Report of Experiments, 1875

[ResearchPress]

In the Annual Report of the National Rifle Association for 1875, General Alexander Shaler (President 1875-1877) reported on experiments with powder charges for long range shooting.

The experiments commenced during the summer 1875 and were concluded that December. The aim was to determine the proper charge of powder to use in long range shooting in the Remington Creedmoor Rifle. Swaged bullets weighing 550 grains were used, and interestingly made of a hard alloy composed of fifteen parts lead and one of tin.

The report has been added to the Long Range Rifle Fire section of the Research Press web site: see ‘Report of Experiments‘.


David

[Don McDowell]

Thank you for bringing this to us.

[Kenny Wasserburger]

Thanks David, more evidence of hard alloy usage. Course just us gamers do that.

KW

[Kurt]

Nothing wrong shooting hard bullets. I have shot straight Lino type and straight mono type and they shot great but you better load them tight and closer to groove diameter the better.
But why shoot a lead bullet harder than needed?

[Don McDowell]

What has me curious on this , is the "lubricated" loads. Were they using spermicetti on the patch as per Remingtons instruction, or were they using a lube cookie?

[Ironramrod]

It also looks like the only calibers tested were either .44 or .45 calibers based on the heavy bullets used, and also the heavier loads seemed to perform better at the longer ranges. No real surprise there either to go along w/ the hard alloy bullets.

However, maybe I'm just having a "dumb day" or something, but I've studied the tables presented in the report 3 times today; I'm still on square #1. For what should be simple to understand parameters I can't seem to figure out what the data presented really says. More headings above the columns and more explanation might help. Any of you guys that got the tables figured out please give me some help here.

Regards
IR

[ResearchPress]

Looking back today, the report does leave questions about points of detail such as lubrication / wads and bullet shape. It also mentions the cases being the "long kind". Anyone know what these are?

David

[Kurt]

For the Remington Creedmoor rifle it was most likely the .44-100 in the 2.6" case.

[Don McDowell]

Didn't Remington for a time offer the 44-90 bn case with a longer neck ?

[Kurt]

Don,

They came out with a .44 special that was a bottle neck they used for the creedmoor match. the case had a larger base diameter but shorter in length than the .44-2-5/8 BN sharps. But I don't know if the neck was longer or not.