A Contribution to the History of the Confederate Ordnance Bureau (Part 4 of Round Ball to Rimfire: A History of Civil War Small Arms Ammunition)

Though I've not had the pleasure of reading the first three parts, "Roundball to Rimfire -- Part Four" is a comprehensively detailed, scholarly read with excellent B & W photographs and illustrations. Printed on glossy, durable paper (the volume is unusually heavy for its size) it is certainly the best history of Confederate ordinance available today, and will prove tough to improve upon. If you are a Confederate reenactor, CW buff, shoot a Whitworth or Enfield reproduction, have more than a general interest in black powder firearms and manufacture, or seek a deeper understanding of the Confederate wartime infrastructure, you will enjoy this book.

Volume 4 of Dean S Thomas' 4 Volume Study of Civil War Small Arms Ammunition named Round Ball to Rinfire: A History of Civil War Small Arms Ammunition.is subtitled A Contribution to the History of the Confederate Ordnance Bureau. This Volume Cover Confederate Small arms Ammunition as well as the Confederate Ordnance Bureau

If into relic hunting you need it on your shelf

good series

Good Read!

great book ifyou collect civil war ammo

The first three volumes of ROUND BALL TO RIMFIRE were masterpieces of archival research, mining original Civil War documents to provide a complete history of Union small-arms ammunition. Volume 4 applies the same rigorous scholarship to Confederate ammunition.Although the author is too modest to say so, this book completely shatters a long-lasting paradigm that reads something like this: The Confederate Army Ordnance Department escaped the cronyism and incompetence that marred other aspects of the CSA war economy. Led by a brilliant professional Old Army ordnance officer raised in Pennsylvania, this organization created an ammunition industry from nothing that kept the rebel armies amply supplied with ammunition right up to the end, while food, clothing, shoes, and everything else ran out.You can read some minor variation of this story in dozens of books. The problem is that this version of the Ordnance Department's performance traces back to postwar writings by that same officer, Josiah Gorgas. As filtered and amplified by Frank Vandiver's biography PLOWSHARES INTO SWORDS, it has become gospel among Civil War enthusiasts.The original documents that the author has ferreted out of the jumbled Confederate archives reveal that ammunition production was just as badly managed as the railroads or the often-maligned Subsistence Bureau. The field armies may seldom have run out of ammunition, but that ammo was often badly designed, badly made, and more or less useless.For example, in 1861 the CSA began using three different designs of bullet requiring three different styles of paper cartridge and three very different loading techniques. The Gardner pattern machine-made cartridge was immediately denounced by field officers as useless, since it fell apart quickly in transport. But Gorgas kept it in production until 1864, probably because was an all-Dixie invention. Then he tried to standardized on the British greased-paper cartridge, only to find that adequately thin paper could not be made in the South. Only near the end of the war was there a standard design -- the old US grooved bullet and cartridge that should have been used from the start. The front-line troops were baffled by this variety - a test shoot by a veteran Texas regiment in 1863 revealed that only about 25% loaded and aimed their rifles correctly.As for quality, the Minie ball actually requires considerable precision in diameter if it is to load easily and take the rifling properly. Cast bullets usually come out of the mould too big and need to be swaged down in a sizing die. CSA bullets often missed this process or were swaged in worn-out dies, leading to constant complaints that bullets were too big to fit in the guns. Believe it or not, even buckshot was frequently grossly oversize.I eagerly await the remaining volumes of this work, and hope that someone will undertake a similar comprehensive work on Civil War artillery ammunition.

CONFEDERATE SMALL ARMS AMMUNITIONDean Thomas's new book has been published and is available. I don't tell you this because I am selling it but because it is the most important book ever written on the subject of Confederate small arms ammunition production and use.If you already have any of the 3 volumes in his "ROUND BALL TO RIMFIRE" series you can skip the next part because you already know this.Dean Thomas is the finest scholarly author who writes about ammunition of the period. He researches with a passion for historical accuracy and a collector's eye.Every collector of ammuniton of the Civil War and earlier period of US history needs his books.I don't collect this period but I buy his books to be able to know what I see and what I am talking about.I don't sell many printed books. Of the 1000+ titles in CSAEOD ARCHIVES offerings only 3 are printed books. All the rest are CDBs. These are books and manuals scanned and digitized on CD.This is one book which I am offering to my buyers as a service to them. I would rather sell CDs BUT this book is IMPORTANT !It is only available in print form.The current volume shows illustrations of hundreds of types of projectiles and various cartridges manufactured and used by the Confederacy as well as imported ammunition and percussion caps.312 pages ,finest quality , hardbound with hundreds of illustrations.This book is a must for collectors who want to be educated about US Civil War ammunition.