Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1915-04-30
CARTRIDGES FOR THE ARMY
Modern Requirements Call for Bill
lions.

lions.
How long will 5,OO0,0O0,000 cart
ridges last in a war Of the size Of the
present one? How much copper has
Germany on hand from which to
make new cartridges for the infantry
rifles and machine guns, and driving
bands for the shells Of all sizes?
Great Britain has declared copper
contraband for war, and Is trying to
stop its going to any port whence 1t
might reach Germany. Other things
might end the war more speedily,
but when the supply Of copper quits.
then the war OUTS likewise. The
Germans were reported to have had
nearly 5000, 10000! rifle cartridges on
hand when the ar broke out. They
probably have 100000 men under
arms, possibly more. They have
thousands Of machine guns, each of
which eats up cartridges as fast as a
whole infantry battalion. Twelve
hundred and fifty rounds per soldier,
excluding the machine guns, and the
5,000,000,000 cartridges are gone.
Without doubt the Germans are re-
duced already to picking up the fired
cases when it is feasible to do 80.
Trench fighting Is particularly well
adapted to this purpose, while from a
machine gun the elected cases are
thrown so uniformally that a basket
would catch practically all of them.
The German cartridge cases are not
well adapted to being reloaded. The
American government reloads the fir
ed rifle cartridges, and the require
ments specify that each case must
stand twenty such reloadings with
out splitting or giving way at any
spot. Hundreds Of thousands of fired
certridges are reloaded by the United
States army each year, and the econ
omy thereof is great because while the
completed loaded cartridge costs 1-2
cents the case itself costs nearly
l 1-2 cents, saving of go per cent
through reloading.
Both the German authorities and
Sir Charles Ross, the designer Of the
Canadian army rifle. have experiment.
ed with the manufacture of steel
cartridge cases. Ross produced them
but they were too costly to be COM
mercially practicable
The start Of the brass cartridge
cases is a fiat disk OF copper-zinc al
10y. 1t goes through battery Of
drawing presses until it has been
drawn out to a brass cylinder, about
the length of the complete shell.
Then the head is formed from the
thick brass left in the base. During
these drawing operations the case has
to be frequently annealed. the process
making the brass very brittle In
American cartridges the final opera
tiOn is to meek down the cylinder
to the proper bottle-neck form for
that particular rifle. In the British
service, where the cordite powder Is
loaded in the form Of tubular strips
the powder is inserted before the case
is necked down. Every shell has to
he gauged to make sure it will
chamber in the rifle, for a bad one
might jam a rifle or tie up a machine
gun for n day.
Brass instead of pure copper is
used, being thrust against the cham
her walls in the rifle by the terrific
pressure. If tesilency to spring
back to form after firing, does not
exist then. it cannot he extracted.
So the temper Of the finished shell is
very important II it is too brittle,
it will split at the neck or break off
at the base. disabling the weapon. If
it is too soft. it will upset or swell in
to the chambers most minute rough
spot and cannot he extracted.
The chamber pressure of the rifles
used in the war ranges from 10000
pounds to $4,000 pounds per square
inch of chamber area. The actual
thrust on the head Of the bolt