The boolit mould is supplied by Cast Bullet Engineering and it is a 420gn semi-wadcutter that drops from the mould at 0.590"
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The boolit mould is supplied by Cast Bullet Engineering and it is a 420gn semi-wadcutter that drops from the mould at 0.590"
Last edited by Bad Ass Wallace; 06-03-2020 at 04:27 AM.
Hold Still Varmint; while I plugs Yer!
My primary concern, although probably a little silly, is excess wear on the iron bore, or excess pressure (really?) with the oversized bullet and the tapered bore with a 14bhn alloy. It really surprises me that my trapdoor shoots a 14bhn bullet so well with BP, but it does, and with a squeaky clean bore after the fact as well. I guess I can either hope I run across some pure Pb before the snider gets here, or cross my fingers and hope for the best.Originally Posted by fouronesix
I'm probably not going to get much over 65grs of 2F. I can't see any benefit to the mild velocity increase and the increase in cost. The charge I'm currently running in my trapdoor is 63. Like I said, it's strange this 14bhn alloy shoots so well, but I am shooting a hollow base bullet that drops out of the mold .002 over groove diameter and is throat diameter, so it's not too surprising. I'll see what happens with the Snider. I'm not against paying for pure galena until I can find some more cheap galena.
You fellas will be the first to know. It'll likely be July by the time I fire it. Between the delays in mail, and waiting on brass, it's going to be a minute. I think with with the .600 diameter x-ring services bullet, I'm probably going to be just fine regardless of my alloy. Whether or not I can get that 1:72 twist to shoot that bullet though? That's a different story. I'll be fire-forming the brass with a .595 round ball first.
50 Pieces of X-Ring services 24ga formed 577 Snider brass is here, the 60-535-XR is here, the .595 fire-forming round balls are here, and I got 150lbs of fresh mixed up 25:1 ready to rock and roll. Rifle will be here from Canadiaganistan on Monday. Sleep? I haven't seen that in days!
Seeking guidance from the village elders. The rifle is here, it looks great, and I'm excited. I decided to go ahead and get busy on loading my ammo tonight. I weighed out roughly 60gr of 2F by volume, put a.025 card wad on top of that, and then took a 3.1CC dipper of corn meal and dumped that on top, put a .025 card wad on top of that and pressed it until it stopped, and then took my .595 roundball and pushed it down on top of the wad. The cornmeal will compress very easily I'm finding. This looks funny to me and it's very strange, but there is no airgap. Before I load anymore and put a plug of SPG on top of this, re-evaluate, or send it? I'm thinking stacking about 5 or 6 card wads would get the ball much closer to flush with the case mouth.
Also, 24ga wads are too small. I have a whole crap ton if any needs them. I'm going to load these 50 and use them, and then order some 20ga wads. I'm not worried about mixing of powder and filler for now.
Please ignore my scalded hand. Hot coffee is more dangerous than loading BPCR.
EDIT: I decided to load one more, but I stacked 6 .025 card wads this time on top of the filler. Here are the measurements.
One card wad: .106 from case mouth
Six card wads: .025 from case mouth.
My thought process is really neither matters, because I'm going to fill up a silicone baking sheet full of SPG and then stick each one in it once the SPG cools and cut the lube like a cookie cutter, so ease case will be full of lube.
Is that better? Proceed? Tear them down? I'll wait...
Last edited by tmanbuckhunter; 06-22-2020 at 09:11 PM.
10/4 my good sir, thank you. I'm not too worried about accuracy with these. They're just to get the brass fire-formed so I can move on to my X-ring Services bullet. These dang .595 round balls were way pricier than anything I can cast.doesn't really matter where the ball is as long as there is no air gap in the column. You could load 5 or so as you describe then load 5 more with a little lube dabbed on top of the ball then load 5 more by adding a wad or two to increase the stack height to get the ball up near the rim of the mouth. That would give three combinations to test for accuracy. If none are up to expectations, no loss since they will all fire form the brass. I would at least swab pretty well between each 5 shot string so fouling doesn't bias the results.
I'm going to continue with the stack of 6... try to use up some of these 24ga wads so I can justify ordering a bag of 20ga wads. They're fine but once you get past the case mouth they just drop in. Once the brass gets fire-formed I imagine that will get worse.
Good info. I'm probably SOL on trimming these as I don't have a small lathe.
I found that my flaring die actually works well for seating these round balls and it also allows me to get a little bit of compression on the powder column. My X-ring services bullet has about .310 from base to the top driving band where I want to put a slight roll crimp on, so I may move to .125 thickness card wads, 20ga. This should allow me to get a good stack high enough to seat my bullet without having to stack too many thin wads. I'm finding it is much easier to load for my trapdoor than it is this thing. This is going to take some experimentation.
I really appreciate all the information. I'm not shooting in the dark, but there are definitely some shadows here I'm trying to shine some light on.
The most metal/manly chapstick I have ever seen in my life. SPG on top of the roundball. Going to get all this fire-formed and move onto my X-ring services 530gr boolit as well as thicker wads. I'll report back next week. Here is a picture of the Snider with my 1884 (1887) trapdoor. 1862 lock dated Mk2*.
I really like SPG. It's expensive, but it smells nice, and it melts easy in the microwave. I keep about 3lbs in a huge mason jar.No worries with that lube on top. It will not act as any kind of obstruction and it's mass is not significant compared to mass of total load. The melt temp of SPG is fairly low and it is less dense than many lubes. I imagine it will keep the fouling soft.
One thing that may help shed some light on consistency and accuracy potential when developing these loads is to shoot over fairly clear ground out in front of muzzle and try to find all the various elements in the wad stack from different shots. For example if one wad is found 5 yds in front of muzzle and another is found at 40 yds it indicates that some of the wad column is "taking a ride" with the projectile. Most should be separating fairly quickly and falling away from the bullet/ball track to be found no more than 5-10 yds in front of muzzle. Sometimes, with experimental load tinkering, I find a thick wad all the way down range near the target... that occasional hitchhiker can't enhance accuracy.
You are right about wads hitch hiking. I try to wipe lube off of bases when loading with BP to prevent that. With smokeless I don't care at all. I have issues with my hollow base bullets filling up with lube and the wads wanting to hitch hike. I'm hoping my new 500gr. mold for my trapdoor will prevent that. Much easier to clean lube off the base when you don't have to dig it out.
Cast up about 200 X-Ring 60-530XR's today. I cleaned the rifle as well, and even though it appears to be rust free and clean, it took me a while to get the bore clean. There is some pretty decent pitting midway thru, and I finally got it to the point where the wet patches come out with some light tinge of orange mixed in with the solvent. The exterior the barrel appears rust free but it took several scrubs with wet patches to get the dirt/gunk/rust off. I'm having to remind myself constantly that even though it's a nice rifle, it's not immaculate and almost unissued like my trapdoor. It was an original 1862 P53 rifle musket, and has probably been put up wet a few times. The bore is still shootable and I think the rifle is still as it was described by the seller. We'll see. Maybe it will shoot really well? If not, maybe it's an excuse to buy another example.
I'm not expecting too much. 4" was what I was hoping for after some stringent load development and I think this bore is likely capable of it. What I'm hoping is that the pitting that is there will strip off some lead to fill in the pits, and then once I run a patch over it, it will polish the lead out and I'll never see it again. Wishful thinking I know, but a guy can wish. On my BP guns I always melt SPG in a spoon, soak a patch, and then run it down the bore. It's worked well so far. Before I got into BPCR I used to do the same thing with Ox Yoke wonderlube.That bore may shoot very well- hard to say. Seems to have plenty of land definition remaining. The issue that seems to be a constant for bores that are a little rough is that they are harder to clean and that difficulty is in proportion to the roughness. When shooting BP those areas tend to beget enlarging such areas unless care is taken to clean and oil very well.
My Snider has a pretty nice bore but does have a couple of small rough spots about 4 inches from muzzle yet I think it shoots about as well as any. It and likely most all Sniders in general are not MOA rifles. I see on various sources the best groups on target seem to be about 4 inches at 100 yds. The best I can do consistently at 50 yds is about 1.5 inches. The open sights really limit best sight picture and sight/target resolution at 100 yds, so I shoot mostly at 50. Seems to be the best compromise for accurate shooting and load testing. After all, if basic sight resolution is poor then it becomes impossible to objectively sort out most accurate loads. Here's a pic of bore in my MK III. Good, representative pics of bores are always very difficult
I got another picture of the bore for my own purposes, but I figure I'll share. Used the light on my phone and my ol' ladies phone to take the pic. The lands and grooves are still well defined. It is my understanding that the P53 3 groove rifling isn't cut very deep to begin with. If you rotate your finger around the muzzle you can feel the lands and grooves with ease. I took one of my reject 60-530XR's and tapped it into the muzzle and it cut well defined land/groove markings into the ogive. I'm going to get it to the range tomorrow morning. I can't wait any longer.
Alright, so I shot this thing today. It actually shoots very well, but the roundballs will not stabilize to shoot well much beyond 50 yards. It took me a few shots to figure out where it was shooting and I eventually had to move down to someones left over mansized silhouette at 50 to figure it out. The 300gr. roundball shoots about a foot high. In the picture I'm about to attach, you will see a cluster of shots towards the head. This is where I figured out where it was shooting, but I didn't have a point of aim. The bottom group I tried to concentrate on were I thought the bottom of the target was, and was able to get a real tight cluster, almost one ragged hole for about 6 or 7 shots with a few flyers when my eyes would get fuzzy. I think the 530gr bullet will come down considerably and allow me to use a 6 o clock hold on an NRA SR-1 to get the best groups possible when I work up a load. I'm happy!
Yeah, I'm very happy with it so far. I was a little disappointed that the roundball would fly off by the time it got to 100 yards. A man sized steel dinger was as good as it gets, which is where I'm sure the conical will hold its proverbial feces together over the roundball. I shoot a lot of old service and military rifles, so I'm used to them all shooting very high. I like your front sight extension though! That is a good idea. Britishmuzzleloaders on youtube solders brass onto his Snider front sights and then files them and shapes them down until the POI is where he wants it. Another idea in the long list of ideas.
I now have my eye on a Portugese contract carbine. Good god... these things are more addicting than Trapdoors.
That's exactly what I was thinking! Kid of like very risky baseball down at 100 yards. One thing that irritates me with this gun, but I guess it's par for the course, is the chamber has a very mild anomaly, I wouldn't call it a ring. It's a dip in the case, not a bulge, just below where a bullet would be seated. I imagine at some point in time this rifle got a decent pressure spike. I'm still going to shoot it since it's not a real ring but just a mild defect. I am going to change from corn meal to crushed walnut as my filler. My corn meal is more like powder and will compress.Yes, I've done that type front sight extension with all manner of old military firearms that generally shoot very high as you have experienced. Even the blade on a trapdoor front sight can sometimes use a little extra height. That is relatively easy by fashioning a blade of correct thickness, shape and height then re-pinning.
Without a patch and being undersized to begin with, the roundball was acting kind of like being shot out of a smoothbore. Probably an unpredictable and variable knuckleball spin
Got 25 test rounds loaded up, from 60-64gr by weight, using a long drop tube on a No.55 measure, .025 card wad over the powder, 3.1cc of instant cream of wheat, and then a .125 nitrocard over the cream of wheat. I used my expander plug as a compression plug to make sure the wads were seated. No real compression on the filler or powder, just making sure any airgap is gone and then I took the expander plug by hand and rolled it around the case mouth until I could seat the bullet by hand, and then applied a mild roll crimp, VERY mild... more like a taper crimp. I'm a little nervous. I'm not the most experienced handloader in the world, only having done this about 12 years, although my round count is very close to 6 digits loaded and shot. My only experience with BP outside of a dismal failure with 45 colt about 10 years ago is with the 45/70, and I've had great success and luck with that cartridge. It's probably a good thing that I'm not overly confident with this. We shall see how these do tomorrow. I'm excited!
That's a good idea, and I'll see what I can do. I'm going to try these at 100 yards, or at least the first 5 test loads and see what happens. If they keyhole, or wont group altogether I'll drop back to 50 yards. Britishmuzzleloaders on youtube did all of his Snider testing at 100 yards, so I think 100 should be reasonable. I'll use a 6 o clock hold on an SR-1 and see what happens.Also interested in results! You might try to place backer exactly perpendicular to bore line and put target over a fresh section of cardboard. The reason is it helps makes it possible to gauge stable flight by carefully examining shape of holes.
Well I'm happy, and I think it can shoot even better than this. 62 and 63gr charges both showed similar group sizes, about 4-3/4 if you don't count the flyer. This is a very hard rifle to shoot accurately. Lock up time is on the slow side compared to a sharps or my trapdoor, the trigger is heavy, and the sights are crude, but for what it is, I'm thoroughly impressed. The 60-530XR thumps, but it's not too bad. The bullet shoots point of aim if you sink the front sight post down into the notch and aim dead on. I'm going to try to level the top of the front sight post with the v-notch and see if a 6 o clock hold will work next, giving me a more precise sight picture.
One thing I noticed when cleaning it up, is that, what I thought was rust, or pitting, is some kind of crud. Ballistol and water wont phase it, hoppes 9 won't phase it, and a brush wont do anything to it. The only thing that seems to "smear" it is surprisingly, ox yoke wonder lube plus liquid. I'm thinking someone shot it a few times and cleaned it with a petroleum cleaner. I may plug the bore and fill it up with Naptha and see if I can get the stuff to come loose.
Also, I shot this group with my trapdoor. 64gr shot similar. The flyer came from me swabbing the bore. One fouling shot and she settles down nicely. Used a blow tube between groups.
I love collecting and shooting old rifles. They really make you appreciate the modern technology we have these days, and the level of skill it took to operate these old firearms and shoot them, especially efficiently. The Snider was probably a ferrari of rifles back in its day. For ease of use, and speed of loading, I don't think a Trapdoor or Werndl would have much on it. The M-H for sure would be faster than all of them. Indicative of a major empire vs a frontier army I suppose.That is really good shooting! Those who look at these need to keep everything in perspective. That perspective about the Snider must be compared in two ways to its predecessor the .577 Enfield Rifle Musket- (the arm generally comparable to the 58 cal US Springfield Rifle Musket). Must compare for both accuracy and efficient, rapid sustained fire in battle. By all historical accounts the Snider design did quite well in that context. In the race to convert from muzzleloading to cartridge, the US really didn't have an intermediate stopgap arm comparable to the Snider. The US pretty much settled on the Trapdoor at about the time the Brits standardized on the 577-40 M-H. Its cousin in time, the Rolling Block, was commonly used for foreign military contracts at about the same time. These crude and simplified historic perspectives about the transition form ML to cartridge are my own as stuck in my head about that period of history of military small arms.... open to correction for certain.
Also, looking at the holes I didn't see any obvious "wobble" indicated. If there is any, it's very small. And it is more normal and common than most suspect to have a tiny bit of wobble with bullets in this category of ammo and arm. But, those darn long nosed semi spire points don't lend themselves very well to the analysis- kind of tearing a hole and not punching out onehah!
No telling what the odd crud is. Could it be a cumulative amalgam of lead?? The Naptha soak might work if it is some kind of petrol-based complex molecule. Interested to find out what works to cut it. The other. possibiity is a Kroil soak.
But I would say you are off to the races with that Snider. Congrats on the success- well done! And interesting you bring up lock time. They aren't the slowest but the geometry and mechanics of the short angled pin simply doesn't lend itself to fast lock time either. Therefore shooting technique and follow through can be important for shooting these accurately. I get the impression that, because the Snider is such a odd duck, it tends to be frustrating to many shooters and they never really get past the first few attempts if at first there is little success. It does have a reputation for being frustrating no end. Attitude is important I think with these and they should be viewed as a challenge, an educational opportunity if you will
The bullets do fly straight. I took a slo-mo of me cracking one off in the Snider and when you pause it and go frame by frame very slowly you can see the bullet in flight, and it's running straight and true.
I thought the crud was leading, but you'd think a brush would strip at least a little bit off and it would show up on a patch; it doesn't. One observation I did notice when swabbing between groups, is that the fouling was WET. Melted SPG in a bore from firing is still almost paste like, keeping the fouling soft, but not melting and running like oil. This is what leads me to believe its BP fouling soaked in a petroleum cleaner. When it's cold, it's hard and doesn't do much, when it's hot, it melts and turns into oil. I mean, it straight up soaks a cotton patch.
Overall I'm happy. I always have fairly decent success when I take on a hard to load cartridge like the Snider. I heavily research it before hand, ask a lot of questions, and like Carl Sewell, I take what works for others and apply it to my own process. There are very few things I've found that don't work or me, that work well for others, so with that being said, I really appreciate all the info you have given as well as everyone else in this thread. It's invaluable and it's been a great time so far. I also have a Snider surprise up my sleeve to add to this thread... I'll post about it here soon.
Fantastic looking collection. I'd really like a 61 or 63 Springfield to add to the collection one day. I'm always on the look out for the right one. Strange on the twist rate. You have to wonder how that happened? Experiment maybe? Someone got bored?That's also the reason I enjoy learning and shooting the old originals. It really is the only direct link I have to that history and really understanding in a small way what it was like.
Here's some in my herd of originals (there are more!)- I shoot all of them, although very carefully!
It consistently shoots the Lyman 533476 Minie extremely well. Indicating the barrel is striaght, the bore is sharp and smooth and IMO the 48" twist plays a major role in that accuracy with the Minie. By shooting this rifle I've learned exactly why it gained such favor with the Mississippi troops during the Mexican War. But it became a misfit just a few years later for the Civil War as the "rest of the world" had adopted the .577 or 58 cal rifle musket as standard. Top rifle in the pic.
Well, here is the Snider surprise. It is my understanding that there aren't many of these in the world, but that doesn't matter. It's going to get shot and hunted with either way. Hopefully I'll have it and 50 new pieces of brass in my hands shortly.
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