Enfield Cavity Poll.

[DANNY SPENCER]

Hi Ya Kim
Yes that is what they call a pin & cone cavity. Caused by some air not being able to vent out when the lead was poured into the mold. I refer to them as casting flaw holes, sometimes small and sometimes a gaping pit.
The flat tipped, plug, tiny cone, dish and Lovell cavities are usually typical to cold compressed formed bullet manufacture whereas the other variations of the basic conical cavities I believe were attempts to eliminate the trapping of air in casting. And yes these are common enough to find.
Thanks for taking the time to go through your Enfields; it really is helping me get a grip on these deep pattern guys.
Always clean out your cavities, it’s the first thing I check out. I’m glad you remembered what I said about the MTE’s!
Later gator.

[PCGeorge]

Kim, just for clarification:
Sometimes a cone-&-pin cavity is the result of a casting-flaw (as Danny astutely described). But a "true" cone-&-pin cavity also exists. A particularly good example of it is the .58-caliber yankee Williams Regulation minie (MM352 and MM353, and TT156a and b), formerly known as "Pistol-Carbine minies" or "Harper's Ferry" minies. A tip of the ol' kepi to Dean & Jim Thomas for providing the historically-correct identification in their book.

Regards,
Pete [PCGeorge]

[tomh]

PCGeorge,

I respectfully disagree about the William Regulation Bullet. It was designed with a conventional cone cavity but, like any nose poured bullet, voids tended to be created at the apex of the cavity plug in the mold, causing what has been interpreted as the cone and pin cavity.

I have never seen any information supporting the design of any bullet with a cone and pin cavity, and believe that any examples are just anomolies caused by the formation of air bubbles during casting.

Just a humble opinion,
TomH

[SoArk]

Hey folks,

Since I first asked about the "pin & cone" cavity Enfields I have found another..... this one fired, but low impact. I also asked a relic hunting buddy this morning about them, and he said he had 3 or 4 of them.... all Enfields. I'm going to ask him if he'll dig them out for me to look at because, the ones I have seem to have a rather uniform "pin" at the tip of the cone. Can they all be casting flaws? Thanks again to each of you who have taken the time to help this ole country boy out.

Take care,

Kim

[PCGeorge]

Tom H wrote:
>I respectfully disagree about the William Regulation Bullet. It was designed with a conventional cone cavity
>but, like any nose poured bullet, voids tended to be created at the apex of the cavity plug in the mold, causing what has
>been interpreted as the cone and pin cavity.
I have never seen any information supporting the design of any bullet with
>a cone and pin cavity, and believe that any examples are just anomalies
>caused by the formation of air bubbles during casting.
>Just a humble opinion,

Pardon my delay in replying. I've spent several days locating (and then checking the cavity of) every Williams .58 Regulation minie in my house. I also checked all the dealers' bullet lists that I could find - looking for anyone selling a "variant MM352/353 with a standard cone cavity instead of M&M's cone-&-pin cavity."

I could find no-one listing a non-c&p-cavity variant Williams .56 Regulation minie ...either in many years of old mail-order lists, or nowadays on the Internet.

Also, not one of the hundreds of MM352 or 353 Williams .58 Regulation minies I've dug (or owned) has a standard cone cavity. By the way... yes, I've checked every cavity on every minie I've ever dug - or bought. I was advised on my very first relic-digging trip (1974) to check every cavity because it might show something rare & valuable.

Therefore, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with your apparent contention that no bullet was designed with a cone-&-pin cavity ...all cone-&-pin cavity minies are merely anomalies due to casting-flaws. You are implying that the mold failed to fill properly, creating a void/bubble at the top of the cone, EVERY TIME a Williams .58 Regulation minie was cast.

Those minies are so commonly dug that almost every digger realizes they were made and issued in the hundreds-of-thousands. One would think that if the Willaims .58 Regulation's mold had a cone cavity, at least one out of two minies it produced would have a "proper" cone-cavity. But, no. How about one out of the four? No. 10%? No. 5%? No. Do even ONE PERCENT of the Williams .58 Regulation minies we dig up have a cone-cavity? Apparently not.

A final point:
We all know that a casting-flaw void at the top of the cavity causes a high likelihood of a "blow-through" when the minie is fired. Yet, blow-through Williams .58 Regulation minies are super-duper-rare ...correct? (I've seen exactly ONE in all my years of bullet-dealing and collecting.)

Therefore, in view of all the evidence-points listed above, I find it hard to believe that there's no such thing as a "genuine" (intentional, designed) cone-&-pin cavity minie.

Regards,
Pete [PCGeorge]

[tomh]

PCGeorge,

If you go to http://www.baymediapro.com/collection/bullet_search.asp and select 352 from the Mason and McKee pulldown box you can see three Williams regulation bullets in my collection. The first is as designed, a truncated cone cavity. The second two are casting flaws.

It is a fact that a flat tipped cavity can cause the formation of air bubbles in nose poured bullets. The larger the flat area, the larger the bubble. This is what contributed to the number of voids in Gardner bullets. The Gardner cavity was not flat, but was in fact flat enough and large enough area to cause this phenominon.

The Williams was designed as a truncated cone cavity bullet, with a small flat area at the apex of the cone. When pouring this bullet, if the temperatures of the molten lead and mould were too far apart a bubble would almost invariably form at the apex of the cavity.

When casting bullets for contemporary shooters care is taken to insure that the mould is heated properly and the temperature of the lead is consistant. In 19th century manufactories the stress of needing to complete as many bullets per day as humanly possible created a situation where it was unlikely that "quality control" standards were stringently maintained, resulting in the excessive number of flawed bullets that we find today.

Again, just a humble opinion based on patent info,
TomH

[ripley rebel]

Danny,
I looked through the enfields that I have dug in North Ms and don't have any deep cavity bullets. Most that have been found have been fired and it's hard to tell. If I do I will keep ya in mind.
Tim