----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, August 12, 2002 1:27
PM
Subject: mystery cartridge or trick of
the eye?
Folks,
I have a tough time analyzing
historical-period artifacts from drawings and photographs, but with the
increasing number of non-collection surveys in the West, we have to do our
best right? Anyway, I have a drawing and a fuzzy photograph of a 45-70
cartridge identified from a nineteenth-century site in south-central Arizona.
The headstamp (don't know which end the headstamp is on -- see photo) clearly
identifies the cartridge as a 45-70 carbine cartridge produced at the
Frankford Arsenal in February 1878.
Now for the tough part. Had that been all
the information provided, no problem. Identify the round, determine from notes
whether it was fired or unfired, move on. But there is this blurred digital
photo that came along with the artifact. I swear that the photo makes the
cartridge appear to have 2 bases of equal diameter. I am presuming that the
crimped portion of the cartridge (the left end in the photograph) is the
projectile, but I'll be darned if it doesn't look as though the projectile
"rim" extends beyond the plane created by the length of the cartridge!
Can someone please reassure me that it's just me eyes playing tricks on me and
that the cartridge will actually chamber.
Any help/advice/reassurance would be
appreciated.
Matthew A. Sterner, M.A., RPA
Senior
Project Director
Statistical Research, Inc.
6099 E.
Speedway Blvd.
Tucson, AZ 85712
(520)
721-4309