Zulu Dawn:“Excuse me, my Lord, there's something I must convey to you. I rode along the track down to Rorke's Drift. The sky above is red with fire. Your orders my Lord? Do we move to the drift?”
Fair use notice.
This website may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorised by the copyright owner.
We are making such material and images are available in our efforts to advance the understanding of the “Anglo Zulu War of 1879. For educational & recreational purposes.
We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material, as provided for in UK copyright law. The information is purely for educational and research purposes only. No profit is made from any part of this website.
If you hold the copyright on any material on the site, or material refers to you, and you would like it to be removed, please let us know and we will work with you to reach a resolution.
Thanks LH, That would make sense, in that Rifle Nipples were found in the captured cannons from Isandlwana. We know Smith never had time to spike the cannon's but I'm guessing he may have had time to drop these in.
Would spare nipples, have been available in the event one's in use were damaged?
timothylrose
Posts : 92 Join date : 2013-09-07
Subject: Re: MH Rifle Nipples Fri Feb 07, 2014 8:16 am
OK in basic terms rifle nipples are mainly for percussion weapons - Brown Besses were flintlocks and didn't use them as an ignition system - so basically they would have been from Enfields and similar period guns - the Snider sort of used something similar but with a sprung firing pin rather than the "top hat" cap used to ignite the Enfields. The Martini didn't have that firing system at all.
There is no evidence to suggest that gunners spiked the guns at Isandlwana nor would it be logical to do so - after all if you had got away you might have wanted to use the guns to cover others retreats etc - it is more likely that the Nipples were used by Zulus to try and get the guns to fire in lieu of friction tubes (given a rudimentary idea of firing systems a big gun works the same as my old trade musket so this should work then????) and they would have tried them to see if they could get a bang out of the guns.
John - in Regular use in the 1850's spare nipples would have been carried on the front line by Sgts - they were also issued with an armourers tool to replace them - by this period the guns around using them would be 20 years obsolete and either in the hands of the NNC, a few colonials or the Zulus as trade pieces so doubt whether many were kicking about spare and certainly not in the pocket of an regular artilleryman.
My Zulu Brown Bess has been converted from flint to percussion with an 1872 Enfield lock and then probably sold to the Zulus in the build up to the outbreak of the War when the country was awash with cheap, poor quality, obsolete firearms.
Hope some of that helps - atb Tim
John
Posts : 2557 Join date : 2009-04-06 Age : 59 Location : UK
Thanks Tim. This is what led me to ask the question below. Do these rifle nipples standout or would it require someone with knowledge to extract the nipple.
Posts : 552 Join date : 2009-10-14 Location : Loughborough
Subject: Re: MH Rifle Nipples Sat Feb 08, 2014 7:42 am
Here is the nipple from an Enfield Rifle, they were designed to unscrew for maintaining the rifle. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Home 
Gallery 
Search 
Register 
Log in 
does anyone have a photo and diamentions !
think muzzle loader..ie, Brown Bess.
