Reloading in the late 1800's

[w44wcf]

Stepping back in time.......

reloading for Winchester 1873 rifles



Winchester supplied a hand tool, swaged bullets, cases & primers for those who owned '73 Winchesters and wanted to make their own ammunition.



w44wcf

[Grapeshot]

That's really interesting.  Thanks for sharing this.  Strange that their hand tool looks a lot like the Lyman/Ideal Tong Tool.

It's interesting to note that that the swaged bullets have their lube grooves rolled in like the crimp grooves on Jacketed bullets.

Fantastic post by the way.

[kurt250]

i know a collector/shooter that reloads all his 45/70 and 45/75 cartridges with original winchester reloading tools. he only shoots black powder. he says that he has never had any problems with the tools or the ammunition. he has had to replace a few parts on the reloadin g tools but not that many. these tools are all 100 years old or older. there still going strong. shows what good design and good materials can do. kurt250

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

$44.50 for the whole shootin match.  Wasn't that about the pay of a cowboy for a month and a half? 

[w44wcf]

Grapeshot,
Thank you for the kind words.  Actually, the Winchester loading tools preceeded the Ideal tools by about 15 years or so.

Sir Charles,
The price for reloading the first 1,000 rounds would be 19.50 (11.00+2.40+6.00+.10) less the powder and the initial cost of the reloading tool. For the 2nd reloading and beyond - 8.50 (19.60 - 11.00 cases) + powder cost.

At 20.00 / 1,000 for factory cartridges, it was actually a bit less expensive than loading your first 1,000 rounds since the reloads would have cost a bit more with the cost of the powder added.

No doubt, to reduce the cost several folks would have gotten together to buy cartridges or the components to reduce the overall cost.  Perhaps one of the earliest "group buys"...........

w44wcf    

[FriscoCounty]

For the first 1,000 rounds, buy factory.  For reloading it would be

$5.00 Reloading tools
$2.40 1,000 primers
$3.60 for 6 lbs of gunpowder at the trading post price of 60 cents per pound (40 grains per cartridge)
$4.35 for 29 lbs of lead at the trading post price of 15 cents per pound (200 grain bullets)

$15.35 for 2nd 1,000 rounds and $10.35 for the 3rd 1,000 rounds.  Add a $1.65 for buying bullets, instead of casting.

If you bought at a rail head, like Dodge City, gunpowder would cost 44 cents per pound and lead 13 cents per pound. 

$13.81 for 2nd 1,000 rounds and $8.81 for the 3rd 1,000 rounds.

I got the prices for gunpowder and lead in 1875 from "Adobe Walls: The History and Archaeology of the 1874 Trading Post"
By T. Lindsay Baker, Billy R. Harrison, B. Byron Price.  It can be previewed on Google books.  The prices were on page 26.

[Fox Creek Kid]

The biggest problem on the Frontier was the price of lead as everything was freighted by wagon for the end journey. It was exhorbitant for the times at approx. 10 cents per lb. There was a thread on this once on the Shiloh Sharps Forum and I figured it was almost the same price (if not a little cheaper) to buy swaged & patched bullets from Sharps than buy lead and cast your own.  Factor in the time trying to cast over a campfire dog tired at night as well. 


Another problem was surely the rapidly eroding cases from the early mercuric primers if you didn't quickly "kill" the corrosion with soap & water or vinegar.

[kurt250]

i feel the fact that you may not be close to a hardware store that carried ammunition was a large part of the need to reload. i sure costs were important(as it is now) but being able to get ammo in the amount you may need for a winter was also very important. until the railroads got close to were you were you were relying on fright wagons. that could be spotty at best sometimes . with the railroads a whole new world opened up for the average person. besides mail and newspapers for back east, there was sears and roebuck. look at one of those reprinted catalog. they carried everything a man out west could need. look at one. my grand mother used to tell me about living in kansas as a little girl and how great grandma ordered things for her and great grandpa and the farm from sears. she said it didn't take that long to get stuff from chicago .she said when they had a good year she would order cloths a sewing machine, pots and pans. she said it made life a lot easier for everyone. you went in to town that was about 23 miles away and picked up the mail went to the general store and stopped at the railroad station and asked the fright master i anything had come in.

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

SOOOH! The attraction of online shopping is not new, and seems to have been almost as fast.