Early Elongated Bullets

[dbm]

Benjamin Robbins, a British mathematician, working in the 1740s developed the ballistic pendulum to measure the velocity of a bullet at the moment of its impact. During his experiments he recognised the military advantages of any nation who could make general issue of a rifle to their armies. The problem was developing one "with a dexterity in the management of them". This did not happen for another century. He apparently considered the advantages of increasing sectional density and reducing air resistance by the use of an egg shaped projectile but I do not know if his experimentation went to their actual trial.

Captain Norton produced an elongated bullet in Great Britain, the bullets length being about one and three quarter times its diameter and the hollow base of which contained the powder charge. In 1824 he submitted it to the Select Committee on Firearms who appear to have been most conservative in their views, rejecting it on the grounds that "a spherical ball was the only shape of projectile adapted for military purposes."

Lieutenant-Colonel Davidson, working in India in 1832 produced a number of expanding bullets. Apparently the bullet was nearly all point and having little bearing surface.

Greener designed a bullet that was oblong in form and used an iron plug which was driven home when the charges was ignited and expanded the bullet into rifling. This was tried and rejected by the English Ordnance authorities in 1835.

All these appear to have been experimental designs that received no wide spread adoption.

In France much work went on in the design of expanding projectiles from the mid-1820s. In 1826 M. Gustave Delvigne, captain of the Garde Royale, made the first step in the direction that lead to the general adoption of the military rifle-musket. His design (still using ball) consisted of a narrow powder chamber. The ball, on loading and seating on the shoulders of the chamber was pounded by a mallet and ramrod to force its expansion into the rifling and effectively into an elongated form.

Lt.-Colonel Poncharra further considered Delvigne's work and tried using a larger diameter ball to reduce the distortion on being battered into place. The old problem of loading and fouling then reared its head. First a patch was used, than a wooden sabot was added to the ball. The sabot rested on the shoulders of the chamber and reduced the deformation when the ball was expanded into the rifling. Poncharra's improved rifle was issued to the Chasseurs d'Afrique in 1838 and it saw active service in Algeria in 1840.

Another French officer, Thierry, about 1831 had tried adapting Delvignes rifle to the use of some form of elongated projectile, but it was not successful.

Colonel Thouvenin invented the Carbine-a-Tige as early as 1828. This rifle had a pillar extending from the breech in line with the axis of the barrel. The charge sat around the pillar and the round ball again expanded by blows, while it sat upon the pillar. This was not successful. The idea was resurrected c1843 and applied to the cylindro-conoidal bullet and did achieve a better performance than the earlier design.

The cylindro-conoidal bullet had been patented by Delvigne in 1841. It was not until about 1844 that Captain Minie came onto the scene and taking Delvigne's idea modified the form of the bullet to be expanded by the charge acting upon an iron cup placed in the base of the bullet.

Other developments in bullets took place into the 1840’s and 1850’s such as Wilkinson in the UK and Lorenz in Austria that used compression to expand a bullet into rifling.

The elongated ball or as it is sometimes referred to the ‘picket bullet’ saw use in the US. These egg shaped slugs, loaded with a patch, had very little bearing surface on the bore of a rifle. Unless loaded with their long axis concentric with the bore they were liable to be inaccurate. Another cause of inaccuracy was exiting the bore, where any slight imperfections caused the gases to put unequal pressures on the slug and turn its axis from the bore.

In 1840 Alvan Clark patented the “Moveable Loading-Muzzle for Rifles”. This protected the muzzle from wear and through a taper facilitated the loading of a slug. Around this time the slug became more pointed and its base more square.

All the forgoing suggests much experimentation in both Europe and the US with elongated bullets from the mid-1820s and through the 1840’s most of it seems to be driven by military desire. That elongated projectiles saw use prior to the 1840’s is not in doubt, it does however appear to me to be somewhat limited.

David

[DaveGreen1954]

I find this information quite interesting. Keep going. You're on a roll.

Dave