Name that caliber 2..........

[fred cook]

.50 Navy rolling block pistol. It is an inside primed round with the telltell crimps just above the rim. The case is a balloon head style so it is easy to mistake one of these for a rimfire. The US Navy bought a couple thousand of the Remington rolling block pistols, some in 1865 and some in 1867. There was also an Army version of this pistol that used a slightly different round, also 50 caliber.

[fred cook]

.54 Burnside carbine round. Required a separate percussion cap to fire. Wierd design, but these guns were popular with the Union calvary troopers as they were very reliable and easy to clean and maintain. As long as they are not damaged (mashed) the cases can be reloaded.

[fred cook]

a .58 Carbine inside primed centerfire round circa 1867-8. It replaced the .58 rimfire round originally used in the Springfield rifles converted to breechloaders. The inside primed cases were of the balloon head style but having the primer assembly in the base made them less likely to burst at the rim. These rounds were only used/made for 3-4 years until the outside primed center fire ammunition was developed. Of course, the .58 caliber was used to allow the original barrels in the Springfield muzzle loaders to be retained thus lessening the cost to rebuild them into breechloaders.

[fred cook]

.577 Snider with the coiled brass case. This is an externally primed centerfire cartridge for the British Snider rifles and carbines. The Sniders came along about the same time as the Springfield Trapdoors. The design was created by an American who offered his conversion method to the U.S. but was turned down. He then took the idea to the British where it was adopted. The British Snider rifles and carbines were used well into the next century, especially in areas like India and Afganistan.

[fred cook]

The cartridge on the left is the very rare Winchester 70-150-900 centerfire round. The numbers indicated a bore of .70 caliber, 150 grains of black powder and a 900 grain bullet. While the case appears to be a necked down brass 12 gauge piece, it is actually a special case made to use a large rifle prime instead of a shotgun primer. I can't even begin to imagine the recoil this thing must have generated! Depending on who you believe, Winchester made either one or a very small number of double rifles based on their 12 gauge shotgun frame. It is thought that most of the examples of this cartridge have come from Winchester bullet boards from the late 1880s. As far as I know, no one at this point in time claims to have one of the double rifles or knows where one is located. Winchester did make a few double rifles chambered for the 45-70 cartridge but that, of course was a much smaller (.45 caliber vs .70 caliber) bullet.