Loading the Buffalo Gun on the Range

[Crew Chief]

I have read a lot about the buffalo hunters and the accounts mention them sitting around in the afternoons or evening loading cartridges. Not much is mentioned on the technique. I know they mostly used paper patched bullets and used grease wads but I can't find mention of melting lead and making bullets on the range. Did they worry about consistent weights of the bullet like we do now. Did they get specific about the bullet alloy or did they just melt pure lead?

I guess I had too much time on my hands after my nap yesterday and got to wondering about these things.

[Mike]

Crew Chief, (What did you crew on?) I've read that any bullet which did not look perfect was thrown back into the melting ladle. That tells us how they were concerned about consistency with their bullets and their shooting. And it is my guess that they generally used pure lead. I've wondered about those things too. I also wonder about their loading tools. One tool was called a "rimmer" and I'm not sure what that was. Shoot sharp, Mike

[Don McDowell]

I think they were about as varied in loading technique etc as we are today. But for the most part we can probably guess that they used what ever reloading tools the rifle manufacturer sold. Those were pretty basic things, not unlike our modern day Lee hand loaders. The bigger outfits that had a camptender, mostly left the reloading chores to him/her.
My suspicions about alloy is they bought what ever they could get. Be it pure lead or something else. We do see in many of the store journal entries they did sell "patching" paper.
We can probably be pretty sure the loading and casting took place during the daylight hours as about the only light would be from the campfire, and depending on where they were and what they had for fuel for the fire... buffler chips don't put out much flame and light.. Candles, lamps etc would of only been used sporadically,due to their cost and inavailability, and the smart camper most likely kept things pretty low key at night so as to not tip off their location to folks that may not have the best interest of those in the camp at heart...

[rhbrink]

I have read that most of the old hunters actually bought bullets that were aready patched. And that there was a major industry back East that swedged bullets and women patched them thousands in a day, imagine that? Plus the fact that I wonder if buffalo chips would get hot enough to even melt lead there wasn't much hardwood out West.

Lead and patching material was sold and I'm sure after a long season that there was some casting going on but it was a matter of have too case. I would also guess that the patched bullets weren't cheap and more than a few hunters without much funds available might have had to cast.

All of this just guessing for what that's worth.

RB

[Dan Cash]

rhbrink, you may rest assured that buffalo chips, cow chips, or other animal chips will certainly get hot enough to melt lead. A dung fire will make steel turn close to white hot.

[Crew Chief]

Crew Chief, (What did you crew on?) I've read that any bullet which did not look perfect was thrown back into the melting ladle. That tells us how they were concerned about consistency with their bullets and their shooting. And it is my guess that they generally used pure lead. I've wondered about those things too. I also wonder about their loading tools. One tool was called a "rimmer" and I'm not sure what that was. Shoot sharp, Mike

Mike, I crewed UH-1H Hueys. One tour in SEA. Mostly crewed the same ship my whole tour except for a few times when other crew-chiefs were on R&R and mine was down for maintenance.

I love the remarks made on this forum about what the buffalo hunters might have done. I am reading one of the Buffalo Hunters Encyclopedias and there are several accounts of buying upwards of 500 lbs. of lead, patching paper and kegs of blackpowder. They also bought a lot of coffee, sugar, biscuit flour, baking soda, dried apples and chewing tobacco. There are accounts of running out of food staples and the hunters complaining about eating buffalo meat for 14 days straight. How do you say, I need fiber in my diet.

I doubt that they weighed their bullets as they would have only had a balance type scale and that would have been time consuming. I agree that they probably just inspected the bullet to make sure it didn't have an signs of a void or obvious imperfection. Like someone said, they probably spent the afternoon hours reloading or had a camp person doing it while they continued to hunt. I wonder if they threw the brass in hot soapy water then just wiped it down?

[Mike]

Crew Chief, I was a C-124 man, out of Hickam or Tachikawa. Never made it all the way to SEA.

You've read many of the same things I have looked at, where hunters bought lead, paper, primers, and powder. I know patched bullets were available but I don't recall reading where a hunter bought them. Shoot sharp, Mike

[powderburner]

I have a reference to where the hunters threw the brass into boiling water to clean them , I have tried this and it does well ,

[Mike]

And I just re-read that Frank Mayer said he would use stretched and dried antelope skin for patching paper, if he ran out of paper. He did not include comments about how well it worked. Not all of his comments can be completely accepted, such as he apparently confused the date that he got his .40-90 Straight, but then he was there. Good reading, for sure.

[Freedom]

It is my understanding, on the frontier, that the US Army advertised that they would give (for free) 1000 rounds of 45-70 to anyone having a gun that would shoot the ammo. I know that I have seen a picture of this addvertisement somewhere??

Now with this info...I have read accounts of hunters pulling down the ammo. "Govt. Powder" was not liked all that much so the powder was traded with the Indians. The lead was melted down and recast into the bullet each hunter wanted and the cases were either discarded, traded, or reloaded with good powder and the proper bullet. I recall this info from years of reading(not internet),...but I cannot recall which of my books this was taken from.

This makes is seem logical that a lot of buffalo hunting was done with plain old Government issue, 45-2.1 ammo....would not surprise me a bit if a lot of this 45-70 ammo went down the tubes of many 45-90's, 100's and 110's as well...since the accruracy was probly plenty good. The ammo was already on the frontier and it was free!