Just read a magazine article reviewing an imported 1911 pistol. In it, the author mentioned that a family member had fought in the Philippine Insurrection and had told him stories about how the 1911 was "frequently" used on charging Moros.
One episode of Book TV I watched the author of
The Lost Papers of Confederate General John Bell Hood
General Hood was working on a book before the died, and all of the records he had written and assimilated were not found till recently. General Hood had lost an arm and a leg due to combat injuries. Since WW2 many books have claimed that General Hood was doped up on morphine prior to the disastrous battle of Franklin. Stephen Hood, the author, traced the history of this claim. One book suggested that General Hood "
may have been under the influence" at the time of the battle, the next book claimed he
definitely was under the influence, and by the time you get into the 1990's, authors were stating as fact, the exact dosage of morphine that General Hood was taking!
I read the book. In it were the exact Doctor's notes written during General Hood's last amputation. It clearly showed that the Doctor understood morphine addiction and reduced dosages as General Hood recovered to the point that he was able to function without any morphine at all.
Very few book authors are in it for anything else but the money. And time is money. So, they compile hastily, assume the material they are plagiarizing was properly researched, and "improve" the story to create a ripping good yarn. At some point in the future, what is written is so detached from reality, to become mythical. (The Iliad and the Odyssey were stories that were sung for centuries in front of audiences before being written down. In time they developed into ripping good stories, after being massaged for maximum audience affect, but neither are very far from the actual events of the Trojan war. I believe the Trojan Horse is a ripping good story plot, not an actual event. )
I can say, I have been railing for years against the idea that lubricated cartridges
Cartridges should never be greased or oiled, and the bullets should never be greased. Grease on the cartridge or in the chamber creates excessive and hazardous pressure. It operates to reduce the size of the chamber and thus increases the density of loading and the pressure.
a quote which comes from Hatcher's Notebook. The in print writers who quote this as gospel are totally unaware, or just ignore the multitude of weapons that used greased or oiled ammunition. It really shows how most authors are not experts, don't have critical thinking abilities, quote nonsense to the point it becomes doctrine, and don't know firearms history. I think most of us here lived through the period in which Kinetic Energy was lethality. And we used to see charts, where it took this much KE to kill a deer, this much KE for a cow, much more KE for a larger animal. It was all taken very seriously and it sold a lot of guns. It was however, pseudoscience.
