How common was round ball versus conical during the period?

[JRL1164]

How common was round balls versus conicals during the period of cap and ball revolvers? I've seen the colt molds for .31 and .36, the Johnson and Dow for .44 but would round balls been common in the era or is this a modern substitute due to availability? Also how common was paper cartridges compared to loose powder from both civilian and military perspectives?

 

[Stantheman86]

How common was round balls versus conicals during the period of cap and ball revolvers? I've seen the colt molds for .31 and .36, the Johnson and Dow for .44 but would round balls been common in the era or is this a modern substitute due to availability? Also how common was paper cartridges compared to loose powder from both civilian and military perspectives?

Conicals were the "norm" since the 1847 Walker, that used the Pickett bullet, but loaded from a flask

I've also seen period molds for revolvers with both a round ball and conical in the mold block

I'd imagine most civilians that had access to them would have just purchased a couple packs of nitrate cartridges from the store, they didn't shoot like we do back then. Wild Bill had his ammo paid for by the town of Abilene and he claims to have shot 3000 nitrated cartridges per month to stay sharp.

However, I'm sure plenty of regular people poured powder into chambers and loaded cast round balls.

The military exclusively used nitrate cartridges from the 1850s on, early Colt cartridges were foil but they didn't work well. Millions were produced by the US and CS arsenals

There are no hard and fast rules for anything. Early Dragoon cartridges were more like mini musket paper cartridges and had to be poured in, the bullet taken out and then rammed. There's a written account of an Indian fight where a guy, I'm not sure if he was a soldier, an "Indian fighter" or just a regular guy, was loading a Dragoon in a moving wagon with non combustible paper cartridges and spilling the powder everywhere

Supposedly some cavalrymen in the Civil War and Indian Wars didn't like that nitrate paper cartridges went bad in humidity or rain, and carried flasks but we'll never know how common this was

And Skeeter Skelton says the Confederate cavalry vets he grew up shooting with said they liked round balls in their .36 Colts because they put men down better than conicals

Confederates who were out of revolver cartridges apparently melted down Minies taken out of rifle cartridges and cast balls or bullets, and used rifle powder. This may have been something one guy did one time or it happened more often, we'll never know

Basically, everything and anything was and could have been used

 

[TDM]

Can’t add much to that @Stantheman86 !

 

[JRL1164]

Can’t add much to that @Stantheman86 !

Agreed thanks @Stantheman86 ! Very insightful and well put!

 

[Stantheman86]

The rule of military history is. Everything you can think of probably happened at least once and people thought outside the box just like we do

The "did Civil War soldiers carry loaded cylinders " thing apparently happened at least once , someone found written documentation of a Cavalry Unit that somehow had extra cylinders that fit their guns. It was probably the only time.

 

[tenngun]

Just a thought experiment, considering that mold often came with ball and conical. You get about three ball to two conical for the same amount of lead.
When you have to buy your own and not have a rich uncle ( Sam) buying your supplies that may have made civilians a little happier with ball.
Even if they had to shoot some day in defense of life and property, most civilian were not ever going to be in a fire fight. Five or six shots was plenty, they could reload at leisure and not need cartridges

 

[Stantheman86]

Just a thought experiment, considering that mold often came with ball and conical. You get about three ball to two conical for the same amount of lead.
When you have to buy your own and not have a rich uncle ( Sam) buying your supplies that may have made civilians a little happier with ball.
Even if they had to shoot some day in defense of life and property, most civilian were not ever going to be in a fire fight. Five or six shots was plenty, they could reload at leisure and not need cartridges

Casting balls for a .36 would have been very economical for a regular person

Most of the Colt knockoffs were .36's, like all the Belgian copies and others.

They also could have just used whatever powder they had laying around maybe shared caps with a shotgun

 

[Loyalist Dave]

How common was round balls versus conicals during the period of cap and ball revolvers? I've seen the colt molds for .31 and .36, the Johnson and Dow for .44 but would round balls been common in the era or is this a modern substitute due to availability? Also how common was paper cartridges compared to loose powder from both civilian and military perspectives?

So in reverse order, there was much more loose powder than fixed cartridges, because the powder was used in both revolvers and single shots, as well as rifles. The dense part of the American population was East of the Mississippi, and small caliber rifles which would've used the same powder, were the norm, for Eastern civilians by then, and civilian ownership of firearms was more in the form of a rifle or shotgun, rather than a revolver.

The next question would be, consider why..., why make the dual cavity molds that give both types of bullets? If it was economics, the round ball was cheaper as it used less lead, then a single mold or a dual round ball mold would make better sense. IF the conical revolver bullet was so much better in shooting and results that it was nearly always used..., why not make a dual cavity conical bullet mold? The answer is that some customers prefered one over the other, or there were reasonable applications for either, and the revolver makers, Colt and Remington at least, couldn't be certain which bullet the customer would want, and when.

You can glean a bit more, from the fact that while some revolvers came with a mold, a dual mold probably, the majority were not sold with a mold? Civilian rifles normally came with a bullet mold that fit that rifle, but revolvers didn't. This seems to indicate that a great many revolver users were using the paper cartridge ammo, or were buying loose ball at the hardware where the components were sold. So the question would be to compare, did the stores selling the cartridges also stock loose revolver ball, AND how much of that were they selling compared to loose conical bullets, and paper cartridges?

LD

 

[Stantheman86]

I think in reality, the only people who would have bought a percussion revolver would have been people who had a use for one. A Colt, or Remington, etc was expensive and compared to the population, there weren't as many made unlike today when you can go to a box sporting goods store and get a $400 9mm to keep in the sock drawer

Even the copies like a Manhattan that were cheaper, aren't something a guy working at a factory would need. I'd think most revolvers were sold to guys like ranch hands, or a guy who was a little more well off might get a .31 Pocket. A little single shot cheapie was far more within reach of an average person who just wanted a house gun. Most people didn't walk around with guns , in the East or the West

I would feel loading loose balls and powder was more common after percussion revolvers were outdated, and by the 1880s-1900s stores still stocked caps and black powder but it was less likely you would find nitrate cartridges. People either kept using them or you could buy one someone traded and didn't bother to convert for almost nothing if you didn't have a lot of money.

I'm guilty of it too because I always think of people out West walking around with a revolver every day , but this was far from reality

I know people to this day who don't own a handgun but have hunting rifles and shotguns, they just don't care about or need handguns.

 

[M. De Land]

How common was round balls versus conicals during the period of cap and ball revolvers? I've seen the colt molds for .31 and .36, the Johnson and Dow for .44 but would round balls been common in the era or is this a modern substitute due to availability? Also how common was paper cartridges compared to loose powder from both civilian and military perspectives?

I believe Elmer Kieth said in one of his books that the CW cavalry vets he interviewed all preferred the ball to pointy bullets then loaded in paper cartridges for accuracy and killing power .

 

[JRL1164]

I believe Elmer Kieth said in one of his books that the CW cavalry vets he interviewed all preferred the ball to pointy bullets then loaded in paper cartridges for accuracy and killing power .

After a little research I found a quoted article from the gentleman on this page actually. Posted around 2004 I believe it was and Elmer Keith stated that it expanded significantly better where as conicals would punch through leaving less expansion for wound damage.

 

[JRL1164]

I hadn't thought about the double molds either, one being of round ball and the other of a conical. This makes sense though to leave it up to the user to make what he wanted based on the quantity of supplies he had available to him at the time.