Pinfire Cartridges from the White & Munhall Laboratory Reference Collection

9mm bullets from pinfire cartridges
Boxes that stored individual examples of the cartridges in the White & Munhall Laboratory Reference Collection
Boxes that stored individual examples of the cartridges in the White & Munhall Laboratory Reference Collection

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.

White & Munhall Laboratory Sales Brochure Page 1
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White & Munhall Laboratory Sales Brochure Page 2
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White & Munhall Laboratory Sales Brochure Page 3
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White & Munhall Laboratory Sales Brochure Page 4
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White & Munhall Laboratory Sales Brochure Page 5
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White & Munhall Laboratory Sales Brochure Page 6
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White & Munhall Laboratory Sales Brochure Page 9
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White & Munhall Laboratory Sales Brochure Page 10
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At some point many of their cartridges were sold to collectors. For the pinfire cartridges, they were stored in little white boxes with the bullet pulled and case cut open to see the primer. In many cases they also wrote the powder and bullet weight on the top of the boxes. On the specimens that were not previously measured I weighed the bullets and have included that in the dataset.

Examples of how the  White & Munhall Laboratory cut open the cartridges
Examples of how the White & Munhall Laboratory cut open the cartridges

5mm

There were 9 examples of 5mm cartridges including a blank and a shot load. All measurements for all sizes are in grains. 

Bullets from 5mm Pinfire Cartridges
Bullets from 5mm Pinfire Cartridges
Type 5mmAvgMinMaxStdDev
Projectile – Ball18.1014.4022.502.77
Projectile – Shot8.00
Powder – Ball2.00
Powder – Shot2.00
Powder – Blank2.00

7mm

The 7mm specimens contained the most examples. Of the 27 boxes, 24 were ball loads, 2 blanks and 1 shot. Eley and Kynoch had the heaviest bullets while some of Sellier & Bellot’s examples were the lightest. There does not seem to be any correlation with the amount of powder and the weight of the bullet.

Bullets from 7mm Pinfire Cartridges
Bullets from 7mm Pinfire Cartridges
Type 7mmAvgMinMaxStdDev
Projectile – Ball52.3223.8065.1010.07
Projectile – Shot31.00
Powder – Ball5.274.006.400.69
Powder – Shot3.00
Powder – Blank5.20

9mm

There were 19 examples of 9mm ball cartridges and 4 blanks. Only one of the blanks had measurements however. Eley and UMC had the heaviest bullets while VFM had the lightest.

Bullets from 9mm Pinfire Cartridges
Bullets from 9mm Pinfire Cartridges
Type 9mmAvgMinMaxStdDev
Projectile – Ball98.5778.50123.5015.16
Powder – Ball7.766.908.600.72
Powder – Blank5.90

12mm

The following picture details the 12mm cases. Most were cut down close to the bottom to allow one to easily see the primer. The crushed cases and ripped metal leads me to believe that gentleness was definitely not a guiding principle when compiling this collection.

Examples of the case and primers construction from 12mm Pinfire Cartridges
Examples of the case and primers construction from 12mm Pinfire Cartridges

There were 17 boxes of 12mm cartridges including 1 blank. The last bullet pictured below was actually not from the collection. I included it here as it is just a neat variation that has S 8 84 stamped underneath the bullet. I would love to find out information about it.

One interesting piece of data is that the American-made cartridge by C.D. Leet (top right bullet, below) only had 20.70 grains of powder. While that is nearly double any of the others, it is not quite the 25 grains ordered by the Frankford Arsenal during the American Civil War for these cartridges.

Bullets from 12mm Pinfire Cartridges
Bullets from 12mm Pinfire Cartridges
Type 12mmAvgMinMaxStdDev
Projectile – Ball167.97113.60209.8032.61
Powder – Ball11.437.2020.703.94
Powder – Blank11.50

15mm

And last up are three 15mm examples. They are all the long case variation.

Bullets from 15mm Pinfire Cartridges
Bullets from 15mm Pinfire Cartridges
Type 15mmAvgMinMaxStdDev
Projectile – Ball413.27350.50449.4054.56
Powder – Ball26.0018.2031.506.94

In 1959, the magazine, Guns & Ammo, published the following article about the White & Munhall Laboratory.

Guns & Ammo, December 1959 issue with article on the White & Munhall Laboratory
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Guns & Ammo, December 1959 issue with article on the White & Munhall Laboratory
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Guns & Ammo, December 1959 issue with article on the White & Munhall Laboratory
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Guns & Ammo, December 1959 issue with article on the White & Munhall Laboratory
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Guns & Ammo, December 1959 issue with article on the White & Munhall Laboratory
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Guns & Ammo, December 1959 issue with article on the White & Munhall Laboratory
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Guns & Ammo, December 1959 issue with article on the White & Munhall Laboratory
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Guns & Ammo, December 1959 issue with article on the White & Munhall Laboratory
Front Cover