#model 1855

Maynard Tape Primer

In 1845 Edward Maynard, a firearms inventor from New York, patented a system which could automatically prime a percussion musket. The US Army adopted its first percussion musket, the Model 1842, in 1842 to replace earlier flintlocks. In 1855 the US moved to replace its smoothbores and adopt a Rifle-Musket. While the percussion lock was a major improvement over the flintlock - it was quicker to load, more reliable in the field and less vulnerable to the weather, it still did not fundamentally reduce the step to load a musket.

The Model 1855 introduced not only the revolutionary Minié ball but also featured Maynard’s ingenious tape primer. Maynard’s attempt to improve upon the percussion cap system used a coiled tape of mercury fulminate, similar to a cap gun, inside its action.

Patent drawing showing Maynard’s ‘Primer Cock’ (source)

Inside, what Maynard himself called the ‘Primer Cock’, was a roll of primer tape was fed up out of a magazine to align with the weapon’s nipple. The pistol or musket still had to be loaded conventionally from the muzzle. The tape was advance automatically when the weapon’s hammer was cocked. A spurred cog rotated pushing the primer tape upwards and out of the magazine. Conventional percussion caps should still be used if Maynard’s tape was not available.

M1855 Rifle-Musket’s lock with the Maynard tape primer loaded with a tape (source)

In his patent Maynard described his tape primers: 

“A strip of paper, either in a moist or dry state is, by means of appropriate instruments and by the application of pressure, forced out into cup forms... the spaces between the cups being sufficient to prevent the communication of fire from one to the other. These cups are filled with the percussion or fulminating mixture, even with the original surface of the strip, it is then coated with a varnish of gum lack dissolved in alcohol, and covered with a thin strip of paper, and the whole is then varnished over”

Maynard claimed that this coupled with the tape magazine door rendered the primers “imperviable to moisture”. 

Maynard’s primer system was used in a host of different weapons during the period. These included the Model 1855 Rifle-Musket (see image #4 & #5), the Model 1855 Pistol-Carbine and some Model 1840 muskets were retrofitted by  Dan Nippes with new percussion lock’s including Maynard Tape Primer system (see image #1 & #2). Maynard licensed his design to various manufacturers including the Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company and the Massachusetts Arms Company used Maynard’s primer system in the Greene-pattern carbines they manufactured.

Springfield Armory Model 1855 Pistol-Carbine with Maynard Tape Primer (source)

The US Ordnance Department took interest in Maynard’s system, allegedly at the behest of Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, and negotiated a license to place the system on various weapons at $1 per musket. Maynard was eventually paid a lump sum of $50,000 by the US government in early 1854 for unlimited use of the system. A new percussion rifle-musket, the Model 1855, was subsequently introduced using Maynard’s tape primer - over 50,000 Model 1855s were made.  

Problems with Maynard’s system soon became apparent. It was noted with some of the Nippes converted muskets that one strike of the hammer could set off as many as three caps. A more serious problem was that the tape was not sufficiently waterproofed for the rigours of use in the field. Troop trials with the tape primer Model 1855s found that as many as half of the primers misfired while the springs that fed the tape also suffered problems. Despite their waterproofing the tape primes struggled in the damp and the system was eventually abandoned. The US Army returned to the more conventional method of using percussion caps and the subsequent Model 1861 Rifle-Musket dispensed with Maynard’s tape primer system. Edward Maynard continued to develop firearms designs, including a breech-loading carbine, and died in 1891, aged 78.

Sources:

Images: 1 2 3 4 5

‘Priming Cock’, US Patent #4208, E. Maynard, 22 Sept. 1845, (source)

The Maynard Tape Primer, Firearms History, (source)

A Dentist's Innovations: Dr Edward Maynard's Tape Primers & Carbines, E. Ortner, (source)