[QUOTE=Martini Enfield]
FWIW, the EIC soon issued cartridges greased with a combination of vegetable oils and beeswax, and changed the loading drill so that the cartridge was torn open by hand, but by then it was too late to reverse the damage and things just deteriorated from there.
[/QUOTE]
One concern voiced by some sepoys was, amusingly enough, that even if new recruits were trained to tear, not bite, their cartridges, they might forget and bite them anyways. :rolleyes:
[QUOTE=Boozahol Squid, P.I.]
they might forget and bite them anyways.
[/QUOTE]
I’d buy that. I’ve never been shot at, but I presume it gets rather hairy. Well trained British soldiers fired with the ram rod in the barrel sometimes. 
[QUOTE=carnivorousplant]
… it gets rather hairy. Well trained British soldiers fired with the ram rod in the barrel sometimes.
[/QUOTE]
Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
[QUOTE=BMalion]
Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
[/QUOTE]
You lost me on that.
[QUOTE=carnivorousplant]
You lost me on that.
[/QUOTE]
Me too. 
Besides firing with the ram-rod still in the barrel, soldiers were also known to accidentally super-impose loads (load the rifle, get distracted by a spear or bullet whizzing past their head, forget if they’d loaded the rifle or not, load the rifle again, fire, KABOOM.)