Minié ball… or Delvigne-Tamisier-Burton-Benton Ball?

[@Bayan1905]

I know one thing about the Delvigne-Tamisier-Burton-Benton bullet if we want to call it that, I have used it deer hunting and it is far and away the most destructive thing I have ever hit a deer with shy of a car and that includes shooting more than one deer with a 1 ounce shotgun slug. The first deer I killed with one was at 150 yards out of an old Euroarms Enfield musketoon, she was a large doe and I hit her in the neck which just pulverized a couple of vertebrae. My butcher at the time asked me what the heck I hit her with because there was almost nothing salvageable in the neck, the windpipe and an artery was cut instantly. The bullet stayed intact but flattened out about as large as a quarter. I shot another doe last fall with the same caliber bullet, same weight in fact but this time an old Navy Arms Zoli Zuoave at about 50 yards. I pulled the shot as I was aiming for the neck again and caught the doe in the head. The bullet made a clean hole from inside of her right eye out the back with a larger round hole around an inch in diameter. It's not hard to see why these bullets were so destructive to soldiers and the human body.

[@southronjr1570]

On a guess, I'd say your a skirmisher.

[@nikitamckeever5403]

I hear you . I now concentrate on large calibre , heavy hitters up to about 120 yards max . My favourite is a Uberti Navy London Model in .36 cal and it’s very accurate at 25 yards . I have a 140 odd year old side x side Damascus ribbon twist barrelled hammer sidelock shotgun made by A Nestor is Limerick with 30 inch barrels which I use for wood pigeons or pheasants and even use for clays sometimes . Black powder or nitro cartridges with standard steel . It’s very pointable and I usually only drop 3 on a round of clays . Going to acquire a Baker Rifle repro but smootbore , a Uberti Walker just because and searching for a Ruger Super Redhawk .44 Remington Magnum with 12 inch barrel . I might have to try gun cotton in my smoothbore Hawken Style 12g with 1 1/4 ounce lead Lyman slug just because it needs to be done . Unless you try you’ll never know 🤞

[@ericbrabham3640]

Great video. I learned a lot from it. Clears up and puts together the bits and pieces of info I have heard over the years.

[@Dv087]

Glad to see another two new videos. Two weeks ago I asked you about my replica 1861. Unfortunately that same day my 94-year old dad passed away. He had a wonderful life. He was a Marine and fought in Korea. He was at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. Thank you for your entertaining videos. I was finally about to get around to taking the Pritchett bullets that I ordered from you over the winter out to the range. His funeral will not be until the 2nd week of July. When I finally do get out to the range I'll let you know how they work.

[@papercartridges6705]

Sorry to hear about your dad. That sounds like a life of service well and fully lived. We are profoundly indebted to them.

[@Dv087]

@@papercartridges6705 Thank you for your condolences. He did really live a life for this country. After Korea he went to work for the USIA specifically The Voice of America or VOA. He was sent to ensure Radio Free America remained open during the Dominican Republic Revolution. He was very badly wounded (broken back) when a grenade was thrown into the Jeep he was riding in. He spent 36 years working for the USIA. He was my hero and my best friend. I will miss him for a very long time. On a side note, as soon as I get an opportunity to go to the range I will let you know how the Pritchett style bullets I received from you work in my 1861 Springfield. I'll also let you know how my experiment with some minnie from a kit that I bought from you more than two years ago works. I am going to try putting a wooden plug in the bullet cavity. Till then stay safe and healthy, Semper Fi.

[@duelist1954]

Great video!

[@skyepilotte11]

Great dive into early lead projectiles...

[@nikitamckeever5403]

I could watch your content daily and do . Very interesting and informative . Absolutely enjoy black powder firearms , muskets , shotguns , revolvers . Thank you

[@Miata822]

Fascinating. I knew there was more to the story of the "minnie-ball" but have never heard a detailed discussion. Thanks!

[@warwolf416]

It still baffles me to learn the differences. And to hear the Europeans basically laughed at us seeing how we used them. Can’t wait to learn more.

[@papercartridges6705]

They might have laughed (or gasped in horror) at our unprofessional tactical employment of modern weapons, but they were taking paying close attention and taking furious notes about our movement of supplies and troops by railroad and sea, the use of telegraphs, industrial factory production, etc.

[@ericvantassell6809]

Loved the video. First class research. It's just a shame I won't remember any of this next week.

[@NachtJaeger110]

I absolutely love your content, finally erasing all the myths I've been told is awesome! Question: So if the civil war bullet was not able to expand much without the ironplug, how did they deal with different calibres of the rifles? some in .580, some in .577? wasn't a lot of the potential accuracy of rifles lost because many bullets didn't fit perfectly? (I know it never mattered at the close ranges the soldiers could shoot, but I wonder anyways)

[@papercartridges6705]

The US Ordnance tried to standardize a .574” bullet that would work in the .577 and .58, and while it worked pretty good in the .577 it was too small for decent shooting in the .58. The Williams patent bullet was another plan to get one bullet that will work in .577 and .58. The plan was to eventually replace the .577’s with US .58’s but that never happened during the war.

[@NachtJaeger110]

@@papercartridges6705 thank you!

[@wrxs1781]

Well done Brett.

[@benrobertson7855]

Thanks heaps,as always,trying to borrow your book from the library…but it seems to take the nz library service sometime to get up to speed with modern arms…..

[@josephgonzales4802]

Good video, l too love these nerdy facts about the Civil war. I will be ordering you book in the future to include it my reference library. 😊

[@lucasmatiasdelaguilamacdon7798]

I vote to just call it Minnie for the American version and Minié for the OG one.

[@Me2Lancer]

Thanks for sharing. Very interesting. I liked and subscribed.

[@papercartridges6705]

Awesome, thank you!

[@string-bag]

Great video, great book. Many thanks.

[@35southkiwi16]

Cool history lesson. Thanks

[@FreeAllenWrench]

Not sure that really rolls off the tongue. Thank you for the lesson, sir.

[@ludovicvanb9713]

That was a great video. Learnt sth and it's not every day. May I ask from what books the pictures come from ?

[@papercartridges6705]

Mostly from the "Report of Experiments with Small Arms" by the US Ordnance Department in 1856. I have an original copy but it's available for free on Google Books also.

[@ludovicvanb9713]

@@papercartridges6705 Thank a lot !

[@christinepearson5788]

Glad to get into the weeds: going to have to look into the book.

[@b1laxson]

Query: would the iron plug continue with the bullet or did it fall out? if it stayed in on impact would it have expanded the lead for a wider wound channel?

[@papercartridges6705]

It was supposed to remain but did often fall out, and this was considered a serious defect that was never fully solved.

[@chuckschillingvideos]

@@papercartridges6705 They considered it a failure if it fell out after leaving the barrel? Wouldn't it more likely only be considered a failure if it remained IN the barrel after firing?

[@chuckschillingvideos]

@ericj2798 No, they did not fire volleys at "hundreds or thousands" of yards in the days of muskets. At most about 200 yards and that would be pushing it. Given the wildly divergent ballistics of musket ammunition of the time, there was no "handily dispatch" going on at long ranges.

[@daveyjoweaver6282]

How about the B&B Ball? Give credit to where it’s due, eh? Kind Thanks for and interesting video! Good Shootin and indeed, I will stop in one day! DaveyJO in Pennsylvania

[@sidekickbob7227]

A question; Did the civil war troops who still used smoothbore musket, widely prefered to use the Minié ball? (Faster reload without patch) -Stumbled over this claim in another video, and wonder if this is the case? Thank you for the interesting video!

[@papercartridges6705]

I’m not familiar with soldiers armed with .69 smoothbores using Minies in them. There was a rifled version of the .69 but using the rifle bullet in the smoothbore version really wouldn’t work. The powder charge is also different. But there’s almost always an exception. The 12th New Jersey at Gettysburg fired all their smoothbore cartridges so they gathered ammo from Reb casualties, which was for .58 rifles, and did use it, as an absolutely last ditch option.

[@sidekickbob7227]

@@papercartridges6705 Thank you for the answer. Yes I'm familiar with the .69 rifled musket (1842, if I remember correct), so I presumed it was the Minié ball intended for this, the person was thinking about. But I had not read about the claimed use of Minié ball in smoothbore musket before, and found it doubt full. I guess it wasn't as widely used, when even a trust worthy resource as you (in this area), haven't read about it.

[@mikebrase5161]

They ahould make a movie about Burton. That guy is mostly unknown, yet he is the one hired by the British to unfuck their Enfield musket production and bring them on the lines of Harpers Ferry. The Confederacy got lucky when he went with the south.

[@papercartridges6705]

This whole era is full of larger the life individuals who deserve movies, yet nobody’s ever heard of them.

[@danielcurtis1434]

I’m curious where do you stand on the concept that there’s a “maximum charge” for (shall we say American minie’s), and if you exceed it the gas blows by the projectile skirt. I’ve heard people act as though a grain beyond the 60 grain standard will cause total loss of accuracy. If you do believe in this concept, what is the limit? Why can .001” plastic sabots sleeve handle 150 grains of the pressure but not .02-.03” of lead? I own an optima V2 (in-line) pistol that handles a 100 grain charge of black powder or substitutes. I got the Lee muzzleloader mold cuz it was the heaviest offering that was available for casting in .50 caliber at .500” 360 grain. I was considering cutting the base pin on the mold so that it’s just a giant slug with no hollow base (assuming it isn’t expanding)? The gun is meant to be ridiculous and it is (like a black powder .500 magnum)… Although a guy did use it Africa for a Cape Buffalo!!!

[@papercartridges6705]

It would probably take a 100+ grain charge to flare the skirt of a US style Burton Minie. In one of the old Lyman bullet casting handbooks, there was a high speed photograph of a Burton Minie fired with some excessive charge, and the skirt was flared open like the muzzle of a blunderbuss. Now keep in mind the 60-grain charge was for military necessity. They needed a heavy enough charge to launch the bullet out to 500+ yards, since everybody in the 1850s was convinced this was The Future. Modern experience has shown that reduced charges, between 30 and 45 grains, give far better accuracy at close distances, like 50 yards. Of course, these weak loads are pretty much useless beyond that range, but it does reveal that the heavier the charge with a Burton Minie, there is a decrease in group size paper target accuracy. 60 grains was historically a compromise between an heavy charge that would produce too much recoil for the average 130lb 5 foot 3 inch soldier to handle, but enough power to send the bullet out to the military distances required, 500+ yards. I think it is safe (in a gun in good order) to go up to 75 or 80 grains without too much loss of accuracy, or risk of flaring the skirt.

[@danielcurtis1434]

@@papercartridges6705 well thank you very much!!! I would still say I’m curious why this is an issue with lead and not polymer? I’m guessing the plastic dissipatesrather than absorbs heat. However that plastic is less than 1/10th the the thickness of the lead skirt. My only logical thought is that .01” of lead is less than .0005-.001” of polymer is less effected by heat which allows it to be more effective??? Every sabot fired out of my gun was flared unlike any .500” Minnie I’ve tried??? Like .75”-1”!!! Honestly what I’ve recovered with 100 grains makes sense with what you said. I just don’t understand how anyone would think otherwise???

[@improvisedsurvival5967]

I need a mold to make these for. 2pounder cannon. Want rifling on it too.

[@jefferypowell9885]

I need to get some for my muskit

[@thebotrchap]

Thank you sir for clearing this up. I shall soon finally get around to shooting the 5 round challenge with some (unplugged) minié bullets 🫡

[@Dr._Spamy]

By the way - What is this white/yellow powder like layer covering this old lead balls and other old lead stuff ? Possibly lead carbonate ?

[@papercartridges6705]

I am no chemist but I am expertly advised that it is a form of lead oxide. This white powder was used to color lead paint. It’s also very toxic since the oxide of lead is more easily absorbed than elemental lead.

[@bayonet8315]

I need that coffee cup

[@nathanhardin8530]

Interesting. I have only heard American Civil War bullets referred to as Minie bullets.

[@schmit6576]

I'm a little surprised you didn't touch on/mention the Delvigne Chamber. Granted it is a little outside the scope of the video, but I feel like it's a stepping stone worth mentioning whenever intentional deforming of bullets into rifling is talked about.

[@papercartridges6705]

I did cover Delvigne a little more in the earlier video I did on why some bullets used plugs. There’s soooo much to discuss that it’s hard to squeeze these down to under 10 minutes.

[@schmit6576]

@@papercartridges6705 Yeah I remember watching that, I also understand time constraints, and information condensing (Throwback to early 2000s KZbin.) I hope to see more videos on bullet design, and their designers.

[@SpruceReduce8854]

Where did you find the Russian bullet? It's very hard to find info on Russian guns before the Berdan I and II rifles

[@papercartridges6705]

It was a gift from a very well known preeminent expert on Civil War bullets and ammo. Dug up in Ukraine, from an old Czarist target range.

[@Tammy-un3ql]

👍👍👍👍

[@Bhartrampf]

Have you tried a gas check in place of the steel or wooden plug?

[@Bhartrampf]

@robertstallard7836 I meant flipped over and undersized. Wooden plugs of the correct size are hard to make and so are the steel ones, unless you have a die. Gas checks of say 357 or 45 are easy to come by.

[@Bhartrampf]

@robertstallard7836 I could see the problem with them turning, was just a thought. Maybe a simple form die could be used and they are easier to finish form say on a either O or H press instead of a arbor press. But just going with the newer style bullet would be the best I suppose. On one of the forms, a guy was talking that he used shredded wet paper, then let it dry in place instead of a wood plug. I thought that was a way around it, but didn't ask him about how accurate it was in application, because of weight variance. Interesting subject though. I just got a Lee mold for a minni ball, going to try it in my 58 cal muzzleloader.

[@Bhartrampf]

@robertstallard7836 I live in Montana, the epoxy idea sounds like a great idea, if this mold doesn't work plain, I'll give that a go, thanks for the idea.

[@papercartridges6705]

If you do a search for “Williams bullets” you’ll see a similar concept using zinc discs, sort of like a gas check, on the base of the bullet. They were flattened out when the gun fired to seal the bore. Their effectiveness has been debated ever since.

[@Bhartrampf]

@@papercartridges6705 I do remember reading about them, didn't the zink come off sometimes and cause flyers?

[@stephenrobbins6353]

Audio is way to soft

[@ahwilson1744]

You said that you need fortification; is that Irish Coffee perhaps?

[@papercartridges6705]

Is there another kind?

[@hidesbehindpseudonym1920]

The voice audio on this is pretty quiet...

[@nlwilliamsj]

This put me right to sleep for the night. lol. I did finish watching it this morning though, and found it interesting to know all the names of those responsible for this notorious bullet's development. Like many, however, I'll continue to call then minnie balls. It's also hard to know what to call the lead slugs that are contained inside those fancy "English cartridges". Perhaps explaining the proper nomenclature for each iteration of those bullets would be a good future video.

[@papercartridges6705]

Everyone calls the English bullets “Pritchetts” but they aren’t technically all Pritchetts either. I think Steven Sheldon did a video about the different types of Enfield bullets on his Fourth Armoury channel.

[@Pitchlock8251]

First and Burton Bullet😁😁

[@daylight4493]

We could call it the American improved minie

[@daylight4493]

Or the American minie

[@chuckschillingvideos]

The term "minie ball" is a generic one and it's not really important to be all that pedantic about differentiating about those bullets conforming to the original Minie specification and later hollow base slugs. Basically any bullet with an expanding cavity in the base which conforms to the rifling of the barrel can be said to be a minie ball.

[@papercartridges6705]

Which is exactly what I said in the video; Minie ball is a term of convenience, but the history of how it came to be, and the different people involved in the evolution of the bullet, is interesting to me and that’s why I made the video.

[@capnstewy55]

I can't find the blah blah blah button.

[@sbreheny]

Since you are picking nits, I'll do the same :) You said that this bullet killed more US soldiers by "a couple of orders of magnitude" than any other bullet. I don't see how that's possible. 2 orders of magnitude is 100 times. Even if we consider all Civil war deaths to be due to this bullet, that's about 800,000. Your statement would imply that German or Japanese bullets in WW2 killed fewer than 8,000 US soldiers.

[@chuckschillingvideos]

Most US casualties in WWI and WWII were caused by something other than rifle bullets - artillery, in particular.

[@MichaelKunz-mt2oo]

A couple orders of magnitude ? Orders of magnitude are powers of ten. So 100 is an order of magnitude greater than 10, 1000 is two orders of magnitude greater than 10 but one order of magnitude greater than 100. If a couple means "2", then you're stating that 100X as many deaths and injuries were caused by that bullet than all other military deaths ? We lost 492,000 men in WWII and latest estimates of soldier deaths in the Civil War was about 750,000. You might wish to revise the "orders of magnitude" statement.

[@papercartridges6705]

This is why I pay people to do my taxes. History people don't know anything about math. Now that said... Over 90% of Civil War casualties were inflicted with small arms. Only about 15% to 30% of WWII casualties were from small arms. So perhaps not quite 10x more, but the Minie bullet still killed/wounded several times more American soldiers than Arisakas and Mausers.

[@allangibson8494]

The change from Napoleonic era round balls was more extreme. A musket would have a hard time hitting a man sized target at 200 yards.

[@MichaelKunz-mt2oo]

@@papercartridges6705 I thought of that but most of the Civil War deaths (~63% according to multiple sources) were not even combat related.

[@BrettBaker-uk4te]

@@allangibson8494 Napoleonic Wars:1st round 80 yards; US War Of The Rebellion: 1st round 110-120 yards.

[@wolffang489]

Interesting, so next time someone corrects an American about their pronunciation, they can confidently say that this is it's own thing made by different people with minimal connection to the name being corrected to. Minnie is basically an uniquely distinct colloquialism born from misunderstanding.

[@brianclay3315]

Love your videos, but please get a wearable microphone

[@papercartridges6705]

I’ve upgraded since then! My new videos have much better audio.

[@williamnye478]

I'll just keep on calling it a "minnie ball". Much simpler!

[@leneanderthalien]

only because english speaking people are unable to pronounce correctly Minié...

[@gailevans2574]

I stoot blackpowder a lot a Indie showed me cartridges his great grandfather made in the indian army deering a uprising of like 18 something rice paper silk thread and bees wax one cylinder the ball drop in silk thread tide off the ball powder fold it over dip the ball in wax heat wax brush over paper add cap or two