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On page 88 of Giles & Shuey’s “One Hundred Years of Winchester Cartridge Boxes” there is the reference to a Lord Keene and a split pointed bullet used in the Winchester Express (.50-95 Express) cartridge. I tried to find out more about Lord Keene and his work on ammunition development during the Winchester era but got no results.
Does anyone have more information about Lord Keene? Google did not produce results.
I call myself a collector as it sounds better than hoarder
It’s Keane, not Keene. Bullet is shown in Greener’s The Gun, but no info on Keane. Bullet was cast with a nose plug that divided tip into 4 quadrants. Just one of countless designs to increase expansion.
Thanks Clarence!
If his name was Keane, then Winchester misspelled it on the cartridge boxes with this special bullet. It’s spelled Keene in the photos of the box shown in Giles & Shuey’s book. Of course Winchester annoyingly refers to the Sharp’s (sic) rifle in some of their catalogs describing the Single Shot rifle.
Lord Keane sounds like an interesting character. Too bad more is not known about him.
I call myself a collector as it sounds better than hoarder
Here are some fellows discussing Lord Keane’s, “cruciform expanding bullet” and they do reference Greeners book, as Clarence did. Interesting that Winchester apparently did misspell Keane’s name.
https://www.modernmuzzleloader.com/threads/cruciform-expanding-bullet-lord-keane.31977/
I would dearly love to have a box of .50-95 bullets with Keane’s bullet.
Thanks guys! We are finding a few bread crumbs along the way. I think the muzzle loader guys are attributing the design of this bullet to an earlier Lord Keane.
Also found this link on expanding bullets and it mentions they appear in the 1870’s with the advent of express rifles. See the section in the link below on history. Lord Keane is not mentioned.
I call myself a collector as it sounds better than hoarder
November 7, 2015
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A few years back I spent much of my online time on a cast bullet site and there was some discussion and experimentation with segmented nose bullets. I don’t recall mention of Lord Keane but the time period sounds familiar.
Mike
Mike, that’s an interesting observation. I don’t have a complete set of catalogs reprints from the Winchester era but I did find the Keene (sic) bullets mentioned in the Express rifle sections of the May 1, 1879, August 1, 1880, January 1, 1881 and August 1, 1881 catalogs.
When the April 1, 1882 catalog was released the Keene bullet is not mentioned. It does say that “Cartridges for this model are loaded with hollow-pointed, solid, or split-pointed bullets, as may be desired.” Not sure why the reference to Keene was dropped. Maybe Winchester was told to cease using Lord Keane’s name in their advertising?
Maybe some of our members from the UK or Commonwealth member countries knows more about this.
I call myself a collector as it sounds better than hoarder
I did some more digging and found this excellent ebook reprint of “Sporting Fire-Arms for Bush and Jungle: Or, Hints to Intending Griffs and Colonists On the Purchase, Care, and Use of Fire-Arms, With Useful Notes On Sporting Rifles” by Captain Forsyth Francis Robert Burgess, 1884. There is lots of information about express rifles, cartridges, bullets (including the Keane design), etc. It’s a free download courtesy of Google. Check it out.
I call myself a collector as it sounds better than hoarder
Bill Hockett said
I did some more digging and found this excellent ebook reprint of “Sporting Fire-Arms for Bush and Jungle: Or, Hints to Intending Griffs and Colonists On the Purchase, Care, and Use of Fire-Arms, With Useful Notes On Sporting Rifles” by Captain Forsyth Francis Robert Burgess, 1884. There is lots of information about express rifles, cartridges, bullets (including the Keane design), etc. It’s a free download courtesy of Google. Check it out.
I enjoyed the endorsement of the .50-115 and .40-90 Bullard.
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