Paper Patching: A Pictorial Guide

The Pattern 1853 Rifle Musket originally used Pritchett’s cylindro-conoidal bullet. Trials in 1855 gave cause for concern about the rifle’s performance. Subsequent trials resulted in the adoption of a variety of base plugs for the bullet; an iron cup, box-wood plug and finally clay plug.

It’s 1879, and since the 1874 International Match at Creedmoor there have been a lot of changes. Edwin Perry shares, in his Third Edition of Modern Observations on Rifle Shooting (1880), some of the major changes / advancements at Creedmoor in just a short 5 years. When it comes to bullet alloys, much of what has been passed around on the internet as fact about the advent of harder alloy bullets is, frankly, nothing but conjecture. And what has been passed off as fact is in effect WRONG. Very hard alloy bullets, were in vogue by 1879 for long range competition and were sold by Sharps and Remington. Factory ammo was no longer used by any of the big name shooters. Most had, after careful study, found that their own reloads had much better performance on the long range targets. Make no mistake about it, rapid advances in long range shooting were going on, and much of it we knew little about, until now.