Owen Guns Bulletin Edition 56 July 2011

The Mossberg Maverick has everything you need, pinpoint accuracy, smooth action and big-game calibers. The rifle is offered in four widely popular calibers: .270 Win, .30-06 Sprg., .243 Win and .308 Win., and features a free-floating, 22 inch button-rifled barrel. A Black Synthetic Stock. Weaver styled Mounts and a 3-9×40 Variable Scope. This powerful combination delivers a high level of accuracy unheard of in a value-priced centre-fire rifle. A side lever safety is utilized for convenience and safety afield, and the all-steel, machined receiver provides the Maverickwith positive lock-up for consistent operation. This rifle delivers high performance without the high maintenance.
For generations, Mossberg has built reliable, quality firearms at an unparalleled value. This American-made bolt action rifle is the first they have introduced in over 20 years. Blink and it’s a Savage or a Stevens and very similar to the Marlin. Just better priced at
$480. for package deal plus post If you want to order by mail  Phone 07 54825070 have your card detail handy . Email : owenguns@spiderweb.com.au  

Understanding Reloading Ammunition
Development of the Primer

Centerfire cartridge primers exist today in copious assortments but in three basic types. Each type was developed to meet a specific need and set of circumstances.
Present ammunition requirements could be met with a single mechanical design, or priming device, if certain changes in case design were made. The three types are firmly entrenched, though, and no sudden change is likely to effect them. Rimfire as it is not centrefire will not be discussed here as I have only ever heard of one person reloading it, the cheapness of rimfire ammunition will keep it very popular for many generations to come.
The first two basic types are “Berdan” and “Boxer” utilized in metallic cartridges, the latter primarily in the United States, Canada, and Australia, (yes it used to  be made here) the former for the same purpose in most other countries of the world. The third type is the “Battery Cup” type of primer used in shotshell cases, be they brass, plastic or in days gone bye paper. It is also used to in rare steel metallic shotshell cases.  Europe (once completely standardized on Berdan) but now  produces quite a lot of Boxer-primed ammunition.
Ignition of powder in a barrel or chamber has been accomplished down through history by weird and wondrous means. First came the application of a glowing coal, hot wire or slow-match to a touch hole leading to the main charge, the cannon lock and matchlock, which was eventually refined to the point where a trigger moved a slow-match into contact with priming powder.
The intricately wrought (like a clock mechanism) wheellock followed. It spun a serrated wheel against which a piece of pyrites or flint-like stone was pressed. Sparks were generated to ignite priming powder. It is doubtful, in my opinion, that any firearm mechanism since (or before, for that matter) has even produced such skilled craftsmen. Those who produced ornate, delicately chiseled and sculptured  wheellocks during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have gone unmatched in skill ever since.
Eventually the very expensive wheellock gave way to new forms where a flint was struck against an angled, roughened steel plate to throw a shower of sparks into a pan of priming powder.
This type evolved into the true flintlock familiar to us in the Brown Bess or Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone type Kentucky and Pennsylvania rifles. In its most highly developed form, the flintlock ruled the world for nearly two centuries, but still left much to be desired. Untold numbers of thinkers strove to improve upon it.
Chemical compounds such as the fulminates of gold and mercury had been known since the mid-seventeenth century. However, no practical use for them had been found. Their characteristic of exploding at the slightest blow made them useless as “working” explosives.
The Reverend Alexander John Forsyth, Scotch clergyman, had interests other than the mere saving of Presbyterian souls. He saw in the dangerous fulminates a way to rid gunners of dependence upon flint and steel. Forsyth’s development was a fulminate that could be handled with a fair degree of safety, yet would explode violently when struck sharply. in 1805, he announced his “Detonating Powder” as admirably suited to ignition of firearms.
Detonating powder was used in a number of ways. Loose, it was placed in a magazine which discharged a measured amount as required into a shallow cavity of the gun lock. When struck by the hammer, it exploded and flame flashed through a hole to ignite the black powder propelling charge. Some locks of this type were called “scent bottle” locks because the pivoted powder magazine resembled perfume flagons of the period. Forsyth built this type of lock, but it was not too successful, what with the possibility (and none too remote, at that) of the detonating powder container exploding grenade like in a shooter’s face. Even the most free-thinking rifleman values his eyes rather highly.
Forsyth also encased detonating powder in soft metal tubes (for waterproofing and ease of handling) which could be struck by the hammer. At least one form used a long tube of powder from which a knife-edge on the descending hammer sheared off short lengths. Just how one could expect the hammer to shear off a short length without exploding the entire tube is not clear. Only the severed section was intended to detonate and fire the main charge. This lock type was short-lived, and not widely used.
The Pill Lock utilized small pellets of detonating powder. The powder was mixed with a binder (some form of gum) and rolled into small roundish “pills.” These fiery (and dangerous) pellets were placed in a cavity from which a flash hole led to the propelling charge. A protruding nose on the hammer entered the cavity to crush and detonate the pellet, which in turn flashed through to ignite the black powder in the barrel. Pill Locks could be water-proofed by closing the cavity (over the properly seated pill) with wax. This most practical use of Forsyth’s powder was the development of an American named Guthrie.
A logical development of the detonating pill was to encase the powder in sealed metal, paper, or foil “caps” which could be handled more easily. Countless inventors worked with the idea. Pauly, of Paris, made paper caps, Dreyse made metal ones in 1824, and later used them in the celebrated “Needle Gun” (Zundnadel Gewehr) cartridges.
Of the many methods for encasing detonating powder, none were particularly efficient or long-lived until an Englishman turned-American artist and sportsman entered the picture. Joshua Shaw (1776-1860) arrived in Bordenton, N.J. in 1814, and soon moved to Philadelphia, continuing to reside there the balance of his life. Shaw is reported to have gotten the basic percussion cap idea in England, but kept it to himself until arriving in New Jersey.
Like most worthwhile ideas, Shaw’s was simple. Make a small, thin metal cup and place detonating powder (mixed with a gum to make it cohesive) in the bottom of the cup. A nipple (cone) was supplied over which the inverted cup (cap) was pressed. The fit was tight enough to insure the cap would not fall off in normal handling of  the arm. The nipple was drilled through its length, the passage communicating with the propelling charge. When the gun was fired, the heavy hammer crushed the soft cap against the nipple, igniting the detonating powder. Flame flashed through the nipple to ignite the main charge. As an added, and certainly valuable, refinement, Shaw covered the pellet of powder with a disc of thin metal foil, shellacked or varnished in place. This not only held the pellet securely, but waterproofed the cap.
Shaw’s first caps were made of thin steel in 1814, in essentially the same form the percussion cap still carries today. They were not satisfactory, so he switched to pewter, and finally again in 1816, to the ideal material, the soft copper used ever since. The compound used changed as he went along, too. Potassium chlorate used in early caps was too touchy. The standardized compound evolved as a mixture of fulminate of mercury, chlorate of potash, and ground glass, which served admirably for nearly the entire percussion period.
The malleable copper cup which would cling tightly to the nipple and not shatter when fired, made Shaw’s percussion cup the safest and surest form of ignition firearms had yet known. They were extremely simple to use, not expensive to manufacture, were relatively free of danger of accidental explosion, and were sure-fire, even in rain.
Hundreds of other inventors got into the act, and dozens in Europe and England claimed to have invented the cap before Shaw. It was a time of much experimentation and some of the claimants may have had an edge on Shaw, but it seems unlikely. In any event, only a few years were required for the percussion cap to become the standard form of ignition over virtually all of the civilized world.
Continued in Edition 57.