Buffalo Hunters Cartridge Reloading – Discussion

['Monterrey' Jack Brass]

(all, I am starting a new thread as the below was posted on the Buffalo Camp Lighting thread and is not related to lighting. Brass)

copy/pastes of initial posts regarding buffalo hunters’ ammunition:

<from Brass>
Getting a Stand by Miles Gilbert, page 85 (info from W. Skelton Glenn)
pg 85 “He [camp rustler] also had to run bullets and look after the meat and tallow for the camp. As he did not get but one meal a day in daylight, he had a pot full of boiled tongues also extra bread cooked for the men’s lunch, for if buffalo were plentiful, they never got in until dark and after, and often two or three hours later in the night.”

<reply to Brass from OCB>
Monterrey....Do you suppose the "running bullets" means casting the lead bullet, or actually making the complete cartridge? You would think that unless the Hunter/Shooter has complete trust in the individual he would want to make his own cartridges....Bill

<reply to OCB from Brass>
OCB - Regarding 'bullets' vs. cartridges and the camp rustler's role: I wondered that too, did he take lead bullets to the guys hunting, or ready-made cartridges? Though I can't document at this point how this is to be interpreted I'd have to take an edjumacated guess that the intent of the term meant ready-made cartridges. The implication is that if there was more than one hunter the camp rustler would have to take the right ammo to the right guy as according to W. Skelton Glenn each hunter made his own ammo. I doubt he took lead bullets for the hunters to re-load while they hunted, and even then would have to take each hunter's specific bullets if he did deliver just lead bullets.

Historic conjecture: The more I read about the subject of the hunt the more I appreciate the stealth employed by the hunters approaching the herd in the early morning to commence the day's hunt. If a hunter approached a herd and spooked it to run off before getting in that all important first shot to drop the 'leader' it would cause frustrating delays to the day. In other words, if during his attempted approach he was espied by the one of the several extremely watchful buffalo herd sentinels, then the herd would take off and the hunt would be delayed as the hunter angrily followed to try it all over again - not good for business. Considering that a hunter had to sneak up on a herd real careful-like and take that golden 1st shot into the leader, after sometimes crawling to a good position for some distance on his belly, I should think that taking too many things with him would be inefficient for the stealth required. As it was, a hunter was weighted down with at least one cartridge belt, often times two, of over 40 rounds plus extra ammo each and was lugging two 12-14+ pound heavy barreled hunting rifles (to alternate with when one got too hot to shoot by switching to the cooled one), plus his sticks & wiping rod, and likely a canteen. I don't know if taking reloading stuff with him would be feasible/practical and would he even have time to reload cartridges when shooting? A 'stand' was only successful when each successive leader buffalo was shot, the rest would wait to see what the next leader would do thus creating a group milling situation vs a stampede. So those buffalos that were smart enough to take over the herd and commence the group running away from danger were the next ones to get whacked in succession. So once a 'stand' situation was created I wonder how much time the shooter could spend not shooting - would even be hard to take a pee if I'm reading the primary documentation right and perhaps all the time he could spare was to switch rifles, swab a bore quickly, and maybe get in a drink of water. Once a hunter got his 'stand' by whacking the leaders successively he could and did shoot all day at times from what I've read in some primary sources so far.

So I'm not too sure how much spare time the hunter had to do much else but shoot. However, once the shooters got their 'stands', the camp rustler could follow the noise of the guns and ride right up to the hunter and drop off the requisite support items: cartridges, chow, water, etc with no fear of causing a stampede. The condition was created by the hunter of constantly confusing the buffalo herd which now had no sentinals and could not stampede by virtue of their leaders being constantly whacked just as each one made the command decision to get the heck outa there. Quite ingenious on the part of the hunters in using this method, better than chasing the big, nasty, dirty buggers!

Though my conjecture above doesn't answer your question it makes some sense until I can verify that my suspicions are true or not. Until then, I cannot say if the term 'bullet' as used by W. Skelton Glenn in relation to the camp rustler meant cartridges or just the lead part of a cartridge. I'd say he meant 'cartridge' but can't prove it yet. Good question mon ami.

YMH&OS,

Brass
 

<your turn>

[Mick Archer]

 Howdy Pards!

  Just an aside, with the obvious caveat about not making a universal statement...

  Archeology at the Adobe Walls 1874 fight found lead slag, sprues, and spent primers under the buildings- seeminly indicating the a buffalo hunter or hunters there were making cartridges at some point.

   Mick Archer

[James Hunt]

Brass: Getting a Stand, Mayer's book, and the Encyclopedia of Buffalo Hunters (wish I could get my copy back from my saddle maker ) all have primary references to hunters purchasing and carrying lead (as opposed to the term bullets) into the field. Venturino's book on single shot rifles (not exactly an academic treatise) reports that ready made bullets were available from the Sharp's company and they were not expensive and probably made their way to the field - but he supplies no references for the statement.

I interpret the use of the word "running" as a reference to casting the bullet only (as in the use of the expression "running ball"), I do not recall a definitive use of the term which would suggest that included making cartridges. However, someone had to make cartridges if they were casting lead. I need to review my materials again  but seem to recall that their are primary sources with the hunter stating he made cartridges.

Do you suppose the disagreeable and simple task of casting a ball was left to the camp keeper/skinner while the loading was left to the hunter? (conjecture needed). Done while the hunter was afield loading was able to be done in the evening. Of course the assumption that all camps had the same duty assignments should not be made.

The issue of the camp keeper/skinner bringing supplies to the hunter while shooting: I can not recall a single instance of reading that. I do recall in the above sources of hunters shooting until they were out of ammunition - at least one hunter was caught in the open like that by the locals who killed and scalped him (Gilbert's book and many others). The above sources have hunters both walking and riding to the herd from camp, but again I recall no comments of the camp keeper/skinner ever bringing additional ammunition or lunch. There are comments in the above sources of the skinner following up with the wagon for the purpose of skinning. My hunch, but I bet any hunter whose skinner spooked a herd by cresting a hill with a team and wagon would be one mad hunter. A wagon on the prairie would provide an unnatural sound I would think.

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['Monterrey' Jack Brass]

Mr Hunt,

I see what you mean by using the term ‘running’ in a different way than I saw it, and I’m reading the same book you referenced. Too funny. As it details the camp rustler ran bullets and cooked lunch for the hunters I am forced to think that he took it to them(?). I have not read that the hunters generally came back to camp to eat lunch – the only thing I can figure then is that the hunters took their lunches with them but it was prepared by the rustler if it was not taken with them?

Here are the references again, this one stating the hunters made their own cartridges:
Getting a Stand by Miles Gilbert, pg 82 (info from W. Skelton Glenn)
“As the tallow [buffalo] was of an oily nature, it was equal to butter; it was used for lubricating our guns and we loaded our own shells, each shell had to be lubricated and it was used also for greasing wagons and also for lights in camp.”

This one dealing with the camp rustler:
Getting a Stand by Miles Gilbert, pages 84 & 85 (info from W. Skelton Glenn)
pg 84 “There was also a camp rustler to each camp, and his business was to watch the camp and look after everything about the camp, and prepare the meals, early and late.”
pg 85 “He [camp rustler] also had to run bullets and look after the meat and tallow for the camp. As he did not get but one meal a day in daylight, he had a pot full of boiled tongues also extra bread cooked for the men’s lunch, for if buffalo were plentiful, they never got in until dark and after, and often two or three hours later in the night.”

Perhaps the term ‘run bullets’ is the big question – I took that as moving them, not making them. As far as lunch, it states the rustler made them lunch - then did the hunters take it with them precooked or did the rustler take it to them later, on a horse, on foot in a wagon, not at all? Your not having seen other references makes me wonder about that one. However, excellent dialogue…!

As far as casting goes, here is some really good non-specific information (regarding who ‘we’ are – hunters only or everybody on the hunting team…?):
Getting a Stand by Miles Gilbert, pg 72 (info from John Cloud Jacobs)
“We used to put 50-80 pounds of lead in a large iron skillet and get a good blue heat on it. Then we would dip out the lead with a spoon and mold our bullets. Any ball with the least bit of flaw we put back. Nothing but smooth, true balls were used.”

(sure as heck hope this large iron skillet wasn’t used to cook in too…!)

Excellent stuff Mr Hunt…!

YM&OS,

Brass

[Will Ketchum]

Jim, do any of your books reference the typical range that the buffalo were shot?

Will Ketchum

[Books OToole]

Will;

The following is from Buffalo Harvest by Frank C. Mayer

"I reckon these incidents will show you the kind of shooting we had to do. Most of our shots were at 300 yards or beyond. At 300 yards we had to be able to shoot all day long and score one hundred per cent results. We had to do this to come out even. I once took 269 hides with 300 cartridges. This was business. We had no time to experiment or theorize."

Books

['Monterrey' Jack Brass]

Will,

Unfortunately the lion’s share of Mr Hunt’s books are with me on-loan presently (he's a very good fellow, indeed!), though I hope to return them this week-end as my copies are coming in from Amazon, the holy source that it is. One thing I can say about range, it varies a lot on the shooter and what kind of rifle e had (caliber, amount of powder, weight of bullet, etc).

So. I’m posting a few quotes below toward your inquiry from Getting a Stand (M. Gilbert), as some interesting range info can be gleaned regarding buffalo guns:

Pg 28 (G. W. Reighard): “The time I made my biggest kill, I lay on a slight ridge behind a tuft of weeds 100 yards from a bunch of a thousand buffalo that had come a long distance to a creek.”

Pg 73 (J. C. Jacobs): “ There were usually two to four [buffalo] sentinels on the look-out. When they began to get uneasy, we would go down on the ground again with more caution if possible and crawl on all fours in a bee-line for the herd…We were usually then at a distance of 200-300 yards.”

Pg 116 ( in a letter to a comrade): “ The hunter who as it [Sharps .40-90-420] can hit and kill a bull as far almost as he can see it…The .44 cal day before yesterday loaded with 85 gr, 420 gr lead shot through several bulls in succession at 500 yds.”

Pg 142 (O. P. Hanna detailing the shooting skills of J. White hunting blacktail deer):
“I motioned to White and he said ‘We better take a shot at them before we go into camp.’ They were four or five hundred yards away and I was figuring which was the best way to get closer to them, when I saw White preparing to shoot from that long distance. He got out one of his big sixteen pound rifles, fifty caliber, that consumed 100 grains of powder. The first shot it under the belly of one and the next shot killed one. Most every shot after that I could see one fall.”

YMH&OS,

Brass

['Monterrey' Jack Brass]

All,

Here is a snippet regarding reloading that is of interest:

pg 175 Getting a Stand, M. Gilbert (R. L. Chambers): Our evenings were usually spent in cleaning our guns and reloading shells. The spent primers were taken from the shells with an extractor and the new primers placed in them. They were loaded with 90 grains of powder, then a wadding was pushed down on top of the powder, then a bullet was forced in on top of the wad. We melted and poured out own bullets from bars of lead. It was work requiring skill."

No mention of light but evening can still have daylight depending on the season - this, of course, if hunters did not on a given day/s come back after dark as is documented elsewhere. Guns cleaned and cartridges loaded by tallow betty-type' lamp' light?

YMH&OS,

Brass



Brass

[Black River Smith]

That earlier discussion caused me to reread the Mayer piece and that is why I posted the link.  He makes several references to loading bullet as part of his task as shooter.   Here is a start:

Part of this encouragement was of a practical nature that we runners appreciated. It consisted of ammunition, free ammunition, all you could use, all you wanted, more than you needed. All you had to do to get it was apply at any frontier army post and say you were short of ammunition, and plenty would be given you. I received thousands of rounds this way. It was in .45-70 caliber, but we broke it up, remelted the lead, and some runners used government powder. I didn't. I was a stickler for the best, and used imported English powder which I will be describing to you in a little while. I had no trouble trading my government powder for things I wanted -- tobacco, bacon, flour, and other things.

We loaded our own ammunition; had to; factory-loaded stuff cost too much, was, besides, too hard to get when you were away off on the buffalo range. After my first season I chose my powder with meticulous care. Two leading brands of American powder were Dupont and Hazard, both good enough except they burned hot, dry, and cakey in the barrels, making cleaning a more or less unsatisfactory operation.

As soon as dawn came and I could see clearly through my telescope sight, I would start in. But before I fired my first round, I would coolly estimate how many animals my skinners, usually two or three of them, could care for that day. That many cartridges, plus four or five extras, just in case, I withdrew from my belt and spread out in front of me in the grass. When they were used up, I quit.

I had just finished reloading a batch of hulls, and was thinking of going out and getting as antelope for camp meat, when I heard a low rumbling like distant thunder. As it was a clear cloudless day I knew it couldn't be thunder.



So I bought my first Sharps rifle. It was a .40-90-420, as sweet as a piece of ordnance as you would ever see. ......At first it used a 320-grain bullet, but I experimented with one a hundred grains heavier, and thereafter used the 420-grain projectile. It killed quicker. In making this change I didn't sacrifice anything in velocity, because by then I had begun to use the English powder I have told you about, and it added 10 to 30 percent efficiency to my shooting.

These Sharps used paper-patched bullets, made to my specifications, one part tin to sixteen parts lead; none of this hard-nose, steel-covered foolishness you have today. The sixteen-to-one formula gave us just enough hardness to penetrate and enough lead softness to mushroom. We didn't have much paper on the buffalo ranges, so we had to find a substitute for our patches. I used antelope buckskin, pulled and stretched real thin. It worked fine. I loaded my own cartridges, not because I liked to, because loading was a tedious job after a day in the hot sun on the range: I did it because it was cheaper. Factory ammunition cost 25 cents a round, but we could hand-load for half that, so we handloaded.

[Fox Creek Kid]

Gentlemen, ALL these questions have been addressed and answered in past issues of the "Black Powder Cartridge News". Subscribe. It's the best journal for this by far.

"Running ball" meant casting lead. The word "bullet" really wasn't used in our time period. Frank Mayer was over 80 when he dictated his memoirs and much is just simply not true and his stories are looked upon with great skepticism by many historians.

BPCR had an article where they actually weighed the gear described by hunters taken afield and it was a payload, some up to 80 lbs.!!  Stories about shooting at great distances then and now are suspect w/o documentation, although many buffalo "runners" admitted they got as close as possible, usually 300 yds. & closer as it was a business and lead cost 10 - 12 cents lb. then which was exhorbitant.

http://www.blackpowderspg.com/0607.html

['Monterrey' Jack Brass]

F. C. Kid - thanks for the link, I will check it out and looks like it'll be a great source for info.

By the sounds of it, you might have to set up an outfit next to ours in tte future. Would be a hoot! Too bad all the stinkin' buffalos are gone (compared to the 1870s...) and we have to shoot at boiler plate - kinda tough to skin that stuff....!!!

Brass

[Fox Creek Kid]

Do they have cable at Hooten? 

[Steel Horse Bailey]

Do they have cable at Hooten? 

FCK - I saw plenty of cable lying on the ground at Hooten; in several places.    

[Ottawa Creek Bill]

F. C. Kid - thanks for the link, I will check it out and looks like it'll be a great source for info.

By the sounds of it, you might have to set up an outfit next to ours in tte future. Would be a hoot! Too bad all the stinkin' buffalos are gone (compared to the 1870s...) and we have to shoot at boiler plate - kinda tough to skin that stuff....!!!

Brass

OK .......Boys........

One of our first shoots at our new Indiana posse next year will be a two day buffalo shoot.....yur gonna hafta practice way out past 400 yds. though. Anybody got a full size life like boiler plate buffalo we can borrow??

OCB

[Grizzle Bear]

Well, Bill.......

I have one, but I don't know about taking it from Kansas to Indiana and back......

 

Grizzle Bear

['Monterrey' Jack Brass]

OCB - Well, short or berler plate you can aways use a wood cut-out or something as far as I am concerned. Unless I get my paper-patch/powder recipe & proportions down I won't be hitting much..! My rifle doesn't do well at one hundred yards (just between notches in the sight with that new frickin' 500 gr paper patch bullet I'm using, compliments of RCBS) but might be better at longer ranges. However, that remains to be seen my good Bill...

YMH&OS,

Brass