Drams or Drachms?

For today’s researcher into Enfield ammunition, the definitive reference is “Rifle Ammunition. Being Notes on the Manufactures connected therewith as conducted in The Royal Arsenal, Woolwich” by Arthur B. Hawes, Captain (r.h.p.), Bengal Army and published in London, 1859. Hawes writes in his introduction: “These notes, intended at first only for myself, were, I am happy so say, useful to others; and from that reason more than any other, I am induced now to offer them, imperfect as they are, for the perusal of all who feel interested in the preparation of ammunition of different descriptions, with the exterior of which all soldiers are so familiar.”

Overlooked, unknown or forgotten is the work of Johann Georg Leutmann (1667-1736), who in 1733 described the use of elongated balls, with a conical cavity at the base. Leutmann’s egg-shaped ball predates that suggested by Robins in 1747, and the much later adoption in the 19th century of what today is often referred to as the Minié principle.

This biography of Joshua Shaw, Artist and Inventor, from 1869 also features the early history of the copper percussion cap. Many people claimed invention of this system but it was such an obvious development from the patch lock that it must have occurred to a good many people almost simultaneously.