The Maynard tape primer was a system designed by Edward Maynard to allow for more rapid reloading of

musket A musket is a muzzle-loaded long gun that appeared as a smoothbore weapon in the early 16th century, at first as a heavier variant of the arquebus, capable of penetrating plate armour. By the mid-16th century, this type of musket gradually d ...

Invention

Muskets in the early 19th century were

flintlock Flintlock is a general term for any firearm that uses a flint-striking lock (firearm), ignition mechanism, the first of which appeared in Western Europe in the early 16th century. The term may also apply to a particular form of the mechanism its ...

s, which had a high rate of misfire and performed poorly in damp and humid weather. In 1807 the first percussion ignition system was patented by

Alexander Forsyth Alexander John Forsyth (28 December 1768 – 11 June 1843) was a Scottish Church of Scotland minister who first successfully used fulminating (or 'detonating') chemicals to prime gunpowder in fire-arms thereby creating what became known as per ...

based on research on fulminates conducted by

Edward Charles Howard Edward Charles Howard FRS (28 May 1774 – 28 September 1816) the youngest brother of Bernard Howard, 12th Duke of Norfolk, was a British chemist who has been described as "the first chemical engineer of any eminence." Career In January 1799 h ...

, but practical

percussion lock The percussion cap or percussion primer, introduced in the early 1820s, is a type of single-use percussion ignition device for muzzle loader firearm locks enabling them to fire reliably in any weather condition. This crucial invention gave rise ...

systems did not become available until the 1820s, after

Alexander John Forsyth Alexander John Forsyth (28 December 1768 – 11 June 1843) was a Scottish Church of Scotland minister who first successfully used fulminating (or 'detonating') chemicals to prime gunpowder in fire-arms thereby creating what became known as per ...

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

had expired. Percussion cap systems relied on small copper caps that were filled with

mercury fulminate Mercury(II) fulminate, or Hg(CNO)2, is a primary explosive. It is highly sensitive to friction, heat and shock and is mainly used as a trigger for other explosives in percussion caps and detonators. Mercury(II) cyanate, though its chemical formula ...

. While they greatly improved the reliability of muskets and their performance in damp weather, the slow rate of fire of muskets was still an issue. Dr. Edward Maynard, a dentist with an interest in firearms, embedded tiny pellets of priming material in thin strips of paper, then glued a second strip of paper on top of the first, creating a "tape" of primer. The tape could be manufactured quickly and cheaply, since paper was much less expensive than copper. Maynard also developed an automatic feeding system that would advance the tape when the musket's

hammer A hammer is a tool, most often a hand tool, consisting of a weighted "head" fixed to a long handle that is swung to deliver an impact to a small area of an object. This can be, for example, to drive nails into wood, to shape metal (as w ...

was cocked. The hammer not only detonated the primer, but would also automatically cut the paper, thus removing the spent portion of the primer tape.

Initial reception

Maynard's new system still required the musket's

powder A powder is a dry, bulk solid composed of many very fine particles that may flow freely when shaken or tilted. Powders are a special sub-class of granular materials, although the terms ''powder'' and ''granular'' are sometimes used to distin ...

and

Minié ball The Minié ball or Minie ball, is a type of hollow-based bullet designed by Claude-Étienne Minié, inventor of the French Minié rifle, for muzzle-loading rifled muskets. It was invented in 1847 and came to prominence in the Crimean War and ...

to be loaded conventionally into the barrel, but the tape system meant that the percussion cap no longer needed to be manually loaded onto the

's nipple. This saved the soldier a step during the reloading process, which increased the soldier's overall rate of fire. The Ordnance Board was initially hesitant about the design, but the secretary of war, future

Confederate Confederacy or confederate may refer to: States or communities * Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities * Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

Jefferson Davis Jefferson F. Davis (June 3, 1808December 6, 1889) was an American politician who served as the president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as a ...

, was so enthusiastic about the design that it was installed on the

Springfield Model 1855 The Springfield Model 1855 was a rifled musket widely used in the American Civil War. It exploited the advantages of the new conical Minié ball, which could be deadly at over . It was a standard infantry weapon for Union and Confederates ali ...

rifle-musket A rifled musket, rifle musket, or rifle-musket is a type of firearm made in the mid-19th century. Originally the term referred only to muskets that had been produced as a smoothbore weapon and later had their barrels replaced with rifled barrels ...

Performance in the field

The Maynard tape worked well under controlled conditions, but proved to be unreliable in the field. The mechanism proved to be delicate and fouled easily with mud and debris. The tape had been advertised as waterproof, but moisture tended to be its worst problem. The paper strips were susceptible to adverse weather and even humidity. For later muskets like the

Springfield Model 1861 The Springfield Model 1861 was a Minié-type rifled musket used by the United States Army and Marine Corps during the American Civil War. Commonly referred to as the "Springfield" (after its original place of production, Springfield, Massachuse ...

, the Ordnance Department abandoned the Maynard system and went back to the earlier percussion lock. The M1855 was designed to use either the Maynard system or standard percussion caps, and so remained functional even with the problems of the Maynard system. Variations of the Maynard tape system are still used today in modern toy guns.

References

* Pauly, Roger (2004). ''Firearms: The Life Story of a Technology''. Greenwood Publishing Group. * Coggins, Jack (2004). ''Arms and Equipment of the Civil War''. Courier Dover Publications. {{DEFAULTSORT:Maynard Tape Primer Early modern firearms Ammunition American inventions 19th-century inventions Firearm terminology