In 1983, the collective knowledge of pinfire firearms was greatly increased when Chris C. Curtis and Gene P. Smith wrote The Pinfire System, a new book detailing pinfire guns and ammunition from around the world.

The book featured images of guns, patents, advertising, cartridges and more. It was the first book that focused on this often neglected topic that played such an important role in the history of firearms. This book has been out of print for many years and often shows up on the collectors market for a couple hundred dollars. This book has more of a focus on the cartridges than his next book, with many pages dedicated to showing pinfire cartridges and even identifying headstamps.

Chris Curtis recently sent me the last of his pinfire cartridge box collection. Some of the boxes went to my collection and the rest are offered for sale here. I will notate the ones that appeared in his books.

A lot of people get Galand and Perrin cartridges confused, so we will take a look at these French thick rim cartridges over a few upcoming articles. The 9mm French thick rim cartridges are the most straight forward so we will start with them. Above all, the important take-away from this article is that, even though it is repeated in various articles and references, there is no such thing as a “Galand-Perrin” revolver. And these cartridges were never meant to be interchangeable nor were they ever designed to be used in the same guns.

What is a Perrin Cartridge?

A Perrin cartridge is an early centerfire cartridge invented by Louis Perrin in 1859. It was designed as an internally-primed cartridge which had a percussion cap resting in a metal anvil or frame inside the cartridge.

The pinfire system was one of the most important developments in the history of firearms. It mainstreamed the concept of fully-self-contained cartridges and breech-loading firearms.

Pinfire guns were made and used everywhere and were adopted at some point by nearly every major military in the world. Read through the following articles to learn about the relationship between the United States and pinfire.

This article will take a look at some of the smallest pinfire guns and cartridges. The 2mm pinfire cartridge showed up around 1880. This is when Société Française des Munitions began producing the variations shown in the following factory drawing.

These cartridges were made for tiny pinfire revolvers that looked like miniature versions of the normal pinfire revolvers. The following image is an example of one sold by Wayne Driskill Miniature Firearms.

When it comes to pinfire cartridges, everything is a variation. Though there are thousands and thousands of variations, in this article we will focus on the 80 that came from the White & Munhall reference collection.

Henry P. White & Burton D. Munhall ran a development engineering lab that was founded in 1936. They were acknowledged as the leading private laboratory engaged in small arms and ammunition research and development. The following sales brochure from the company gives a lot of detail on the work that they did.

C.M. begs to call the attention of Gentlemen to his PATENT FIELD CLOCK GUN. It is admirably adapted for Scaring Rooks, Wood Pigeons and other Vermin; also for the protection of Young Game in the Breeding Season. It can also be used as an ordinary Alarm Gun against Burglars, Poachers and other Trespassers. The construction of the Gun is simple, and can be managed by a boy. It holds nine 16 Pin-fire Cartridges at one time, these can be set to fire at intervals from 15 minutes to 1 1/2 hours, and can be set to fire a shot at any given hour during the night or early morn by winding and setting the night before. It is one of the most useful things ever invented for Farmers, Gamekeepers and Nurserymen. The works are strong, and with care, will last a lifetime,

This article will take a look at some leather cases for holding, storing and transporting pinfire cartridges. Since pinfire cartridges had to be handled with a little more care than other types of cartridges, some people purchased pouches such as these shown to make it safer and more convenient to carry the cartridges.

First up is a leather cartouchiere that holds twenty-four 7mm pinfire cartridges. It has a simple brass locking mechanism on the front that unlocks the case when you slide it and hold it down.

Here are a couple variations of the 7mm pinfire revolver made by the Mariette family of gun-makers who lived in Cheratte, Liège, Belgium. This particular design was patented in 1862 by Servais Joseph Celestin Mariette, the son of the well known gun maker, Guillaume Mariette.

Across the Mariette family there were dozens of firearm patents registered and the designs often crossed over into patents by others in the family. There is also a lot of crossover when making the actual guns as well; for example, guns patented by Guillaume Mariette could be made and have a mark of his brother, Gilles Mariette.

This is a really unique poster detailing the price of each part of a firearm issued to men in the American Civil War. It measures 20 inches by 24 inches and was printed by the Adjutant General’s Office led by Lorenzo Thomas. It was likely provided to the regimental quartermasters in charge of accounting for ordnance stores.

There are 16 tables printed on this Civil War poster representing uniforms, garrison equipment, weapons and more. I think it likely served a couple purposes. The most obvious use was a quick reference guide to the prices of equipment to deduct from officer’s payrolls due to unaccountable losses. Most of these tables are also printed in the document, Instructions for Making Quarterly Returns of Ordnance and Ordnance Stores: As Prescribed by the General Regulations of the Army; Including Directions Respecting The Evidence Required In Settling The Ordnance Property Accounts Of Officers Leaving The Service. Prepared At The Ordnance Bureau, For The Use Of Officers Accountable For Such Property.

This is a really early underhammer pinfire pistol made in 1849 by the French gunsmith, Joseph-Célestin Dumonthier who lived in Houdan, Seine-et-Oise, France. It follows his 2 July 1849 French patent.

The whole barrel unscrews from the frame and allows you to load a single 12mm pinfire cartridge.

The Lefaucheux model 1859 carbine was a small carbine Eugène Lefaucheux made with hopes to gain military acceptance. It is a very simple design with few moving parts. It only weighs 4.5 pounds and has an overall length of 3 feet 4 inches.

There are multiple variations of this gun; some with a full metal frame, some with an automatic cartridge extractor, a percussion cap version, a double barrel version, pistols, and various bores.

This example is chambered for 12mm pinfire cartridges, has a manual extractor and a solid wood stock.

There are two levers on the gun. The one on the right is the cocking lever and also serves as the breechblock. When you raise it it opens the breech, allowing you to insert a new pinfire cartridge or remove a spent cartridge. It also cocks the extra-long hammer. The following video and image shows how this works.

Here is a selection of factory drawings/blueprints for how Eley Bros made pinfire cartridges. These blueprints date to the early 1900s.

First up is the 5mm pinfire cartridge drawing. There is a lot going on here! It lists the dimensions for the bullet, the pin, the percussion cap and the case. They also give all of the dimensions in imperial units though these cartridges were always sold by their metric designation, “5mm.”

The bullet is described of being made of 98% lead and 2% antimony. The antimony was an additive used to harden the alloy. It was a hollow bullet with an overall diameter of .207 inches, or 5.258 millimeters. It had an overall height of .300 inches or 7.62 millimeters. The bullet weight is 18 grains and the powder charge is listed as “about 1.5 grains.”

This matches up closely with examples in my collection which have a bullet weight of 18.0 grains and a powder charge of 2 grains. The overall weight is 35.2 grains.

The brass case is listed to have a mixture of 70% copper and 30% zinc to make up the alloy they used. The case had an overall length of .450 inches or 11.43 millimeters. They give the exact specifications of where to put the hole for the brass pin and even what angle the pin should be placed in the cartridge to ensure the hammers get the best hit.

There have been many articles written about Jean Samuel Pauly and his contribution to the history of firearms development. One excellent source recently looks in detail at the patents by Pauly, Roux, Picherau and Lefaucheux. You can read about it here:

Priestel dives deep into the modifications by Pauly and the successors to Pauly’s company, but there are a few other improvements to the Pauly system by other prominent gunmakers of the day that are not addressed in this publication. A couple of these were mentioned in a French gun magazine’s article in the 1970s, but other than the brief mention there, there is nothing I could find published that goes into detail on the following improvements to the Pauly gun and cartridges.

So I gathered the patents, transcribed them and will detail the improvements here!

Jacques-Joseph Plomdeur | 1825-03-31

Jacques-Joseph Plomdeur was a well known gunmaker who had a business at 25 rue des Fossés-Montmartre and later at 5 bis, rue du Faubourg-Poissonnière. He was best known for his improvements to primers and percussion caps which he held a few patents on. In the 1830s he took out many advertisements for his improvements to guns and primers such as the following:

On 31 Mar 1825, Plomdeur took out a French patent for 5 years for an improvement on Pauly guns.

There are two main areas that he addresses. First is how the hammer is connected to the plate, passing all the way through, which allowed for considerable fouling throughout the inside.