Loading .303 with Black Powder. Will it Work?

[loadedbutbroke]

Hi, I have a Martini Enfield single shot .303 Nitro Proofed with a good bore. Putting the sights to one side, it is remarkably accurate with 38grn Vit 140 behind a 174grn (old military spec MK 7 Ball) I am about to enter a competition which requires black powder only; what load should I use? will it work?

I have Swiss #3 and #4 plus some fine powder I used for .44 percussion revolver.

I have the 170grn .303 FMJ BT Bullets PPU Open at the rear ( is this what is called a spritzer?).

I have never had much luck with cast bullets in any of my .303s but if I have to what load? My lee mould throws a 185grn boolit.


Range for comp 200 yrds

[Outpost75]

While the early .303 ammunition was loaded with black, you will need a bullet which carries enough soft lubricant to keep the fouling soft, otherwise, even with the best Swiss powder, accuracy will degrade rapidly with fouling unless the bore is wiped between shots. In my .303s I have had best results with the CBE bullets in .316" diameter. Unless you Beegle your Lee mold it will probably not cast a bullet large enough. NOE also makes a copy of the Ideal 299 bullet in .316" diameter which should work well. The best thing would be to cast your chamber and measure the diameter of the unrifled section ahead of the case mouth, before the rifling starts, and you want a bullet which fits the ball seat at the origin of rifling exactly.

To determine the correct bullet diameter for a rifle, the groove diameter of the barrel is NOT the determinant. If you forget EVERYTHING you ever read about slugging barrels and trying to measure barrel groove diameters simply cast chambers from now on, and make bullets fit the ball seat, you will be far happier in the long run.

The factor which limits bullet diameter is neck clearance. Measure the neck diameter of the chamber on the cast, and ensure that the diameter of a loaded cartridge is 0.0015" SMALLER than the chamber cast at that point, to ensure safe expansion for bullet release. Most .303 chambers are generously toleranced, so this is seldom an issue.

Attachment 129399

[45 2.1]

+1 .... excellent advice

[herbert buckland]

+ 2 0n the advice the longer 215-220 gr bullets of .214 have worked well for me,a good BP lube is essential with this ,Swiss FFF should work well,look at loading data for the BP 32-40 to get a starting point

[loadedbutbroke]

Wow some very comprehensive replies, thank you all.

First thing I had not considered properly is the fouling issue! Of course the Martini action does not lend itself to easy wiping out. In fact it will need to be done from the muzzle. Not practical me thinks for a competition
So assuming I get plenty of lube on the boolits should I be OK for 22 in a row? I think unlikely, I only have 25 minuets to complete it.

I then have 10 kneeling and 10 standing but no time limit so I should be OK for wipe out or two.

I have to use lead so my next question is how hard? I use 25:1 for my Sharps. My previous attempts with .303 were much harder. Maybe another reason they were not very good.

You might be wondering why I don't use the sharps for the comp! Unfortunately it is an unsupported shoot, both prone, kneling and standing ,but slings are allowed which the Martini has, the Sharps does not.

Adrian

[1Shirt]

It is my opinion that any centerfire can be loaded with black powder. That said, the issue then becomes how much time you are willing to invest in cleaning modern weapons fired with black powder? After trying it in 30-30, 45-70, and a couple of others years back, it shot ok, but cleaning was no fun, and a whale of a lot of extra work. To each his own I guess.
1Shirt!

[Dan Cash]

A grease wad or grease cookie under the bullet will help with fouling control but may require you to go to a 180 grain bulletto have room. A blow tube (plastic pipe that will fit into the chamber throat) inserted into the breech and 3 or 4 long breaths blown through it will keep fouling soft. The soft 25:1 alloy you use for the Sharps should work for the .303.

How much powder? All you can pack. I think the original BP charge for the .303 was 70 grains but you are not going to get that in there. I would use the #4 powder, trickle about 30 grains into the case and then compress it with about 50 lbs pressure. Fill the rest of the case (trickle the powder in) to the point you can compress the charge enough to seat the bullet and a cardboard wad. Do not use the bullet to compress the powder. If you choose to use a grease wad, you will have to reduce the powder charge a little to have enough room. Don't over do the compression or you will bulge the case and it won't chamber. With luck you will get 15 to 1700 FPS and have much fun

[45 2.1]

Something that has not been mentioned:

1. By you is whether or not the load is a straight BP load or is duplexing allowed. If duplexing is allowed, you can use a normal bore riding boolit since the duplex charge burns the solid residue from the BP out and leaves a fairly clean bore.
2. If it is a straight BP load, the BP fouling WILL NOT allow a bore riding nose design to chamber after about the second shot. BP rifles have an undersize nose boolit to allow the cartridge to chamber over the top of the fouling in the throat. The 31125 was such a design for the 303 British with BP loads and the nose is way undersize on it.

[skeet1]

I guess my question is why would anyone want to load black powder when there are so many good smokeless powders to work with? If black powder was such a good idea they would still be using it in that caliber.

Ken

[kens]

I guess my question is why would anyone want to load black powder when there are so many good smokeless powders to work with? If black powder was such a good idea they would still be using it in that caliber.

Ken

Because it is a black powder match, not, a match of old ideas vs new ideas.

[ascast]

Because it is a black powder match, not, a match of old ideas vs new ideas.

what he said, gotta start reading at the top lol

[bruce drake]

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...h-Black-Powder

Here is a bit more information from our forum on shooting blackpowder in 303 British rifles.

[loadedbutbroke]

Morning, at least it is here, just after 9am .

More excellent stuff I need to consider and I have had a look at the other thread mentioned by bruce drake.

Just a couple of quick points. The club is strictly black powder only, no duplex I am afraid. This comp is unusual in as much as it is for military rifles over .30 caliber. I am being a bit cheeky looking at my Martini in .303 because it does not have an exposed hammer. You have probably guessed that 99% of the time we shoot Sharps, High wall, Rolling Block and the ilk with the Shiloh being the most prized. However I can only dream about that and make do with my 32" Pedersoli (which actually I like very much).

Getting back to the .303 I am going to have to do some careful thinking about this fouling issue, I think can make something up to clean the chamber out between shots, its the barrel that worries me. I will also think about the blow tube idea, again I will have to make one I think.

Just as an aside my rifle was originally made in 1877 presumably as a Martini Henry for 577/450 boxer? (before being converted to .303 in 1899). Question how on earth did they cope with the fouling back then? Hard I would think when being charged by a thousand Zulus!

[Boz330]

The 577-450 barrel was tapered in the first 8in from .468 down to .464 and the ammo was undersized to just fall into the chamber. Quantity of fire was favored over quality of fire.

Bob

[45 2.1]

Getting back to the .303 I am going to have to do some careful thinking about this fouling issue, I think can make something up to clean the chamber out between shots, its the barrel that worries me. I will also think about the blow tube idea, again I will have to make one I think.

The BP lube and quantity of lube will decide what the barrel does. Look at diagrams of the original loading to see what they did also. There is more than one idea and way to go about it.

[groovy mike]

of course it will work. Just remember to thoroughly clean rifle and brass afterwards!

[Outpost75]

When I used to shoot Trapdoor Springfields with blackpowder, I cleaned after each five shots, heating water in a canteen cup with an Esbit cooker, then inserting a 2-foot piece of rubber tubing into the chamber, which had a small funnel in the other end, then pouring about 300ml of hot water down the bore while the rifle was standing muzzle-down in the range gun rack. The tube would then be removed and I would drop a pull-through cord out the muzzle, pull one dry patch through the bore to pull out the loosened muck, then follow immediately with another lightly oiled patch using ordinary gun oil or nondetergent SAE30 weight motor oil.

This worked well and with blackpowder loads, bullets cast 1:40 tin/lead and lubed with equal parts of lard and beeswax, I could expect 30 out of 40 hits on the full sized steel ram, or Army E silhouette, depending upon the match program, firing standing at 200 metres. Benched iron sight groups were in the order of 12-15 cm for five shots and under 20 cm for ten, with a wiping break mid-through.

These results were fairly typical for the blackpowder military rifles.

[loadedbutbroke]

OK you guys have convinced me; I am just going to go for it with bullets I shall make using my Lee 90371 mould. Unfortunately I am running out of time on this one as the meet is at the end of the month so no chance to do a Chamber cast I will make up some dummies however to check that things aren't binding.

I shall make the rounds up the same way I do 45-70 using a propitiatory soft lube and put as much powder in as the case will comfortably take lightly compressed. Card disc and gently seated bullet set out so it is just short of the rifling.






In case they are of interest here are some pictures of the rifle.

Somehow I don't think I am going to win anything this time but I shall enjoy trying!

Adrian

[Surculus]

Just as an aside my rifle was originally made in 1877 presumably as a Martini Henry for 577/450 boxer? (before being converted to .303 in 1899). Question how on earth did they cope with the fouling back then? Hard I would think when being charged by a thousand Zulus!

They coped with it by using Henry rifling, hence "Martini [action]-Henry [barrel.]" When the .303 first came along in its original BP loading, it was chambered in the brand new "Lee [action] - Metford [rifling] magazine rifle." When the .303 was updated to use the new smokeless Cordite ["NG spaghetti" ], the Metford rifling that had resisted BP fouling so effectively would burn out in short order [under 1k rounds iirc?] and they had to come up with a new rifling scheme. They shortened the rifle some time later, giving us the SMLE ["smelly"] - Short Magazine Lee-Enfield [Same magazine-fed Lee action, but now with new & improved Enfield rifling! And that wasn't just marketing hyperbole: Enfield rifling is truly some pretty good sheisse when using hot burning smokeless!]

BTW, the method used to get the BP into both the 577-450 MH and the .303 LM bottleneck cartridges was to put it in the straight-walled case and only then[ neck it down for the bullet. The .303 in fact used a pre-compressed fuel grain [kind of like a BP rocket motor] which was dropped in, + a couple of card wads & a grease cookie, necked & then bulleted. [I didn't witness this 1st hand, I'm only relaying what I've read over on the yuku british-militaria forum... ]

Best of luck! Be very careful w/ loading the black into those bottlenecked cases, & don't forget there is no room for loose powder in the mix: all BP loads must have some compression to avoid a KB!

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Morning, at least it is here, just after 9am .

More excellent stuff I need to consider and I have had a look at the other thread mentioned by bruce drake.

Just a couple of quick points. The club is strictly black powder only, no duplex I am afraid. This comp is unusual in as much as it is for military rifles over .30 caliber. I am being a bit cheeky looking at my Martini in .303 because it does not have an exposed hammer. You have probably guessed that 99% of the time we shoot Sharps, High wall, Rolling Block and the ilk with the Shiloh being the most prized. However I can only dream about that and make do with my 32" Pedersoli (which actually I like very much).

Getting back to the .303 I am going to have to do some careful thinking about this fouling issue, I think can make something up to clean the chamber out between shots, its the barrel that worries me. I will also think about the blow tube idea, again I will have to make one I think.

Just as an aside my rifle was originally made in 1877 presumably as a Martini Henry for 577/450 boxer? (before being converted to .303 in 1899). Question how on earth did they cope with the fouling back then? Hard I would think when being charged by a thousand Zulus!

The Martini didn't cope very well with fouling. Some of the rifles used at Rorke's Drift glowed visibly in the dark and cooked off rounds left in them. But it did have the advantages of slower rifling twist and more bore area for the fouling to be spread over. In both respects the .303 is worse off, since the rifling, which has to be deep to resist smokeless erosion, comes closer to being a series of transverse corrugations. The short neck is also a disadvantage with cast bullets. I would rather use some neck length on the lube cookie if gas-checks are forbidden, or the longest possible bullet bearing surface if they are allowed.

Mr. Metford developed the "Enfield" style rifling and used it very successfully (in shallow, gain-twist form) in target muzzle-loaders. Then he invented an exploding Minié bullet, which the government rejected. Later they found that that hollow pointed bullet, empty, gave superior accuracy in the very slow-twist Snider. But they wouldn't pay him royalties on something non-explosive. Being annoyed, he refused to submit a rifle for the trials which led to the Martini-Henry. That is why it had Henry's rather angular rifling, which picks up fouling much worse. The powder pellet was tried in the Snider and proved unsatisfactorily consistent. It may have been tried in the Martini, but the normal load was granulated powder.

A later form of Metford rifling, with shallow rounded grooves, was decided upon for the .577 Martini's very superior .402 replacement. But this was superseded before issue by the Lee-Metford. The cordite which proved so erosive had a much higher nitroglycerin content than the First World War Mk2 cordite, which in turn had more than most modern double base powders.

The .303 round was designed in the knowledge that smokeless powders can be used. Although smokeless powder was a great secret in France, with French soldiers threatened with ten years in jail if they opened a cartridge, their use of a "chemical powder" is mentioned in the British 1886 Treatise of Small Arms. I don't believe any black powder loading could produce the velocity the solid pellet, pierced in the centre like a rocket propellant, did. Even so, the Lee-Metford sights were graduated for a higher velocity, which they felt confident of firing in it when the necessary smokeless powder became available.

Initially the intention was to use the pellet system the Swiss had combined (experimentally) with a straight case and brass collar instead of a neck. The pellet could thus be inserted and the collar crimped in. But this proved to sometimes detach itself in the chamber. So the .303 case was necked down after insertion of the pellet.