Tinfoil cartridges

[Berkley]

-from the February 1993 Gun Report, "The Colt Cartridge Works" by Terry A. White. The article contains the text and a drawing from Colt's unsuccessful 1851 patent application for tin foil cartridges.

 

[pargent]

Yes the Brit. specs are different.

 

[crockett]

Could be, it has been some time but I am fortunate enough to live near one of the regional depositories of the US Patent office. The last time I was there the information was still on microfiche but I am pretty certain there was some sort of a cork wad on the base of a conical or "sugarloaf" ball/bullet, but I might be wrong- it is just my recollection. I think it was with the tin case but it could have been paper. I thought I had copied everything but I checked my files and couldn't find what I thought I had.
This thread has sort of re-kindled my interest in this entire subject. As I said I know that D.C. Sage and Colt were the two big manufacturers followed by Johnston & Dow and then Bartholow (and those that followed his design). I know the Richmond Arsenal made them and they were made in Europe BUT there are a lot of blank areas in the whole thing that I need to research more.
I suppose the most important thing about the whole subject is the realization that in the percussion revolver we really have a unque firearm that technologically speaking was ahead of its time. It seems the military almost universally used combustible cartridges for percussion revolvers, at least from say 1855. We think the 1873 Peacemaker was a big improvement but with the Peacemaker you had to remove the brass cases and put in new ones whereas with the percussion revolver you just loaded in fresh cartridges but still had to cap the nipples. The time to reload probably wasn't that different. It seems that percussion revolvers were often carried in pairs and when used with combustible represented a huge jump in sustained firepower.