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Picture Page July 2011 A closer look at the .46 Remington rim fires......... In the March 2011 picture page, I included the CDL headstamped .46 Remington Carbine cartridge shown on the left in the picture below. I thought it might be interesting to look at a few other examples of this cartridge that I have in my own collection, as well as giving a little attention to the firearm that they were intended to be used in.
. . . . . . . . . . The .46 Remington Carbine is one of six American-made rim fire cartridges produced commercially in this caliber that are recognized by collectors; the others include the .46 extra short, .46 short, .46 long, .46 extra long, and the .56-46 Spencer, the only bottle-necked cartridge in this group. They range from not too uncommon (unheadstamped .46 short, for example) to quite rare (.56-46 Spencer wood sabot shot load), and the prices that must be paid for them tend to vary accordingly. The six .46 Remington Carbine cartridges in the photo include from the left the headstamped example by C D Leet discussed last month, one by Crittenden & Tibbals Manufacturing Company, an unheadstamped example by (I think) the Union Metallic Cartridge Company, two unheadstamped examples by (I think) C. D. Leet, and the last one an unheadstamped Winchester primed case that is thought to have been loaded in Mexico. The two remaining unheadstamped examples (cartridges 4 and 5 in the picture) were also made by C. D. Leet, and differ only in the presence a mold mark on the bullet and tool marks on the base of the one on the right. Not included in either the photo or my own collection is what one might think would be one of the more common examples, the U headstamped cartridge made by the Union Metallic Cartridge Company - I'm not sure how I managed to miss that one.
. . . . The Remington Single Shot Breech-Loading Carbine, also called the Split Breech Remington was made in 1865 and 1866 by the Savage Revolving Arms Company for Remington Arms, who had contracts to produce 20,000 of the carbines for the U.S. Government. The first 5,000, contracted for in March of 1864, were chambered for the .46 rim fire cartridge. The remaining 15,000 were contracted for in October of 1864, and used the .56-50 Spencer cartridge. All 20,000 carbines were delivered between February of 1865 and May of 1866, but it is doubtful that any of the 20,000 carbines saw use in the Civil War. Approximately 18,600 of the carbines (3,600 of the .46 caliber and nearly all of the .50 caliber) were purchased back from the Government in 1870 by Remington, and were sold to the French government for use in the Franco-Prussian War. Of the .46 caliber carbines that remained in Government service, some were issued in 1871 to the 9th U.S. Cavalry, which used the carbines in at least five separate actions with Indians in Texas that year (Staked Plains, near the headwaters of the Concho River, near Fort McKavett, near Howard's Well, and at La Pendencia. The 9th Cavalry was the regiment of about 900 African American troops, dubbed the 'Buffalo Soldiers', who were tasked with maintaining law and order in western and southwestern Texas from 1867 until the mid-1870s, after which they were moved further west to new Mexico, and later to Kansas.
An uncommon proprietary .450 - 3 1/4" Express .......
I recently added the pictured .450 3 1/4" black powder express cartridge to my collection. This is an example of a proprietary headstamp, which is a personalized headstamp applied for a retailer by a cartridge manufacturer, much for the same reason people buy 'vanity' plates for their automobiles, that being to focus a little attention on themselves. In this case, the retailer was Scholefield, Goodman & Sons, a Birmingham retailer that made and/or distributed single shot rifles based on Field's patent action, one of the falling block actions popular in England in the last quarter of the 19th century. According to George Hoyem (History & Development of Small Arms Ammunition, Vol 3), it is believed that the cartridges with this S.G & Sons headstamp were made by Kynoch. While it in not to apparent in the picture, this cartridge is loaded with a paper-patched lead bullet with a copper tube inserted into the hollow nose. The 'express' in the headstamp refers to this style bullet.
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