Greetings Rye & Everybody -
soemtimes I just talk ( or write) too much and people miss the point I am trying to make... it just gets lost in my own noise.
So I'll try bullet items, like in a boring speech :-)
First-
Rye, I am actually
ON YOUR SIDE -- I believe,
but cannot prove , that reloading was done more often than can be documented.
WHY do I hold this opinion?
1) WE KNOW that prior to cartridges, even with revolvers, reloading was the only way to make it go bang
2) WE KNOW that during the transitional period many Remington and some Colt percussion revolvers were fitted and/or sold outright
with both percussion and cartidger conversion cylinders, and existing advertisements touted the ability to load with loose powder and ball if needed.
AT THAT TIME, reloading tools were not yet available so reloading spent casings was not yet "popular"
3) WE KNOW from military reports and other letters that Indians were regularly observed relodsing spent casings and even using friciton matches for primer material.
4) WE KNOW prior to the Civil War that hunters, frontiersmen, Indians, scouts, etc regularly cast their own bullets because we have diaries and letters and military and
booshway reports of men "running ball" over the fire at night
For some reason, the amount of detailed written doco regarding the topic seems to wither right around 1865 and going forward. People just stopped writing
about a lot of things - it is much like the infamous "what did they use for tinder during the Rev War?"
Now, from here we can Surmise or suggest.
It is VERY UNLIKELY that frugal men who were used to casting ball and loading powder and ball into rifles and revolvers would suddenly buy only factory cartridges
and throw them away once shot. There is to my mind no difference between loading a C&B revolver and repriming (even with a percussion cap, I tried it and it works) and reloading an empty casing with powder and ball.
The question was: Did they reload?
Answer: Yes they did
What do we actually know?
- by 1873 ish there were loading tools, primers, empty cases bullets and powder for sale,
- we know they were bought and used, rcpts & records exist
- there are a few rare entries in journals, diaries, letters, ledger books (for business) , and newspaper articles of "this guy reloading cartridges"
Who, how much, and how do we know?
who:
we
know that buffalo hunters, market hunters, some gunstore owners, some ranchers , and some Native Americans reloaded.
and "probably" a bunch of other guys
but we cannot prove ithow much: buff and market hunters a lot, everybody else , WE DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH
how do we know:
we know how much some buff hunters and market hunters loaded, because it is documented in store reciepts,
factory orders ( with names and delivery details) , and some very specific entries in logbooks, ledgers, and diaries by these people.
This doco still exists and can be referenced because these guys were IN BUSINESS, and these records were part of their business records.
There are occasional ( rare in my mind) letters , diary entries or military reports that specifically describe reloading.
Letters & diaries are good doco because they are first person narrative to folks "back home" and the writer is telling them news and
what is going on, and unless he is bragging about how wonderful he is ( I caught over a thousand fish today alone!) there
is no reason for them to lie. Diaries are often a narrative of how much they accomplished such as land plowed, crops planted,
harvest brought in, deer etc hunted for meat, so that the writer can keep track of how good or bad the year has been.
Very occasionally you may see in a letter or diary "load a quantity of shells " or "loaded some cartridges" for the upcoming hunt ...
or "won the ham at the town scheutzenfest, and so must make time to load more cartridges for the fall" .... Even so, except for
the Range Wars & Indian Wars, 50 cartridges would last a long time.
Military reports or letters are much better, since they are giving detailed factual reports . It is there I have found such gems as a report
that (paraphrased) " Local hostiles are using captured cartridge guns, and due to lack of ammunition, are loading spent shell cases with powder and
ball" or " Private Smith has been put on punishment duty, to wit: cartridge loadiing , Due to shortage of ammunition for training" .
However I can only recall 2 or 3 about the Indians, and only found 1 about loading as punishment duty.
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The big probelm is the lack of written supporting doco.
A lot of popular books are written on topics ranging from the Buffalo Hunters, to Mountain Men, to Cowboys and cattle drives...
but very often they are causually written for a casual audience, and they ought not to be used as factual source unless they use accepted
methods of references , footnotes, etc. because, without verifiable doco to back it up it is at best hear-say and at worst fiction.
And books without quoted footnotes and sources are more often "passed down old stories" than we would like.
In History, Serious Scholars use what is called "Historical Method" see here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_methodIn general these include
- do not "assume"
- do not "guess"
- do not try to apply modern thought or modern "common sense"
- you actually need documented proof, usually they want at least 5 examples
So there it is.
I did not mean for it to sound like I was dumping on you, just trying to explain the more rigorous "proofs" needed for actual acedemic style historical research.
and I STILL think they reloaded more than we can prove.
your humble servant
Prof Marvel
ps I will try to dig out more stuff later if anybody cares