Cartridge | Ammunition - Britannica

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cartridge, in weaponry, unit of small-arms ammunition, composed of a metal (usually brass) case, a propellant charge, a projectile or bullet, and a primer. The first cartridges, appearing in the second half of the 16th century, consisted merely of charges of powder wrapped in paper; the ball was loaded separately. During the next century, methods of including the ball with the powder were devised. In muzzle-loading a musket, the soldier bit off the end of the paper cartridge, poured a small amount of the powder into the firing pan, poured the rest down the barrel, and rammed the ball and paper down after it.

The breech-loading rifle and various multishot weapons of the 19th century made possible loading the entire cartridge as a unit; many varieties were developed, using paper, linen, animal tissue, collodion, metal, rubber, and other materials. All required an external spark to ignite the propellant. In 1847 a Paris gunsmith, B. Houllier, patented the first cartridge, capable of being fired by the blow of the gun’s hammer. In one type, a pin was driven into the cartridge by the hammer action; in the other, a primer charge of fulminate of mercury was exploded in the cartridge rim. Later improvements changed the point of impact from the rim to the centre of the cartridge, where a percussion cap was inserted. The cartridge with a percussion cap, or cup, centred on the base of the cartridge—centre-fire—predominated in all larger calibres, but rimfire cartridges remain popular in small-bore, low-powered ammunition, e.g., .22 calibre. Smokeless nitrocellulose powder replaced black powder as the propellant in the late 19th century.

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Also in the 19th century, the round ball was replaced by the elongated, or cylindroconoidal, Minié ball, as it was commonly called, with a cavity in the base that expanded on explosion of the charge to engage the rifling threads in the gun barrel. Shotgun cartridges are made of paper or plastic instead of brass.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.