I'm attempting to restart this including all the messages ........
This is how it started:
Don said... The original Austrian Army charge was 62 grains of powder. The granulation corresponded roughly to modern cartridge powder. The Federal Army used 50 grains of musket powder, which was too light, and the Confederate Army used 70 grains of musket powder, illustrating exactly how poor their powder manufacturing process was.
Southern Sr said ...Actually the powder manufactured at the Augusta Powder works in Augusta, GA was as good as, if not better than Yankee made gun powder. This was confirmed by post-war tests by the U.S. Army on captured Confederate gun powder.
Don said ... While the Augusta plant made massive amounts of black powder, Rains adopted an essentially experimental manufacturing process resulting of powder of questionable quality.
In two of a number of reports from the field, Confederate artillerymen at Charleston complained that the one-ounce bursting charge for the 12-pounder shell specified in the Ordnance Manual would not burst their shells. Mallet also wrote to Gorgas that the gunners had complained that the variations in the strength of the propellant in artillery cartridges made firing accurate ranging shots impossible, with "the same elevation giving quite discrepant results as to range." (Melton, Major Military Industries of the Confederate Government, 346 and 424)
The fact that the Federal Army seized the Augusta plant intact in April 1865 and dismantled it rather than using it serves as a counterpoint to the assertion that Confederate gunpowder was superior. This occurred despite an 1864 report by the Federal Chief of Ordnance to the Secretary of War and Congress which stated "In this connexion [sic.] I must notice the fact that the government has no manufactory of gunpowder, but is entirely dependent on private powder mills for its supplies of this essential article?it is very important that the government should have the means of preparing a standard of quality for gunpowder, and of prescribing the exact proportions of the components and the mode of manufacture necessary to secure the production of powder of that standard quality. In order to do this a government powder mill, under the control of United States officers, should be established. It will not be necessary to have a large government powder manufactory, but only one of sufficient capacity to fabricate standard samples of powder for experimental purposes." In view of Rains' claims that his wet mixing process was quicker, cheaper, and produced better powder, it is also very telling that the system was never adopted by any major powder manufacturer in the U.S. or Europe. (Serial Set No. 1230, Report of the Chief of Ordnance, 115; Curtis, "Unorthodox British Technology at the Confederate Powder Works, Augusta, Georgia," passim)
Mallet also wrote to Gorgas that "I have inspected some samples of the Augusta [arsenal] made [percussion] caps, and am sorry to say that thus far I cannot speak well of them. The cap itself is very roughly and coarsely formed, and its performance has not proved satisfactory. Quite a considerable number of them failed altogether, or exploded so feebly as not to be capable of firing a musket." After testing the worst musket caps he had seen from the Atlanta Arsenal, Mallet wrote Gorgas that two thirds failed to fire. Recognizing the problems with Confederate manufactured percussion caps, Confederate ammunition laboratories were directed to pack 13 caps vice 12 caps in each packet of 10 musket cartridges. (Mallet to Gorgas, 19 and 20 January 1864, cited at Thomas, Round Ball to Rimfire, IV, 131; Thomas, Round Ball to Rimfire, IV, 256)
Additionally, the standard Confederate load for .58 caliber ammunition was 80 grains of musket powder vice the 60 and later [1864] 65 grain load used in Federal Army ammunition.
Southern said ... Was the decision for the Ordnance Department NOT to have its own powder mill in the post war era a political one or a military one? As all public property of the Confederate government automatically became U.S. property with the surrender of the Confederacy, the fully intact Augusta Powder Works could have easily been managed by U.S. Ordnance Department personnel and the powder manufacturing processes modified to produce any high quality powder the Ordnance Department desired.
Besides the fact that in the post war era Congress desired to keep all military spending as small as possible, I am also sure that the DuPont and Hazard Powder companies (and possibly the other explosives companies) used all of their political influence with Congress to keep the Ordnance Department out of powder manufacturing endeavors.
As for the war time reports of the poor performance of Confederate artillery ammunition at Charleston I refer you to Page 424-425 of Maurice Melton's Major Military Industries of the Confederate Government, Emory University his PhD dissertation, 1976.
"[Major] Mallet found [Confederate] gunners frustrated by deficiencies in all types of arsenal products. The primers did not always fire, the fuses were not always precise or even certain to ignite, while variations in the strength of cartridges made accurate ranging impossible.....All over the Charleston batteries Mallet saw indications that ammunition culled as defective and condemned was finding its way back into use, being indiscriminately mixed in with good ammunition."
So in light of Mallet's report, condemning the powder manufactured at the Augusta Powder Works because of what was going on with the ammunition in use by the Charleston batteries is a bit unfair.
Don said ...In my post I cited Melton at page 424. So, I am aware that he cited Mallet as writing: "All over the Charleston batteries Mallet saw indications that ammunition culled as defective and condemned was finding its way back into use, being indiscriminately mixed in with good ammunition." Surely such egregious incompetence couldn't have occurred in the vaunted Confederate Army? But, even that is an indication that the Confederates were experiencing problems with defective artillery ammunition.
I don't discount the possibility that politics dissuaded the War Department from operating the Augusta plant, but I've never seen sources that discussed it or confirm it. More telling is the fact that no powder manufacturer ever adopted Rains' process. Mallet's, Rains', and Gorgas' rather self serving assertions regarding the superiority of Confederate gunpowder have been generally accepted by Civil War historians without question. I have several technical concerns regarding the accuracy of this assertion, however, and believe it should be viewed with skepticism. Similar questions were raised by LT Brian O'Flynn in his paper An Analysis of the Quality of Confederate Gunpowder Produced at Augusta Powder Mills, Unpublished Non-Thesis Research Paper. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama, 1996. Starting with O'Flynn's research, I did some more research. It would take pages to discuss the flaws in Rains' process here, and I have included a discussion of the issue in the draft of my book on Austrian Rifles.
Getting back to the original post: The bottom line here is that the Federal Army used 50 grains of musket powder, the Austrian Army 62 grains of powder, and the Confederate Army 70 grains of musket powder in ".54" caliber ammunition; and the Federals 60/65 grains of musket power and the Confederates 80 Grains of musket powder in .577/.58 caliber ammunition. The sights of military weapons during the Civil War were calibrated to a standard projectile propelled at a standard velocity. If you changed the projectile, or the velocity, or both, the sights were no longer calibrated to the cartridge. That the Confederates had to use much larger loads to attempt to achieve the standard velocity is a telling argument regarding the quality of their powder. I have tested modern lots of Swiss, GOEX, and Elephant powder over my chronograph, with each requiring progressively larger loads to achieve the same velocity. This, I believe is a technical validation of the quality of the each of the brands/lots of powder tested.
One problem in the entire discussion is that the Confederates operated at least six other powder factories producing smaller amounts of powder than Augusta, and imported hundreds of tons of British and Continental powder. In this context, I would be most interested in the primary sources of your statement that the superiority of captured Confederate powder was demonstrated in post-war testing by the U.S. Army. Hopefully, that sourcing would describe exactly whose powder they tested.
Gary said ... At about 1 hour into his presentation, West Point history instructor Major David Lambert starts talking about gunpowder manufacturing in the Confederacy:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?457655-1/gunpowder-manufacturing-1850-65
I said ... To be cont'd........
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