Thanks, Gene, very useful. The question I'm trying to answer is when some pin-fire cartridges began being loaded with nitrocellulose gun-cotton instead of black powder. There may have been some sources of gun-cotton very early on, with some gunmakers offering to load primed hulls (of English or French origin) with the new powders at the request of clients, as alluded to by Mr Norton. It may well be that Thomas Prentice & Co. was the first cartridge firm to offer commercial ready-made gun-cotton cartridges, in 1863; Schultze’s semi-smokeless powder became available in 1865 or 1865. "Dixon's gun-cloth" was available from the gun-wadding manufacturer Bussey Smith & Co. (George Gibson Bussey) from at least 1866. Quantities of gun-cotton might have been limited, shown by The Field's 1866 trial being unable to source enough of the new cartridges for the public trial. The EC powder company started around 1884, and in 1898/9 the E C & Schultze Powder Company was formed; anything marked thus would be after that date, as you surmised with your label information. The label provides dram-to-grain conversion information, which is very interesting indeed. It is nice when pieces of the puzzle mesh together.

Here is a Bussey & Smith advert for 1867 (in the Mercantile Navy List and Maritime Directory):
[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

Last edited by Steve Nash; 08/06/24 05:21 PM.