Folks,
On Aug 10, 1848 Walter Hunt secured patent #5,701 for "a ball for firearms, with a cavity to contain the charge of powder for propelling said ball, in which cavity the powder is secured by means of a cap enclosing the back end".
No paper, no metallic cartridge, just a bullet containing enough powder to fire it.
The round, known as the "Rocket Ball", was designed for the rifle, and later carbine, designed by Lewis Jennings and patented the following year. Using a Maynard tape priming system to ignite the propellant, the weapon featured a tubular magazine holding 20 charges and fed through a lever action into the breech.
Although the weapon featured several innovations that would later become industry design standards it was doomed to failure because:1. The perforated cork base was prone to damage by the adjacent bullet in the magazine, causing powder leakage, resulting in fouling, jamming and an occasional flash fire.2. When ignited, the powder charge was insufficient to attain a fast enough muzzle velocity for the projectile. Result, barely enough power to allow the ball to fall out of the muzzle of the weapon
.3. If everything worked and the bullet was fired from the weapon the total weight of the projectile was insufficient for penetration of a target. Because of the large cavity required to hold the powder there simply wasn't enough lead in the bullet. It must have felt like you were getting hit with a screw off bottle cap and a wool vest would have the bullet stopping power of kevlar.
This particular specimen is perfectly preserved, still having the manufacturer's light shellac finish and a clear patent stamp reading "Patented 1848".
TomH
