Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Early smokeless ammo

Which came first, the ammo or the rifle?

I thought the trials rifles were made for smokeless powder. Black powder cartridges were sold for a while to appease the hard headed old varts that refused to let go.

Was there a price difference between the new smokeless and older black powder ammo back then? Also, I suspect the factories really wanted to use up the heavy investment they had in black powder and ammo on the market before they discontinued sales of the older stuff at the dawn smokeless.

Powder first..

1889 - Smokeless Powders including Hengst, Maxim.

But this shows how very new it was when Arthur started designing for it.

https://books.google.com/books?id=t...qgEQ6AEIPTAE#v=onepage&q&f=false

I just thought the add was interesting as .303 Savage ammo was available in 1895. Never really thought about it before I guess.
So in 1895 the Model 1895 as we know it may have been in the process of being setup and produced by Marlin.
Did the military trial rifles come before 1895? And who manufactured them? When? They were the military rifle, true?

Arthur was doing tests of smokeless cartridges in the spring of 1893, and by August he had Colt building prototype 1895(s?) based on the design sheets we saw. We "presume" it was in 303 Savage, but not sure there's evidence to back that up.

Not sure which military rifles you are referring to. The 1892 trials gun came before, but it wasn't 303 Savage and would have probably just used government ammunition. The 1896 NY military trials came after this.

In 1895, UMC was manufacturing the "Savage" ammunition. Boxes were labelled UMC and Savage Repeating Arms, headstamp was SRAC.

Interesting to see smokeless available for all the other cartridges. Good find!

So were the 1896 trial rifles sporting rifles or military rifles? I had thought military for some reason.
I ask because Marlin had just started sporting rifle production in 1896 and wondering if Marlin built the military rifles too. Or who did?

The 1896 NY trial gun was a musket, and they showed one saddle ring carbine to the panel as well.

Marlin built the 1895 muskets as far as we know. Almost all the muskets were converted back to sporting rifles and sold.

For those that enjoy history and old ammo info, here is UMC/Remington info from 1909.
Looks like black powder is alive and kicking although on the way out.

UMC/Remington 1909

A modern day book that would equate the old powders like Hengst' and Maxim' to modern day smokeless powders would put a lot of light on the subject of how to reload cartridges for calibers like 40-72 Winchester , .32 Long Colt and others of the transitional era.

The price for 1000 rounds of .30-30 in 1909 shows $35. Putting that figure in a 1913 vs 2018 inflation calculator it shows $17.88 per 20 rounds. Not too far off.

The price for 1000 rounds of .22 LR in 1909 shows $6. Putting that figure in a 1913 vs 2018 inflation calculator it shows $7.66 per 50 rounds. That is around double the current price for CCI Mini Mags.

Never mind. There is a sticky above "New York Military Trials" I should have read.
Not that the info contained is settled law. But maybe someday it will...