Old vs. New

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 12:32 pm

I realize in history our Govt arms "basically" went from the .58 cal. ML's shooting mini balls to the .45-70 breach loader. I was wondering if anyone here has done any studies on what if anything was gained besides speed of reloading? There's no doubt the old .58's did a lot of damage. 600,000 American dead and wounded would be proof of that.

Rusty <><

Leverdude · Post by **Leverdude** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 2:41 pm

I think speed of reloading was just the iceing on the cake. Cartriges are superior to loose powder & ball in many ways. Portability & weather resistance are just 2 that come to mind.

GANJIRO · Post by **GANJIRO** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 3:40 pm

I was talking to a historian at the gunshow on the very subject last weekend. He stated that when the Springfield were first converted to breechloader the cartridge was an actual 58 caliber, then this was reduced to 50-70, and finally to 45-70 in 1873. The advantage was a flatter trajectory and more ammo could be carried per soldier due to smaller size (same reasoning as switch to 5.56 ammo today).

Post by **Hobie** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 3:50 pm

In military circles I bet that relative water proofness, as well as easy and rapidity of loading were important to military officers of the time but so was ease of UNLOADING. Consider the ammo wasted and lives risked every time a sentry had to pull a load. Now it was pop out the live round, wipe it down and drive on.

Old Time Hunter · Post by **Old Time Hunter** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 6:53 pm

Hobie, what you stated has the most credence to me. Read a ton of books pertaining to ordinance and the biggest reason we went with the trapdoor instead of the Ball repeater or a Spencer variant was the powers that be did not trust the common soldier to not waste ammo. Heck when Hotchkiss introduced his bolt for trials, the GSA said "it will bankrupt us in the usage of ammo", "it would be cheaper to bury a couple of soldiers than to supply the ammo that thing would use". They really did not have to worry too much, Winchester bought up the Hotchkiss patent and shut 'er down.

El Chivo · Post by **El Chivo** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 3:25 am

"it would be cheaper to bury a couple of soldiers than to supply the ammo that thing would use".

Nice attitude. i read once that the reason WWI flyers didn't wear parachutes was, they weren't issued them because the generals thought they would use them to bail out rather than try to bring a crippled plane home. They didn't want to waste the occasional plane, but they didn't mind wasting hundreds of pilots.

rangerider7 · Post by **rangerider7** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 6:48 am

I kinda see that correlation with Iraq in a way. Why loose our soldiers when we could have told the civilians to get out and then use the h-bomb on the military or else! I know it is a simplization, but our government is dragging this out AGAIN! Why hasn't our government learned from our mistakes and realize you can't occupy a country if its citizens don't 100% (or close to it) support or want you there. IMHO