on a conversation I had with an ammo specialist. Doesn't seem like a recipe for good battlefield performance over the long term, although it admittedly would not matter much at really close ranges. Other sources claim that the sub-caliber bullets were pressed into service due to the more closely fitted bullet/bore design jamming too often early-war due to fouling. I haven't seen a source who has managed to harmonize all of this competing information and how it relates to battlefield performance over the course of the war. @Blutarski
Thanks, I'll add the Fuller book to my To Get list. I'll have to re-read Battle Tactics again with your observations in mind. Griffith was good with Napoleonic history, I would expect him to have had a good grasp of the variabilities in visibility and its effect on combat. The fighting in the Peninsula being one of the better examples of just how profound the effect could be. Looking at his older EE&L articles, I recall he was fairly open about any points at which he was struggling to make sense of data. I think he was onto something with his discovery (?) that Napoleonic casualty rates were in many cases worse than in the Civil War and he was trying to make sense of that. Possibly the visibility thesis will end up being a discarded point, while other more supporting factors pressed forward instead? |
| donlowry | 09 Mar 2023 11:52 a.m. PST |
I think he was onto something with his discovery (?) that Napoleonic casualty rates were in many cases worse than in the Civil War … Closer ranges? |
| wtjcom | 10 Mar 2023 9:49 p.m. PST |
Closer ranges? That is one possibility. I suspect it's a number of things, from the larger and more dangerous cavalry formations to the more demanding discipline, longer terms of service and heavy artillery concentrations. |
| wtjcom | 10 Mar 2023 10:10 p.m. PST |
Looked at another way. I ran some quick numbers; the French lost a higher percentage of their army winning Austerlitz than the Union army did losing Fredricksberg. And that was considered a good day. |
| Blutarski | 11 Mar 2023 12:17 p.m. PST |
The French lost a higher percentage of their army winning Austerlitz than the Union army did losing Fredricksburg. One possible explanation -
Infantry, even of good quality, armed with smoothbore muskets could not keep the opposing field artillery honest. Any infantry attack was destined to see a good deal of grape and canister coming their way before reaching a point where they could compel the opposing artillery to fall back. The Confederate artillery was well dug-in on the heights overlooking Fredericksburg with excellent fields of fire across the river flood-plain (it's like a parade ground when looking toward the river from the stone wall. However many brave Union soldiers actually came to close combat with their Confederate counterparts, at least as many (perhaps more) IMO went to ground before ever getting close to the Confederate front line. FWIW, my sense is that the French infantry at Austerlitz was of better quality than the Union infantry at Fredericksburg. Strictly my opinion, of course. B |
| wtjcom | 13 Mar 2023 4:36 p.m. PST |
FWIW, my sense is that the French infantry at Austerlitz was of better quality than the Union infantry at Fredericksburg. Agreed. I think that probably applies to many of the larger, longer standing Napoleonic armies; the result of more demanding discipline and training over a longer period and the general expectations on performance by a large and well-developed officer corps… among other things (cavalry, artillery, etc.). Overall, I think the similarities and differences between the two "wars" were complicated. Maneuver doctrine and tactics had distinct and very traceable associations, but weapons seem to have been an odd mix of contrasts. There were serious potential differences due to the increased variety and lethality of small arms in service by 1860, but those did not manifest themselves as much as they might have due to what seems to have been pretty striking logistic weaknesses. I could see the effects on Civil War combat performance being pretty erratic, with units being affected in very different ways depending on time, location and loadout. |
| donlowry | 16 Mar 2023 12:50 p.m. PST |
There was a great deal of difference in the terrain being fought over. |
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