Black powder and .577 or .577/450?

[Tackleberry41]

Yea I do check for the washers after each shot, never had one come out. They are usually a pain to get out for cleaning, that bottle neck keeps them from going anywhere, sometimes dont move at all.

Drawings for the 577/450, I have one somewhere, but even the british didnt have very detailed specs on them. Were sort of used to bore specs on old weapons being variable, but even chamber specs for these were all over the place. As long as it would chamber and fire was apparently good enough. I think in this case you would need a chamber cast to get your outside dimensions close, then just drill it out to the internal specs of a 45-70. I bought 2 of the steel chamber inserts (577/450 - 45-70) from McAce, I have 2 rifles, they only work in one of them now.

As for volley fire, yes I expect you would hit...something. Just shows how sometimes the military has to be dragged kicking and screaming into a new era. A modern war with machine guns, rapid fire artillery, poison gas, airplanes and tanks, to use a tactic from the battle of Agincourt.

[John in PA]

Here's a recent interchange between me and some N-SSA buddies regarding shooting the '577 Snider:

Me: News flash: Recoil on the .577 Snider in a light rifle with full blackpowder loads kicks BADLY, especially off a bench. .500 grain bullet, 72 gr Schuetzen FG, cream of wheat filler and lube cake. Mild crimp. 8lb rifle with buttstock based on the military design. 8 benched, the rest offhand. Results: I feel like I took a punch in the cheekbone, and I could have fired 50-60 N-SSA musket rounds for the way my shoulder feels.
This is NOT going to be a fun shooter. Early plain-jane sporter made by a custom maker (RB Rodda) in London/Calcutta. Poor man's tiger rifle? Condition is nearly new. No wonder. Nobody could stand to shoot the darn thing!! Thankfully they cleaned and oiled it well if/when they ever shot it... Looks like it was made yesterday.


I'll have to try the Snider in a 3-band military MK III I have just to compare the recoil with a heavier rifle.

Responder:Just way too funny John!
I'm still laughing from your email!

Yup, just like being punched in the cheek by Sonny Listen, right.
Certainly...well of course...probably not...that didn't affect your group size did it!
When you get your arm outa the sling, do send a 10-shot group picture, k'.

I had a Mk III carbine for awhile. Even with standing off hand shooting, I could have sworn every time I touched a
round off, someone had swung n' smacked me in the cheek with a pool cue stick! NOT user friendly at all. I really liked that MkIII, and would have kept it, except for the smack-in-the-cheek reward for pulling the trigger! It was the straight back contour of the high comb of the butt stock that got me in the cheek. Had it been a better stock design, perhaps it wouldn't have been so bad?

No difference in the 'other than' carbine models, they all have that same straight high comb. I've not been drawn to that Enfield design ever since. I almost had a Ruger No. 3 worked over to .577, just because. Then better sense came back to me and I didn't! Most likely it wouldn't have been user friendly either?

If I recall old British History correctly, the .577 Snider's were what led the Brits to out source with private contracting. That way they could have someone else shoot their Sniders for them! Think I read that somewhere?

Me: trapdoor stock is downright comfy compared to that friggin snider! figure 500 grain bullet, 70 gr powder, straight case, Shouldn't recoil more than a .45-70? NOOOOP. Stock design (and weight--it's a fairly light gun) apparently are everything!

Responder 2: I sold a Mark III carbine to a guy on 2^nd MD for his son to use as a deer rifle. He took one shot with it at the range and said screw it.

Smart @$$ responder: Sissy...............

[Hooker53]

Is there much differance in the 577 Sniders kick and the straight 577/450 Martini Henry?? Don't look like much Diff between case capacity but the Snider case does look straighter. Makes me wonder if the 577/450 don't have a harder kick in the face. Guess I'll find out soon enough. Lol.

[.22-10-45]

Hello, Hooker53. Back in the early 1980's I was newly married & money was tight. I had bought a couple of nice Sniders when single..an artilery musketoon & a 3 band rifle. Brass was expensive & scarce as well as dies..what to do? Fortunately we still had cutter grinders for out Tool Room..so using chamber cast for dimensions I proceded to turn out of solid brass cases which were a very close fit to chamber..the I.D. was left .straight..a snug press fit to bullet dia. This and plenty of stock left in head of case gave me a capacity of 70grs..plenty enough for me. custom dia. reamers were used for I.D...turned up close fitting arbor to support O.D. turning. 2 flute end mill ground .210" took care or primer pockets. Fired cases slide right out & no sizing is needed. I tooled up for the .577/.450 M.H. also & again I.D. was straight & capacity 70grs. No sizing needed on these either. Funny thing..a couple of weeks later..G.F. wondered where all our 3/4" brass stock went?

[Hooker53]

Ha. Ha. Now that's funny right there. IV had similar things to happen in tool rooms IV worked in. I'm thinking about tooling up downstairs and run a few diminished case capacity 577's myself. Which brass did you have the best luck with? Didn't mean to hijack here.

[Ed in North Texas]

As for volley fire, yes I expect you would hit...something. Just shows how sometimes the military has to be dragged kicking and screaming into a new era. A modern war with machine guns, rapid fire artillery, poison gas, airplanes and tanks, to use a tactic from the battle of Agincourt.

Volley sights were intended for plunging fire against massed troops. Plunging fire was used long after the long bow and mounted knights, ending with experience with Hiram Maxim's machine gun and elimination of massed troop assaults. Plunging fire could also disrupt serving the guns of the shorter range direct fire horse drawn artillery of pre-20th Century armies.

Here's a classic example from long after Agincourt: http://www.militaryrifles.com/Turkey...evnaDelay.html

[sthwestvictoria]

Drawings for the 577/450, I have one somewhere, but even the british didnt have very detailed specs on them.

The case is made of sheet brass of 0.004 inch in thickness, partially covered on the inner side with paper
attached with cement. It also has a small band of 0.004 inch sheet brass attached to the inner side in such a way as that when the case is rolled up, it will be between the folds so as to prevent ‘cutting’ at the top of the base cup. There is a small hole punched in the case sheet so as the band can be seen to be in the correct position after forming. The brass sheet is assembled with brass base cups and a steel base disc which forms the rim. and inner paper annulus and a riveted primer arrangement hold the case together. The neck is closed down from .577 inch diameter to .45 inch to retain the bullet.
The case is charged with 85 grains of blackpowder. On top of the charge is placed a glazeboard disc with a
concave beeswax wad attached, after which two more glaze board wads are added. The bullet is secured by ‘choking’ the brass neck into the two bullet cannelures.
The bullet weight was 480 grains and the propellant was 85 grains of blackpowder.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/59250138/A...Australia-2004

[salpal48]

I have been loading black powder cartridges for a few years now. About a year ago I got into Sniders and Martini Henry's. Initially everything that I read about loading black powder cartridges basically stated that you fill the case with powder to the base of the bullet with a slight compression. In the end I know that nothing is ever quite that simple for good performance, but that aside it begs a question for me. Both the .577 Snider and .577/450 are loaded at far less then capacity with a filler, such as carded wool, over the load. Yesterday as I dumped 70 grs of black powder into a Snider case it struck me how much more room there is left. Why is that? I know that there are a few other old rounds that are loaded similarly, but I don't load them or have any direct experience. Why were these two British calibers loaded that way? Looking at original data and specifications it is apparent they were designed that way. Given the fairly stout recoil, especially of the .577/450, I am not excited by the idea of dramatically increasing the load, but I am curious. I know that Bad *** Wallace on this forum loads some massive loads for his Martini actioned .577. Maybe he has some input. When it comes to reloading, especially for vintage firearms, I am not adventurous. I stick to manuals and conventional wisdom. So what would happen if one loaded a .577 to the max with black powder?

The 577 snider was originally a paper shell similiar to an early shotshell measuring appox 2". the boolit was seated very deep . most always seated to the Ogive part of the boolit then paper crimp . This would let the cartridge fit easy into the chamber. . The first Model came out appox 1864 . The charge I believe stayed the same with brass. cases
The martini was similar . This had a Iron shot shell base with a Foil wrap case . . some of the specimens I have seen are so badly dented that they either do not have the big shoulder or they were foil wrapped by Hand
That is the best of my Knowledge
.

[sthwestvictoria]

Both the .577 Snider and .577/450 are loaded at far less then capacity with a filler, such as carded wool, over the load. ......

. So what would happen if one loaded a .577 to the max with black powder?

Over at BritishMilitaria forums, in the Pet Loads sticky is a 577/450 load with 115grains of BP, no filler.
http://britishmilitariaforums.yuku.c...s#.VGUss2fMa_I

[fouronesix]

Most would agree that for military purposes the earlier US standard carbine and rifle cartridges like the 50-70 and especially the 45-70, were about right in capacity and overall practicality. The US and British had parallel development from BP ML arms to BP cartridge arms. The US with Allin (and others) conversion of muskets like the M61 & 63 and later the Trapdoor itself. The British with the Snider conversion and later the MH.

For visual comparison- 45-70 (Govt.), 577/450 (paper patch), 577 ("foil" wrapped case).

[Hooker53]

Hello Fouronesix. That's a good comparison. No doubt that 70 gr of The Holy Black must be the magic number for these 577/450's. I will first insert washers in my cases to get the capacity down like Tackleberry did and if that works will turn a few out of brass C360 stock with a demenished capacity. That is if I can ever get done with the rework of the gun. I stopped at 20 inlays on the forarm and buttstock. Ha. This time of year the Finnish dries real slow on ebony.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

If you look into the history of the 577 brass cases it was to expedite conversion of Pattern 1853 x 577 Enfield muzzleloaders to a breech loader using the system designed by Mr Snider. Cases loaded for the Snider included a buckshot load as well as standard infantry loads and carbine loads for calvary and artillery use.

Both 577 Snider and later 577/450 were firstly made with foil brass material and it may be that anything smaller would have been difficult to manufacture at the time with available equipment.

I've always had a fascination for the 577 Snider as it was such a short lived round (1867-1871) and nobody seemed to 'bother' to develop it further once the Mk1 577/450 Martini Henry was introduced!

So I had the 577 "Super Snider" custom built. A Martini Henry rebarrelled with a 1:48" Lothar-Walther barrel chambered for a drawn brass case. Loaded as you would for BPCR, the case will hold 92gns FFG behind a 615gn plain based boolit! Now recoil in an 8lb rifle off a bench is just painful and the first range session left me with a bleeding face when my thumb was driven into the cheekbone and broke the skin!

I don't believe the .577/.450 rifle load ever did use a filler. The standard load was 85gr., not 70, for private soldiers in those days weren't recruited to enjoy themselves. Some space was taken up with a beeswax pellet between two card wads, which did take up some space. There was a carbine load with a lighter charge, and I suppose it is possible that a filler was used then. But it is less necessary than many think - far less so than with smokeless.

I have some of those Magtech 24ga. cases, strictly earmarked for my 24ga. Some do use them for forming .577/.450 cases, but I believe they often report splitting of the rim, and even black powder loads must be restrained ones. It isn't normally dangerous in the Martini action, but about wipes out the economy of not using Bertram etc. I find it hard to visualize exactly where the gas would go in the Snider, so I would load that even more cautiously. That rubber internal wad sounds like a good idea for preventing this, so long as you don't copy the idea for a wad which exists with the bullet. Various experimenters have found that this can produce extremely high pressure.

I think all the .577-based Express cartridges were derived from the Snider. We do see double rifles chambered for the military round, although it was short-lived in military service. If I had to guess, I would think they were made for British officers in the Indian Army, with a source of government ammunition. For it was used by Indian troops for quite a while.

That super-Snider cartridge sounds quite splendid. Bleeding cheekbone? A small price to pay... Nonsense to complain. But I wouldn't be surprised if it more or less duplicates (apart from the load) an early round. I'm a long way from my reference books, but the .450 Express (the nearly straight one, not the .500/.450) was loaded in a variety of shorter lengths, and wouldn't be surprised if it was true of the .577 as well. The short Express-based rounds probably died out around the time smokeless powder and heavy jackets turned the full-length ones from lion and antelope rifles into elephant guns. Smaller calibers provided stiff competition for less demanding game.

Still, there is a lot of shooting for which your cartridge should be excellent. It would certainly do any rifled shotgun's job, and do it better. I believe it would also be no prima donna of a cartridge to load for. It would probably be the easiest way to formidable performance for anybody who makes his own black powder.

The pasteboard cased Snider round was very short lived. I have rolled brass cases in which Snider and Martini have exactly the same attached iron base. By the time of the Martini it was already more old fashioned than it needed to be, and was probably adopted and persisted with out of economy. In 1873 Westley Richards had patented drawn brass cases which compare favourably with many balloon head cases used considerably later. Hydraulic machinery did exist then. I have seen a canal lift raising a canal boat and large chunk of water to a considerably higher level, and Armstrong the Armstrong-man was prominent in its development.

The original British Martini was planned to be for a round very similar to the 3¼in. .450 Express, and possibly its ancestor. Previous .450 Expresses were mostly necked from the .500 case. But it was modified to the more familiar shape to produce a shorter receiver. The biggest mistake made with the Martini was with Henry's rifling, polygonal with ridges in the corners. It fouled too readily. I have seen the rifle used for the barrel trials, in the Kelvingrove museum in Glasgow. Testing barrels separately from actions sounds pretty sensible. But it is a match-style muzzle loader, without ramrod, in which much of the fouling would be removed by forcing down the next paper-patched bullet. The Martini worked, until the rifles used at Rorke's Drift glowed visibly in the dark and cooked off rounds. But it was wiped out in short order by the .303 for military rifle matches, in which both were admitted.

The British army had a fine education, in Afghanistan etc., in only standing up in ranks when the enemy can be stood up to in ranks. Four ranks make a square, which on occasion was just the thing in the Sudan. Red coats in action were virtually unknown by the introduction of the Martini. There is a famous painting of the charge on Arabi Pasha's earthwork at Tel el Kebir, showing red coats, but it was unusual by that time, and may not have been so at all. Continental paintings of Omdurman are undoubtedly mistaken in this regard, a bit like an otherwise good American engraving of the Cawnpore massacres of 1857, which includes Huron-style scalplocks, like Indians wear.

The combination of charged and bullet does make the Martini superior to the .45-70 at long range, and the logic isn't hard to see. With the Minié bullet musketry had suddenly and dramatically acquired the ability to match or exceed field artillery in range. That was important, in an age without the portable support weapons of today. Artillery had got much better in a decade and a half, and it seem logical enough to want rifles to keep up.

Volley fire was extremely useful, and at times indispensable. Battle movies seldom show just how solidly the smoke-bank could build up, and individual fire just means there are never any gaps in it. Even in the smokeless age, soldiers are sometimes presented with large targets at long range, such as bodies of troops or vehicles, camps, penetrable buildings etc. A few machine-gun might get as many bullets to the spot as a company, but if everybody dives to the ground on the first shots, most will get away with it. Just try that with a synchronized volley by people who know the business.

If you have to produce new ideas in a hurry, some of them will have faults. The PIAT was developed while nobody else had a weapon for infantrymen to deliver an anti-tank charge. It had about as many pros and cons as the early Bazooka. The PIAT gave no flash or some trail pointing to the firer, and the tendency of the early Bazooka rocket to explode in the bore was a worse social liability than recoil. George Macdonald Fraser the novelist sank a heavily laden Japanese troop barge with one, with distinctly ambivalent feelings on the achievement.

[pdgh59]

I regularly shoot my 577/450's with reduced loads. I load 65-70 grains of FF and then a 50/50 mixture by volume of bp and semolina/cream of wheat. I found the 50/50 mixture on the British Militaria forum shown above. The 50/50 mixture incinerates and does not form a hard pellet. I always ensure that plain bp fills 75% of the case. My branch of the Sporting Shooters Assoc of Australia regularly has M-H competitions and the 50/50 mixture has been used for may years with out incident. One of our members has just bought half a kilo of kapok to try out. Several of us have carbines and are contemplating using the correct 400 (?) grain projectile. From memory the British did use reduced loads for carbines with lighter projectiles and these were identified by coloured (blue?) paper patches.

[Tackleberry41]

Might have to try this mixed set up, just to try it.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

The carbine patch was red or pink, although with an old round I have, I didn't know that until I pulled the bullet, since it was bleached white by light on the outside. The load was a 410gr. bullet and 70gr. of powder, instead of 480gr. and 85gr. for the rifle round. There were reports of the rifle load damaging carbines, but it might only have been a question of the wood chipping away where it meets the top rear of the action, as is common with the .577/.450 .

[Oliver]

It would be interesting to scrape the fouling out of a clean barrel, after shooting with and without a pinch of smokeless, to see both how much fouling there is, exactly (by weight) and its composition. Blackpowder does not contain enough oxygen to "burn" all the surfer and carbon, but it is possible that the actual temperature and pressure affects whether you get more leftover carbon-y fouling or suffer-y fouling, or what. Of course, analyzing the remains would be tricky. Lemme think about that for a bit....

[yulzari]

Re recoil. I fire both my Snider and Martini with service charges (even though lesser charges are very adequate at 100 metres). Standing and kneeing are no problem. Prone has a more noticeable recoil but quite bearable. From a bench rest it bruises and hurts. The moral is not to fire them from benches.

Ballistics is quite right about smoke. Volley fire needs well trained troops and officers. It essentially allows the battalion or higher commander to use his troops rifles as his own weapon on his command so that continuous effective fire can be brought to bear upon an advancing enemy. Initially by platoon to allow smoke to clear before their next shot. Then by company as the enemy closes and can be seen more easily through smoke then individual fire as they get close and can be seen even through heavy smoke. If you have a breech loadingBattalion firing continuously from a dug in position the wall of smoke will allow the enemy to advance under cover of the smoke until they become visible at about 50 metres. At Plevna controlled Turkish volley fire let them fire upon the Russian formations from well over 1km down to less than 100 metres with Peabody Martinis before swapping to Winchester lever repeaters to take down the survivors with their increased rate of fire. Had the Turks allowed their troops to simply fire at will then the Russians could have closed far more easily with far fewer losses through the resulting wall of Turkish smoke and in numbers to overcome the Winchester rate of fire.

BTW an advantage of the PIAT was that it could be fired from within an enclosed position unlike rocket powered bazookas or Panzerfausts (I recall PIRAs unfortunate [for them] decision to fire an RPG from inside a van). It could also be used as an improvised mortar. The high trajectory much increasing the effective range and allowing indirect fire.

[Bad Ass Wallace]

Having a fascination with all things Martini, I built myself a "577 Super-Snider" on a large frame Martini, 30 inch long Walther barrel.

93gns of 2P with a 620gn boolit gets your attention in a 10lb rifle!



At first outing the cheek suffered terribly!



It does shoot very well dispite the pain

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Better your own thumbnail than anybody else's. A little pain never hurt anybody, at least while it was getting you something so worthwhile.

There is a good reason for that little checkered depression on the top right of the action. Except for the left-handed, of course, but they will get used to it faster than a bolt handle.

[BRUCE MOULDS]

the 577/450 cartridge and the martini henry were a bit like the 12th man in a cricket team
they were pretty good, but did not quite make it.
the reason for this is that during the development of this system, William metford felt that the british govt owed him money, and they felt that they did not.
because of this he refused to have any involvement in said development.
bad mistake by the govt, as metford was at the forefront of long range riflery in that time.
the rifle itself, while basically sound, was known to have difficulty with ejection of spent cases.
prior to the martini henry, both muzzle loading and breech loading rifles were shooting out to 1500 yds with accuracy.
it was soon discovered that the 577/450 could retain accuracy to 900 yds, but at 1000 yds was unreliable, producing unexplained stray shots.
this was so bad that any competition events for the 577/450 martinis were limited to 900 yds maximum
british commonwealth fullbore shooting bears this legacy today, with 900 yds/800 meters being the max for many events, relying on palma shooting to go the full 1000.
why this sudden inaccuracy after 900 yds is open to conjecture, but it sounds like bullet instability.
spin decay, a high drag nose on the original bullet, and insufficient rate of twist could come together into a package that would make plunging fire, unlike the Turkish martinis, ineffective.
the 45/70 tests at sandy hook reveal what a sufficiently spun bullet can do, bullets penetrating the ground point first at extreme ranges.
the 577/450 might have done the same had metford developed it.
with all these difficulties, we must remember what happened at rorke's drift.
keep safe,
bruce.