Nice shooting for sure Buckshot! I'm trying to find some way of shooting smokeless in mine. Would love to use Unique but cant find any. I tried Trail Boss today but the stuff would not ignite. Going to try 700X as a friend uses it in his 577/450.
Nice shooting for sure Buckshot! I'm trying to find some way of shooting smokeless in mine. Would love to use Unique but cant find any. I tried Trail Boss today but the stuff would not ignite. Going to try 700X as a friend uses it in his 577/450.
.............A couple weeks back I tried a couple other slower powders in the Snider with the same setup of RB, wad and lube. Didn't turn out so well, but I was treading untrod (to me anyway) ground. First up was 28.2 grs of IMR4198:
HIGH: 888.2 LOW: 128.2 EX SPREAD: 760.0
In that mix were some 302 FPS and 221 FPS and 552 FPS. Not to shiney. Didn't use a filler of any kind. Pleanty of unburned powder in the case and down the barrel. Next up was 27.0 grs SR4759.
HIGH: 1023.6 LOW: 946.8 EX SPREAD: 76.8
Obviously much better. Again there was no filler used. Fired at 50 yards the 2 groups were, ah ...........esoteric? Might try again but this time start with a cornmeal filler and maybe a Mag primer. Then load 5 of each increasing the charge 2 grs at a time. Then again I have a mould for some 460gr .595" FN pure lead boolits. Not really a full on Minie' type with the deep base cavity. It has a very shallow cavity maybe 1/8" deep, but since this is smokless I doubt a deep cavity would make that much difference, but the heavier slug will.
................Buckshot
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A bit of an update in my quest for the best group that I can get out of my Snider,,,,,
https://i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/aM7bdfBsd08/mqdefault.webp
I would hate to seem to insult anyone's intelligence, but I suppose that bore has... er... rifling in it? I've just measured a bullet taken from an original rolled brass case, and it is a true .577in. diameter. Bore diameter was pretty tightly controlled at the time and I can't see it being made to a .591 grove diameter. Other nations used Sniders for cartridges of their own, but I can find none that match up.
If it was in British civilian ownership there would have been several decades in which the rifle would be subject to quite intrusive licensing but a smoothbore, assuming it wasn't the cavalry carbine, would have been totally uncontrolled. So quite a few of them were smoothbored, and made pretty fair utility shotguns.
The dimensions given in "Cartridges of the World" are incorrect. I would be very surprised if it ever had a .570in. bullet, a dimension which possibly derives from the original muzzle-loader, under the paper patch, from which the first Sniders were converted. The head diameter is given as .602in., the same as the 28ga shotgun shell, but in fact even the rolled brass case is larger, while the short iron head tapered up to about .66in. before the rim. The conversion would most likely have been to 24ga, which was a rarer one in the UK than in France and Belgium. It might be significant that drills and reamers in whole millimeter or inch sizes would have been an economy in such a conversion, and 15mm. is .5906in.
Sniders were used in the Indian Army throughout the 19th century, diminishing greatly towards its end, but occasionally even later by British and Indian camp guards on the Border, with shot cartridges. The logic was that it would increase your chances of hitting a rifle thief in the dark, without too much danger to soldiers further away. Enfield muzzle-loaders were smoothbored for the Indian Army before they were fully rehabilitated after the great Mutiny, and it is possible that those Sniders, which were probably organized on a unit basis, also were. But I haven't heard so.
I have a copy of the manual for Bengal and Punjab cavalry, published in 1893, and soldiers were allowed to have personal weapons, registered and lodged in the armoury. The list of authorized types included a gun (i.e. smoothbore), but no weapon superior to those issued in the soldier's unit. Officers were prohibited from giving a rifle to any soldier whose home was on or near the northwest frontier. Any arms they took on leave had to be entered on their leave certificate, and for those living in the unorganized territory or Afghanistan, any anyone with an inherited blood-feud needed something, if you were to get him back again. A few smoothbored Sniders, effective but not too likely to lead others into crime, would be very natural things for a regiment or individuals to have.
Last edited by Ballistics in Scotland; 10-08-2015 at 05:36 AM.
Two of my shooting buddies also have Snider "rifles",,, mine and theirs all slug out to .590"
Another video, this one about my auxiliary cartridge for target plinking with the Snider ,,,, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh2J3SJaW3g
It has been a while (lots of time is needed for R&D,,, LOL) but I think that I can now answer this question. I picked up a Lyman mold at a gun show that throws a .577 bullet,,, here is how I got it shooting,,,
https://youtu.be/JDEFuBNHd7s
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |