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Home of the Old Ammo Guy's Virtual
Cartridge Trading Table Featuring a wide range of antique, obsolete, and modern ammunition for collectors Picture Page April 2009 A close look at the Eley needle gun cartridge.....
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The picture here shows the variations of Eley needle gun cartridges
from my collection. These were used in single shot 'garden' rifles made in
England from the the 1850s through the 1890s. Produced only by Eley
Brothers, these were made in three sizes as shown beginning on the left of
the picture, 110, 90, and 75 bore, which
correspond to .31, .36 and .41 caliber, respectively. These cartridges
have tan or, less often, blue paper cases, usually with an orange or a blue label on the bottom
marked 'ELEY'S NEEDLE GUN
According to Robert Buttweiller, as described
in one of his auction catalogs, 'the Eley needlefire system used a small
pellet of fulminate above a series of
Dimensions of the sectioned 110 Bore cartridge are: bullet - .345" neck - .347" base - .347" case length - .913" overall length - 1.312" bullet weight - 93.5 grains total weight - 119.4 grains Dimensions of the other two conical ball cartridges shown in the first picture are: 90 bore: bullet - .374" neck - .397" base - .398" case length - .971" overall length - 1.285" total weight - 143.5 grains
75 bore: bullet - .413" neck - .419" base - .424" case length - .915" overall length - 1.310" total weight - 176.5 grains
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A box of cartridges for the Ballard rifle.........
This box of ten .40-85-370 cartridges was made by the Union Metallic Cartridge Company between about 1885 and 1900. The label indicates that the cartridges are 'adapted to Ballard Rifles using 40-85 Everlasting shells', however the cartridges themselves don't actually have 'everlasting' shells, as they don't have the thickness at the mouths usually associated with everlasting shells, nor have I ever seen one of the true everlasting shells with a headstamp, other than those sometimes found with the patent date (NOV. 9, 75). These cartridges would have been used in the Ballard No. 5 Pacific Model, the only Ballard I'm aware of that was chambered for the cartridge. The rifle is shown and described on this page from the 1888 catalog of the Marlin Firearms Company.
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Considering that a full box of these cartridges would probably sell for around $300 or more today, they were originally quite reasonably priced, as attested to by this page from the same 1888 Marlin catalog. It lists the .40-85 Ballard cartridge at $50 per 1000, or 50 cents per box of ten.
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A box of Austrian .45 Colt cartridges.....
Here's a box of familiar looking cartridges, these being .45 Colt as made by the Austrian firm Hirtenberger. The generic box and label suggest perhaps a pre-production run of the cartridges, or possibly packaging that was done outside of the factory. The label was produced on a mimeograph machine and reads "25 Stk. REVOLVERPATRONEN Hirtenberger Patronenfabrik Aktiengesellschaft Hirtenberg, Austria". The cartridges appear to be fairly recently made, perhaps 1980s. This company had its start when Joseph Mandl purchased half ownership in Keller & Co, an ammunition factory in Hirtenberg, Austria. The company assumed the Hirtenberger name (Hirtenberger Patronen Zunhutchen und Metallwarenfabrik AG Vormals Keller & Co) in 1897. The Jewish Mandl family fled Austria with the rise in German control over their country in the 1930s, and the company was taken over by the Germans. With the end of World War II, the company was dismantled, and the equipment was taken by the Russians. In 1956, the Mandl family returned and rebuilt the company, and was back in production in 1958 under the name Hirtenberger Patronen Zundhutchen und Metallwarenfabrik AG. Since the late 1980s, the company has changed hands twice, and no longer operates under the Hirtenberger name. . .
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