Snider rifle revisited

[craig61a]

It's been several months since I had one of my Sniders out to the range. I had run .576 Lee Minies through it (with poor results - mainly just wanted to fire form the cases) along with .600 round balls in cheddite hulls (much better accuracy).

I made up brass cases out of Magtech 24 gauge cases, and after they were fired I noticed the case mouths were a little out of round. Obviously the Lee .577 Snider sizing die works the brass way to much to get the case mouths back to where I need them to be. I'm considering having a sizer made to reduce the case mouths to .604" and go with a .605" boolit. I have looked at different mold designs and I'm leaning towards the collar button boolit. I see Accurate has a 60-480B that looks like a good candidate.

I may just try to do a chamber cast on this particular Snider just to see where it's at and then do one on my Nepal Snider to see if I can get by with one mold. Of course I haven't even fired the old Nepal Snider yet. If the bore is smaller maybe the Lee Minies will work. Well that's a job for another day...

I have order quite a few Accurate molds over the years and the quality is always top notch (but you all knew that-). Just wondering if anybody has used this mold, and what their experience was. If it's there somebody must have bought one...

[milrifle]

I'm interested in this as well. I've yet to get a good measurement of my throat. I had a guy supposed to be making me a v block, but......no luck yet. I want to get a mold for a short bullet myself. So far, I'm using Lee .600 round balls which I think are too small. Just guessing from what little I can measure from a pound cast with a caliper, I'm in the .604 to maybe as much as .607 range. I need to get a better measurement before ordering a mold. 'Course, until Magtech makes some more 24ga brass, why bother? Think I've got 17 rounds left. Thankfully, Cheddite hulls are still available. I don't think they would work with a .607 flat based bullet though.

[craig61a]

I ordered some .610" round balls and stuffed one into a cheddite hull. It wouldn't chamber. I haven't checked the thickness of the hull. I'm not sure how a chamber cast would work since the chamber doesn't appear to be concentric. I think I can get something pressed in there though so I can attempt a reading.

[Gunor]

.600 and plastic hull - some fit and some don't fit my chamber. Went with .595 balls

[swamp]

Cheddite hulls need to be trimmed.

[yulzari]

X-Ring Services (xringservices@yahoo.com) have the moulds and usually the cases for the task. Not found better and first class service.

[dogmower]

Been doing some experimenting here as well. Found a new powder, Blackhorn MZ that seems promising. 80 grains (volume) and the boolit from the mold from x-ringservices (great outfit) shot well. I cut off some of the Cheddite hulls and with a .60 RB and 70 grains of FG Black, didn't get great accuracy. I did shoot some of the x-ring cast boolits with the cheddite hulls (just pushed 'em down in on top of a cotton ball and 70 grains of MZ) and these seemed to shoot ok, but not as good as the brass loads.
What are you guys using to take up extra space in the brass hull loads?

[craig61a]

I have tried using 1/8" hard felt, newspaper, or veg wads, some use carded wool...

Now if the end of the case mouth didn't end up out of round after firing I'd probably just order .001" up and go with that...

[skeettx]

Bored out my 58 cal mould to .595 and hollow base
Dies specially made in England for the .595 bullet.

Use Magtech brass hulls
http://www.ballisticproducts.com/Mag...tinfo/3922465/

All is well, the carbine still KICKS but is accurate

[dogmower]

"Now if the end of the case mouth didn't end up out of round after firing I'd probably just order .001" up and go with that..."

what about the airspace? isn't that a no-no in BP cartridges? I am relatively new to loading BP rifle cartridge and any info is welcomed...

[ndnchf]

Bored out my 58 cal mould to .595 and hollow base
Dies specially made in England for the .595 bullet.

Use Magtech brass hulls
http://www.ballisticproducts.com/Mag...tinfo/3922465/

All is well, the carbine still KICKS but is accurate

What mold did yoou bore out? I'm curious, as I just sent a Lyman 575213 minie mold out to be enlarged to .594" for use in my 58 cal Remington rolling block that has a .594" groove size.

[skeettx]

Just one that I had lying around
Use 30:1 lead and Lee Alox for lube

[ndnchf]

Thanks. I've been shooting 590" minies with decent success. But hope the 594" will tighten things up a bit more.

[craig61a]

"Now if the end of the case mouth didn't end up out of round after firing I'd probably just order .001" up and go with that..."

what about the airspace? isn't that a no-no in BP cartridges? I am relatively new to loading BP rifle cartridge and any info is welcomed...

Well, yeah... that's why you add a filler or buffer or whatever you'd prefer to call it. It's there to mitigate gas detonation. The basic principle is if the hot gas has space to move ahead of the flame front, the propellant is consumed in an instant due to multiple flame fronts, creating a huge pressure spike, followed by parts flying everywhere...

[Argentino]

I´ve recently tried .575" Lee Minies (Modern Design) in my non-military 2 band Snider without success: most of them were key holing badly at 50 yards.

I guess this was something to be expected since bore dia. is around 0.597" at the muzzle end (5 groove barrel average).
I didn´t know how much expansion a .575" minie would take from a stout load of real black but now I know it´s not enough for a .597" bore dia.

As for solid base designs, I´ve had good results from a 440 gn./.600" custom mould (a design somewhat similar to CC´s "bumble bee"; short nose, 2 lube grooves and 3 driving bands with a total bullet length of less than 3/4 in.).

This .600" boolit won´t chamber when seated on cheddite hulls so I fixed that by using breech seating: cut the hulls shorter in order to place them just below the bullet base. By doing this I can easily chamber a lubed boolit first, then followed by a loaded hull. I´m obtaining 3 in. dia. groups at 50 yards (from rest), when using 50gns. of real black and a dry felt wad on top of the hull (just behind boolit´s base).

Argie.

[craig61a]

Seems Sniders are all over the place regarding boolit size. I read of one guy who was running .610 boolits. As I mentioned in my OP, if the case mouths weren't slightly out of round, I would probably just go with a boolit about .001" over the case mouth diameter, and save myself the trouble of sizing the cases altogether.

My experience with Lee minie balls is with my P53 Enfield (A Pedersoli). The boolits drop right around .576 (Pb) and the bore is probably right at .577, so they don't have to bump up any more than a few thousands to grab the rifling. And the accuracy is phenomenal. But with the Sniders, it's quite a stretch to expect them to expand up .025" - .030".

Over the winter (or whenever I get time) I plan to make up a sizer that will take the necks down just enough so they are back in round and see where I'm at on the case mouth ID. After all, if the fired cases are coming out with ID around .610 (+/- .005") a .605" boolit shouldn't be an issue...

[Argentino]

Seems Sniders are all over the place regarding boolit size. I read of one guy who was running .610 boolits. As I mentioned in my OP, if the case mouths weren't slightly out of round, I would probably just go with a boolit about .001" over the case mouth diameter, and save myself the trouble of sizing the cases altogether.

My experience with Lee minie balls is with my P53 Enfield (A Pedersoli). The boolits drop right around .576 (Pb) and the bore is probably right at .577, so they don't have to bump up any more than a few thousands to grab the rifling. And the accuracy is phenomenal. But with the Sniders, it's quite a stretch to expect them to expand up .025" - .030".

Over the winter (or whenever I get time) I plan to make up a sizer that will take the necks down just enough so they are back in round and see where I'm at on the case mouth ID. After all, if the fired cases are coming out with ID around .610 (+/- .005") a .605" boolit shouldn't be an issue...

Yes, I know my expectations were WAY optimistic when using a .575" minie in a .595" bore. I guess I had to try anyway, my experience with minie bullets and the way they behave is quite limited.

For what I`ve seen/read, some sniders had a sloppy mechanizing job on their chambers (mostly nepalese ones).It can be a real problem, specially with cheddite hulls since they get quite distorted, sometimes up to the point where they cannot be used again.

If your cases are expanding up to .610" that`s a good thing I guess: that should give you plenty of room to seat large OD boolits (.600"+) and see which one fits best your bore.

I would do a bore measurement anyway, at least at the muzzle; just to see if a boolit larger than .600" is really needed for your bore, regardless of chamber dimensions.


Argie

[yulzari]

Just a quick note to mention that the bore size will not normally grossly vary from the .577" land/.580" groove Ordnance standard. Even in Nepali ones. What is much larger is the throat and Snider bullets are best sized to the throat in a soft lead which will swedge down as it enters the rifling from the throat. Obviously the thin CBC brass will accept a larger bullet than a thicker plastic case but the flexibility of the plastic lets it accommodate variable Nepali chambers and spring back. When we talk of .605", '595" etc. we are talking of the bullet size for throats of that size. Not muzzles.

[toot]

I had trouble getting Cheddite shells to chamber with .610 RB,S. so I took the decaping pin out and run the loaded round through the sizing die and then it chambered and shot with no problem.it seems that the .610 RB. swells the case just a little too much.

[Argentino]

Just a quick note to mention that the bore size will not normally grossly vary from the .577" land/.580" groove Ordnance standard. Even in Nepali ones. What is much larger is the throat and Snider bullets are best sized to the throat in a soft lead which will swedge down as it enters the rifling from the throat. Obviously the thin CBC brass will accept a larger bullet than a thicker plastic case but the flexibility of the plastic lets it accommodate variable Nepali chambers and spring back. When we talk of .605", '595" etc. we are talking of the bullet size for throats of that size. Not muzzles.

Yulzari,

I was referring to muzzle dimensions for my own Snider only.

Fitting a boolit to throat dimensions must be an easy approach (the old "fill the throat" method) but I`m suggesting going beyond that point and checking also if a bullet as large as the throat will admit is really neccesary according to bore dimensions (at least when minies are going to be used). That`s why I suggested checking the bore as well, specially the muzzle end (provided it is not damaged or eroded).

My point is that "filling the throat" in some Sniders with known generous dimensions at the chamber/throat might lead to excesive swaging if the bore is not that large.

JMHO,

Argie