303 British Black Powder?

[DonMountain]

Has anyone shot the 200 grain Lyman 314299 gas checked over black powder from a 303 British bolt action rifle? I read somewhere that it was originally a Black Powder Cartridge and wondered what sort of accuracy and velocity it might get and if there are any problems with shooting it in a #4 MK I? :D

[303Guy]

It was but with a difference - it used a compressed cylinder of black with a hole down the middle and had a bitumen card wad seal below the neck (I think). But it was a jacketed 215gr bullet. That has nothing to do with its suitability for ordinary black powder of course, just that the quantity than can be loaded might be quite a bit less which should be fine for cast boolits. The original 'pellet' of black was inserted into the case before the neck was formed.

[tacklebury]

If you use a drop tube and get a good swirl effect going I find you can fit the correct amount of BP into most cases. You should try for about 1/8" of compression on your powder and do so using a compression die. You might have to reduce the diameter of one of the std. ones like they sell at track of the wolf to get it to 30 caliber. I compress jacketed bullet loads 1/8" with the bullet itself, but you can get deformation, but even moreso with cast. I have been using magnum rifle primers also with BP to get more consistent ignition with good results. ;)

Here's a link to a compression die insert. It goes into a std. Lee Expansion die, but extends into the case more. If you had one turned down to about .301 diameter it'd probably work well for the .303.

http://www.trackofthewolf.com/Categories/PartDetail.aspx/1164/1/DIE-40-COMPRESS

[NickSS]

The British used a compressed pellet of 70 gr black powder and a 215 gr jacketed bullet in the 303 but they also used lee Medford style rifling which gave them good accuracy with black powder. The enfields generally available today have Lee Enfield rifling that was designed for use with cordite powder. However, I have shot hundreds of BP rounds out of a 303 enfield but velocity was down and probably was around 1500 fps with what I could put in the case. I was using 174 gr FMJ bullets not cast at the time and they shot as accurately as they did with smokeless powder as I recall. I could probably gotten more powder in the case with a compression die but did not know about them at the time.

[bydand]

And BP loads were only used for little more than three years. Metford rifling soon washed out with cordite which was why most of the rifles were rebarreled with deeper Enfield rifling

OH, by the way, those compressed BP pellets were loaded into the cartridge case BEFORE it was necked. The same with cordite.

[sail32]

From http://www.dave-cushman.net/shot/303hist.html

The .303 British Service cartridge was adopted by Britain in 1889 to partner the Lee, Metford Rifle.

The round, as originally adopted, consisted of a 215 Gr, round nosed, cupro nickel jacketed bullet with of 71.5 Gr of RFG2 Blackpowder. The powder charge was pressed into a pellet with both ends slightly rounded and pierced with a central flash propagating hole. There was a glazeboard wad on top of the charge to protect the bullet base. It had a small boxer type primer and was officially designated "Cartridge, S.A., Ball, Magazine Rifle, Mark 1.C. Solid Case, .303inch". Muzzle velocity was 1830 fps, chamber pressure about 19 tons per sq".

[MT Chambers]

The only negative that I found using BP in the .303 Br. was that there was not enough travel in the sights to zero because of the lower velocity, even when using a compressed charge of Swiss 3fg.

[Surculus]

...they also used Metford style rifling which gave them good accuracy with black powder.

Wasn't so much accuracy that Metford's rifling system offered as a reduction in fouling, which is of extreme importance in a magazine-repeater BP firearm. [It would kind of suck to have to pull out your cleaning rod & run a wet patch thru between mags, wouldn't it? ;) ] I forget the details [having read about them long ago: maybe in one of Greener's treatises, as he was a contemporary?], but Metford's rifling was the shiznit for BP, but rapidly eroded with the advent of the early smokeless powders [esp. Cordite, as the Brits favored] since it tended to burn hot & erode the shallow lands.

At least, that's how I recall the details, but then I've got a fairly advanced case of CRS... ;) I seem to recall that Dr. Metford came up w/ his rifling system while on a sea voyage, having exhausted the other limited alternatives of entertainment available to him at that time. If necessity is the mother of invention, does that make boredom the father? :neutral:

[KyBill]

Not much to say on topic remember to clean well after using black powder and you guys have a lot of good know how !

[GOPHER SLAYER]

I have pulled the bullets from several old 303 rounds and found that all of them had a cardboard wad over the cardite. I supppose it was there to retain the cardite whie the case was being neck sized.

[Multigunner]

The card wad helped reduce erosion by providing a momentary seal to reduce gas washing of the throat and leade.
Attempts to use Cordite without the card resulted in throat burn out in 1/6 the number of rounds fired compared to the standard cartridge with card.

Other cordite loaded cartridges, for heavy machineguns and such, also used a thick disc of a waxy lubricant/sealant with Beeswax, Russian Tallow, Swedish Pitch, and other additives, this coated the leade reducing thermal damage. Coal tar was used as a stopgap during wartime.

[.22-10-45]

Those early Maxim maching guns the Brits used were originally .577/.450 M.H. & later the B.P. .303..I would have loved to see the smoke screen those things laid down!