Refusing to "bite the cartridge" was a turn of phrase used by the British in India of native Indian soldiers (sepoys) who had mutinied in 1857. It derives from the act of biting open a paper cartridge containing gunpowder and musket ball in order to load contemporary rifles, especially the new Pattern 1853 Enfield rife musket. The phrase is thought by some to have later spawned the more familiar idiom "bite the bullet".