Loading Ammunition for the Smith Carbine

I created a video showing the process I use for making nylon cartridges that can be found here:  https://rumble.com/v2b5gto-making-nylon-cartridges-for-the-smith-carbine.html

I created a video for showing the process I use for making Poultney & Trimble-style foil cartridges that can be found here:  https://rumble.com/v2b5hm0-making-poultney-and-trimble-style-foil-wrapped-cartridges-for-the-smith-car.html

Introduction
The Smith carbine is a .50-caliber breech-loading rifled carbine patented by Gilbert Smith on June 23, 1857 that was used by various cavalry units during the Civil War.  They were manufactured by the Massachusetts Arms Company of Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts and the the American Machine Works in Springfield, Massachusetts. The name of the distributor for the weapon, Poultney & Trimble of Baltimore, Maryland, is often stamped on the carbines’ receivers.  They were 39½ inches in overall length with a 21⅝-inch barrel.  Approximately 30,000 Smith carbines were manufactured in total.  In this posting we will discuss the process for loading and packaging Smith carbine ammunition for the historical shooter. 

Reproduction Smith Carbine made by Pietta Brothers of Italy.

The Smith has an unusual design in that it breaks open at the breach, much like a shotgun, allowing the user to insert a cartridge directly into the chamber.  This makes them faster to load than the muzzle-loading rifles of the period, and also easier to load in various shooting positions other than the standing.

Smith Carbine open for loading.

An even more unusual aspect of the Smith was its ammunition.  The earliest Smith cartridges consisted of a .50-caliber bullet loaded into a hardened rubber case.  The case was pierced in the back to allow the flash from the detonating musket cap to reach the powder within, setting off the round.  The rubber case would obturate to fill the chamber completely, making the cartridge excellent at preventing the escape of combustion gasses which so plagued other breech-loading rifles of the period. 

The rubber for these unusual cartridges became scarce later in the period, so a different approach was used:  Metal foil was wrapped around a mandrel to form the case, and paper was then wrapped around that, much like cartridges were made for the later Snider-Enfield rifle. 

There were a variety of bullets designed for the Smith cartridge, but the those used by the military were of .52 caliber (.512 in.), weighing 363 grains, and were loaded with 50 grains of rifle powder (Thomas 1997 p. 237).  The bullet had grease grooves filled with a mixture of lamb's tallow and beeswax.

Extant Smith cartridges:  Foil and paper (top) and rubber (bottom).

Modern Smith bullet reproduction made from a mold by Eras Gone Bullet Molds.

Crispin Foil Cartridge Patent from 1863.

The U.S. government purchased 5.6 million rubber and 8 million metallic foil cartridges.  All of the ammunition for the Smith carbine was manufactured by one of three different manufacturers, with none being made by the U.S. arsenals.  It was packaged in cardboard boxes wrapped in paper with a string inside which allowed the user to rip open the paper and release the lid.  The boxes contained ten cartridges and a paper tube containing twelve musket caps.

Extant Smith cartridge package for foil-wrapped cartridges; note the paper tube containing 12 musket caps.

A superb article about the Smith carbine along with detailed historical information and shooting experiences with it written by Balázs Németh of Capandball.com in Hungary can be read here:  https://capandball.com/the-civil-war-smith-percussion-carbine/

My Smith carbine was manufactured by Pietta Brothers of Italy.  I cast the bullets myself from 100% pure lead using a highly accurate mold from Eras Gone Bullet Molds (http://www.erasgonebullets.com/).  The cases I use are of nylon, rather than rubber (but see below re: foil-wrapped cartridges), and were purchased from Northeast Trade Co. (https://www.northeasttradeco.com/).

Making the Cartridges

The first step in loading a Smith cartridge is to grease the bullets.  The U.S. Ordnance Department manual from the Civil War calls for bullet grease to be made of a 8:1 ratio of beeswax to lamb's tallow (1861 Ordnance Manual p. 266) which is what I normally use, however, when I am out of tallow I make an alternative recipe consisting of a 1:1 ratio of beeswax to olive oil which I have found to work almost as well.

The grease can be melted in a microwave and then poured into a pan in which the bullets have been placed base down.  After the grease has hardened, the bullets can be pulled straight up out of the hardened mixture using pliers and a ring of grease will remain in the cannelures.  One advantage of this method over simply dipping each bullet in hot grease is that the bases of the bullets will not be covered, which means that less powder will stick to the bases when loaded.

Greasing the bullets. The sizing die can be seen in the upper right.

I cast my bullets from pure lead using a mold from Eras Gone Bullet Molds, which gives an extremely accurate reproduction of the originals.  After the bullets are greased they are then driven through a sizing die to bring them to the desired diameter.  The Smith bullets come out of the mold at 0.518 inch in diameter, but I size them using a 0.515 inch sizing die purchased from Dixie Gun Works because I find them too large for the nylon cases, although the original bullets were not sized.  The Eras Gone website lists them as weighing 354 grains, but the average of those I cast is about 360 grains, making them just 0.003 inch larger and two grains lighter than those used by the military in the Civil War (see Thomas 1997 p. 237).  I have a frame which holds the sizing die and which has space underneath for a box to catch the sized bullets.  Each bullet is placed into the die point first and then driven through with a wooden dowel rod using a hard rubber mallet.  This also removes any excess grease from the bullet.

The sizing die and frame.  Notice the dowel rod and the box for catching the sized bullets.

The next step is to prepare the nylon cartridge cases.  One of the complaints lodged against the Smith carbine during the Civil War was that the powder would come out of the touchhole in the back of the case when the cartridges were carried in troopers’ cartridge boxes for extended periods of time.  To prevent this, I insert a small disk of nitrated filter paper (the same paper I use for combustible revolver cartridges) inside the case.  These disks are extremely flammable so they do not hinder ignition of the powder in the slightest, and yet they prevent the powder from leaking out through the hole in the base; this was the solution suggested in period, although there seems no evidence it was ever implemented, which makes one wonder how much of a problem this really was.  I used to put a small piece of tape over the end of the case, but I no longer do that because it was unsightly and historically inaccurate.  After the paper is inserted, thirty-five grains of black powder are added, measured by volume.  The original cartridges held fifty grains of powder, however, the modern nylon cases have somewhat thicker walls and, as a result will not hold as much powder.

Adding 35 grains of powder.

Finally, all that remains is to push the bullet into the filled case.  It is held in place purely by friction and the tackiness of the grease.  The overall cartridge length should be between 1.8 and 1.9 inches for best results.  Be aware that over time the cases will swell slightly and it may be necessary to add filler (e.g., corn meal) over the powder to get the correct overall length, and you can also do this if you choose to use less powder.

The bullet in place, ready to be forced into the case.

A finished Smith cartridge, ready to be loaded and fired.

A finished batch of ten Smith cartridges.

In truth, Smith carbine cartridges are the easiest kind of historical ammunition to load.  They require almost no special equipment, no dies, no press, and almost no tools of any kind.  Sizing is the only real issue, and that will vary according to the bullet used.

Poultney & Trimble Foil Cartridges

I have been experimenting with the foil-wrapped cartridges.  Although far more laborious to make, they are interesting from the historical standpoint of simply learning how to make them, and, in addition, they also allow me to load the full military charge of 50 grains of powder.  I am using the system developed by CapandBall.com (see the link to his article above).

The plans for the mandrel and wrappers from CapandBall.com.

The mandrel I had made from aluminum by my friend Robert Bradley.

Unlike the originals, I follow the CapandBall design by gluing a thin card wad to the base of the bullet.  This is because I haven't been able to crimp the bases as fully and cleanly as was done on the originals; a friend suggested using a shotgun crimper for this in order to avoid the card, and I plan to try that.

I use heavy craft paper and an aluminum beer can.  I put a 1/2 in. disk of nitrated paper in the base so as to avoid spilling powder out through the touch hole.  I then add 50 grains of 2F powder with a measure of cream of wheat on top to fill up the empty space remaining, then insert an unsized (i.e., .518 in.) greased Smith bullet.

A finished foil cartridge.

A finished cartridge packet of foil-wrapped cartridges.  Note the use of the correct label for this type of cartridges.

I have not yet tested these at the range to see how they perform.

Packaging the Cartridges

For a historical shooter, it is not enough to make historically accurate ammunition, it also has to be packaged correctly as it was when issued.  The process shown here is not perfect, but should be seen as a first step toward a more accurate procedure.

My original box design was a two-piece affair with a lid that slid down over the base, however, that design was not authentic, as the above pictures of an extant example make plain.  I did my own design to more closely match the original, and I think it is quite superior.  I previously used a label which copied the later foil-wrapped cartridges (see above), however, I recently found an example of a label for the rubber cartridges, and since these are what I shoot, I made a new label to match.  A piece of hemp string is glued to the top of the box, and then the craft paper with a label printed on it is wrapped around the finished box so that the string sticks out of the package.  The string is used to tear the outer wrapping in order to access the cartridges within while leaving the box itself unharmed and thus reusable.  The label still needs more work because the fonts are not quite correct.

Extant cartridge packs.  The one on top is for the earlier rubber cartridges, while the one on the bottom is for the later foil cartridges.

The box pattern.

The assembled box with the cord attached.

The first row of cartridges; note the paper tube of caps.

The second row of cartridges.

Two finished cartridge packages with the correct label for rubber cartridges.

110 Smith rubber cartridges.

Muzzle Energy

In a test  of my nylon cartridges the muzzle velocity varied from 852 to 881 f.p.s. with an average of 873 f.p.s.  Using the average bullet weight of 360 grains, this gives a muzzle energy of 609 ft.-lbs.  Compare this with Balázs Németh’s results using the same Eras Gone bullet in a foil-wrapped cartridge with 50 grains of Swiss 2F powder, which resulted in a muzzle velocity of 928 f.p.s. for a muzzle energy of 678 ft.-lbs. (see the article by Mr. Németh cited above).

Conclusion

This process is obviously not perfect, and represents only a first effort at recreating historical ammunition and packaging for Smith cartridges.  The foil-wrapped cartridges, in particular, need more work to smooth out the manufacturing process and testing to see how they perform.  It does, however, create a reasonable result and has served as a good learning process for determining how to improve the procedure.

Works Cited

McAulay, John D. Carbines of the Civil War, 1861-1865. Pioneer Press, 1981.

United States Ordnance Office. The Ordnance Manual for the use of the Officers of the United States Army. Philadelphia, J. P. Lippincott, 1861.

Santarelli, Michael.  The Smith Carbine in the Civil War.  Privately Printed, 2019.

Thomas, Dean S. Round Ball to Rimfire: A History of Civil War Small Arms Ammunition. Part Two, Federal Breechloading Rifles & Carbines. Gettysburg: Thomas Publications, 1997.

 ----------.  “Federal Ammunition for Civil War Breechloading Carbines and Rifles.” Reprinted from the American Society of Arms Collectors Bulletin 78:3-19
http://americansocietyofarmscollectors.org/resources/articles/