577 snider

[Alberta woodsman]

Hello all! My first post and I'm hoping its a good one? I'm thinking about buying a Snider Enfield in 577 snider and I'm looking for some information first.
1. What is the average bore diameter?
2. What is the maximum black powder charge?
3. What were the weight of bullets originally used and what kind, minies or round balls, ect.
Hopefully I'll get the attention of some snider expert here?!
Thanks

[Red River Rick]

Snider are a lot of fun. Are you looking at a Carbine, 2 Band or 3 Band? A true M-E or a Khyber Pass copy?

Bore diameter is not as important on the old Sniders, as GROOVE diameter is. Best to find a bullet that's around 0.590 in diameter.

As far as a load goes, I've used 70grs. FFG with a 460 grain 0.590 diameter Minnie.

Good luck

RRR

[curator]

Original Sniders were conversion from the muzzle loading .577 Enfield muskets. The standard load was a 485-500 grain hollow base (Pritchet/minie-type) slug and 60 grains of "musket powder." Those barrels had deeper grooves at the breech that became progressively more shallow as they neared the muzzle. Because the Snider is a breech loader, you will need a bullet that is close to the groove diameter at the front of the chamber. For many British-made Sniders this is around .590-.595" diameter. Nepalese and Indian made ones may be larger. I shoot my Snider MkIII using a .600 round ball with 50 grains of FFg black powder. I made my cases from 24 gauge all-brass shot shells, trimming to 1.85" and sizing in the Lee die set. One of the guys at my gun club uses trimmed plastic 24 gauge shells that come from Italy and are half price of the all brass ones I use. (easier to cut down too!)

[Alberta woodsman]

Thanks a lot guys! I'm waiting till the next gunshow and see what's there. I want an original though, maybe a carbine! How do you reload the round balls in the brass case? All I have ever seen round balls in we're plastic cases?

[Alberta woodsman]

Hey Rick I just noticed you from Canuck land too! Glad to see some Canadian brothers on here!

[curator]

A .600 round ball is a friction fit in my fire formed and unsized brass cases. I load 60 grains of Goex FFg then a 3/8 24-gauge fiber wad. The ball then sits slightly above the case mouth. I dab a bit of black powder lube around the inside of the case mouth. These loads shoot accurately and are relatively clean.

[Gunor]

Plastic 24 gauge shells - .600 will not fit my chamger about 50% of the time - so i bought .590.

Geoff in Oregon

[Alberta woodsman]

Thanks Curator and Gunor for the info! I'm on the hunt now!

[Alberta woodsman]

Another question to add!? I'm open to all models but mainly looking for a mark 3 because of its added strength and trust ability. What are some feature on the mark 3 to tell it apart from the rest?

[dromia]

It will have III stamped on the receiver, the hammer face should be flat. The barrel could have "Steel" stamped on it although the first thousand or so MK111s had iron barrels. Obviously the 111 has the locking latch on the left side of the breech block. 111s were new manufacture not conversions.

[The Goose]

I own and shoot 4 Sniders. Below is a post I did on another site about a year or more ago. Accurate Molds is a great source for Snider or Martini molds. I also have a .600 mold that I use in a Nepalese Snider. Hope this is useful.



OK so here is another of my whacky projects. I occasionally hear folks complain about how time consuming reloading can be. Check out what it took to get some shootable .577 Snider rounds.

I picked up this Snider at Zero Hour about a month or so ago to an abundance of shop jokes about how pre ban hi caps are tough to find for these old Sniders. Very funny. I wanted to bring the old girl back to life and make it shoot again (well). This rifle started it's life as a muzzle loader in 1863. In January of 1867 it was converted to a breech loader by installing a mechanism designed by Jacob Snider from New York. The British government had an ubandance of P-1853 Enfields. Much like the US had Springfields that were adapted to trapdoors by the Allin conversion. Somewhere over the years, a long time ago, someone bubba'd my rifle by shortening the barrel and the stock. They even carefully filled in the cleaning rod channel and checkered it (sort of). However, the action is tight and the bore is very good.

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l299/sgoselin/SniderEnfield004_zpsb96fc0bf.jpg

I bought some Lee dies and 24 gauge brass. I shortened the brass to 2", annealed it and formed it in .577 sizing die. The picture below shows a 24 gauge brass case, a newly formed case and a fire formed case after being shot. Note how the newly formed case almost has a slight bottleneck that all but disappears when it is fire formed.

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l299/sgoselin/SniderEnfield001_zps05ee6159.jpg

I slugged the bore of my rifle and got .590. However, the Lee expander die will not expand beyond about a .580 bullet diameter. The original muzzle loader fired a .577 Minie ball designed to expand from the rear on firing. However, loading a Minie into a brass case inhibits that expansion so you end up with a .577 or so projectile wobbling out of a .590 bore. See Minie below.

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l299/sgoselin/SniderEnfield007_zpse25ed635.jpg

Regardless, I made up about 40 pieces of brass and loaded it up with Minies from a Lee mold. They measured .578 and I loaded them over 75 grs of Goex 2F. I will describe the loading process a bit further on. At 50 yards I hit a 4' X 4' target about half the time with tumblers and fliers galore. I just wanted to fire form the brass. While I was going through this I ordered a custom mold from Accurate molds that would throw a .590 bullet. When cast with pure lead the bullet measured .592 and weighed just over 500 grs. Just what I wanted.

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l299/sgoselin/SniderEnfield008_zps7eb10151.jpg

Now after many hours of work I had 40 pieces of fire formed brass and a hopefully suitable bullet. HOPEFULLY! So now here is the loading process. The 24 gauge brass takes a large pistol primer. I used CCI. Next I measured out 75 grs of Goex 2F black powder and poured each charge down a 24" drop tube into the case.

Then a regular size cottonball to take up air space with a 24 gauge shotgun wad over the cotton and pressed down with a punch.

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l299/sgoselin/SniderEnfield011_zpsdf6964bb.jpg

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l299/sgoselin/SniderEnfield012_zpsbcbeae03.jpg

Next is agrease cookie of SPG black powder lube with a .030 vegetable fiber wad over the grease cookie. I picked up a C. Sharps ribbon lube extruder which is a great tool.

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l299/sgoselin/SniderEnfield013_zps4d8891f3.jpg

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l299/sgoselin/SniderEnfield014_zps87df35c1.jpg

I hand lubed the bullet. In the future I may try pan lubing, but this worked fine for this bunch. I then seated the bullet and just pushed it down to the desired depth. Lastly I ran the round up into the sizing die (with the decapping pin removed) just enough to get neck tension to hold the bullet.

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l299/sgoselin/SniderEnfield016_zps3cd8e33f.jpg

And VOILA! The final product.

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l299/sgoselin/SniderEnfield017_zpsecc383ef.jpg

I hit the range and blasted off my 40 rds. Unfortunately my camera crapped out and I have no photos. The Snider, like most old military rifles shoots way high, especially at 50 yards. Once I figured out where to aim I was able to get 3" - 4" five shot groups. I did manage to shoot one touching five shot group. I call that success for an almost 150 year old rifle in a long obsolete caliber. I will continue to experiment and find out what this old gal can really do,

[Alberta woodsman]

Thanks a lot Goose! I'll now know what to look for.

[rollmyown]

Good write up. Thanks

[Bad Ass Wallace]

I like the Snider cartridge so much I built a new rifle on a large framed Martini.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v152/BAWallace/MSRearSight_zpsd17709f7.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/BAWallace/media/MSRearSight_zpsd17709f7.jpg.html)

[rollmyown]

BAW, you and I both know that thing is a tank missing it's tracks.

[rollmyown]

Also goose, checkering aside, for a bubba'd rifle that looks pretty nice I must say.

[Bad Ass Wallace]

The 615gn 590 projectile with 92gns FFG has a certain "ouch" factor, mind, the perfect rifle for sabre-toothed field mice! :Fire:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v152/BAWallace/Picture013-1.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/BAWallace/media/Picture013-1.jpg.html)

[Ed in North Texas]

This past summer I visited Old Fort Henry, Kingston, Ontario with one of the Grandsons. Stopped to talk with one of the volunteers of the Fort Henry Guard who had just finished a demonstration of firing the Snider rifle. He had a Mark II, no visible rifling left in the barrel, but they only fire BP blanks so not a problem. They use the cut down 24 gauge plastic shotshells, policing them up after a demonstration and reloading them for the next show. He did not know what sort of life span the plastic hulls have in blank use. Interesting visit, we lucked out and the Guard was practicing for the Tattoo. Instead of a single show, we saw multiple iterations as they practiced their drills including firing of rifles and cannon.

[Alberta woodsman]

I just wanted to say thanks to all those who helped. I ended up buy 3 rifles for a very very good deal. The first one a mark 2** in very good condition, the second a mark 2* both 3 band versions and the last is a 3 band mark 2 parts gun! Also got bayonets for the 2 good rifles and a sword bayonet for a 2 band version. Gonna be ordering reloading stuff soon! Too excited to get the rifles as they are being shipped right now!
Thanks y'all
AB Woodsman

[rollmyown]

Put up some pics when you get a chance.

[Alberta woodsman]

I'm leaving for a week to go skiing but I could probably get some pics up next week!

[Buckshot]

...............I too was afflicted by 'Snider-itis', but it was many years ago. I bought a Canadian marked 3 band rifle from a Canadian company. I forget now how much it was. I had a 577-450 Martini and a friend of mine said he'd make one of the cases into a Snider case, so said sure (Old Berdan primed I'd converted to 209 primers). He had it done for next week's Tuesday range day. I brought a pound of 2Fg powder, several 209 primers, the ho-made capping/de-capping setup (like Lee hand dies), lube and Minie' boolits.

I filled the case fairly full, stuck in some newsprint, filled the cavity and lube grooves with lube and set the Minie' atop it all. The Minie' was loose so to load, you had to hold the rifle muzzle up and kind of feed the case up into the chamber. Then kind of swing the breechblock over to hold it while moving your thumb out of the way to fully close the action. I set my left buttcheek on the edge of the bench and pulled the trigger. All I got was a 'Clack"! Recocked the hammer and pulled the trigger again. This time was a wee bit different. With quite a boom it just about rolled me over off the bench.

After that I didn't use QUITE so much powder, and more newsprint! We fired that one case over and over until I'd run out of primers. There were quite a few interested people who wanted to shoot it so we all had fun. The only thing you could hit for sure was the ground but it was great fun none the less. I did finally educate myself to the Snider. However nothing I tried ever turned in any useable accuracy, and that included .600" round balls which should have had no issue with the 72" twist.

http://www.fototime.com/81B27EA5C8B88C9/standard.jpghttp://www.fototime.com/F50698BFD63638B/standard.jpg

Both in Jamison brassLEFT: A 500gr Minie' swaged to .595", and a .600" RB. RIGHT: Various loads (BP) with various Minie' boolits. All went downrange and had I been shooting at an Elephant I'd have probably hit it a few times.

http://www.fototime.com/AD10AA21E7DA774/standard.jpg

Each row (6) of 5 rounds was a different load with a .600" RB. They were all "no bueno por ca-ca". I simply couldn't figure out what was going on. The bore of the 3 band was actually quite good, although the bore at the muzzle did show some ramrod wear. Once I was talking to a Canadian buddy of mine who'd retired from the RCMP as a captain and lived in Winnipeg. I must have said something about the Snider, as he asked, "Would you like some Snider parts?" Naturally I said sure!

http://www.fototime.com/35572699B1D8361/standard.jpghttp://www.fototime.com/1A15641CDD2AC93/standard.jpg

About 3 weeks went by and this box showed up with all the parts to build this carbine (cut down rifle) except for the hammer screw, so I made one and was ready to go except for the hacksaw job on the muzzle crown. Nifty, eh?

http://www.fototime.com/FCC9D40B7D9B1FF/standard.jpghttp://www.fototime.com/B9C212977516E0D/standard.jpg

So first I pulled the action and set the barrel up in the 4 jaw and the muzzle end in the steady to cut a good crown. As I was indicating the muzzle end I noticed the bore wasn't tracking with the barrel OD? Come to find out it wasn't uncommon for the bores to 'hunt' a bit in their travel down the tube. The barrel was rotating smoothly in the steady rest, but the crown had to be cut concentric to the bore. I made a soft brass plug of land diameter and cut a 60º taper in the end for a rotating center to fit. I also made a circular cut so I could could get the tool in to the reach 'just' inside the end of the barrel. I then drove it into the barrel up to the circular relief, used a parting tool to clean up the hacksaw cut, and then crowned the barrel.

In all my reading I recalled reading about a guy who used 24.0 or 28.0 grs of Unique and a Minie' of some description for some decent shooting. I know I had a copy of the article around someplace but couldn't lay my hands on it. I defaulted to 24.0 grs and used the lighter RB instead of a Minie'.

http://www.fototime.com/9A90D5FA438A8D0/standard.jpg

577 Snider carbine @ 50 yards. Group 1.875". 24.0grs Unique, .60" Lee RB cast of WW alloy over .080" cardwad and lube disc. 1475 fps. In this instance I used cut down Mag-Tech (CBC) brass shotgun shells (the older Berdan primed ones) I'd converted to 209 primers. The powder charge was loose in the case. I then tried the same load in the 3 band and it ran 2.15".

..............Buckshot

[The Goose]

Wow, great write up.

[Alberta woodsman]

Thanks Buckshot! That had a lot of useful information! The more the merry when it comes to reloading info.
Woodsman

[Red River Rick]

ABW:

Here's another bit of Snider info you find interesting. Posted by Dromia: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?31451-Red-River-Ricks-590-quot-Collar-Button&highlight=Paradox

Did you happen to get those Sniders off of CGN?

RRR

[M-Tecs]

In the States we have had a mass influx of Khyber Pass copies. Some are very hard to tell from the real ones. Same for Martini's. I would like to own both but everyone I have looked at in the past couple of years has been a Khyber Pass fake. Nice rifle. It would go well with my Trapdoor collection.

[Alberta woodsman]

Hey RRR yes I did! Very very good guy sold em to me. I tried to get a carbine he had too but he had sold it a few min before.
Woodsman

[The Goose]

I own 4 Sniders and 3 Martinis and you do have to look very carefully when purchasing. Luckily there is plenty of good info out there on the web regarding correct markings and such. The best deal I ever got was a Enfield Snider MKII** that I ran across in a local shop. The shop sold almost nothing but tactical type firearms and I never expected to find a Snider. It was part of an estate sale and they just wanted it out of the shop. I was a bit nervous as there was no time to research it and I had to go on memory, but the price was great and I just could not walk away. Luckily it was genuine. Occasionally there are still deals out there and even on Gunbroker. You just have to be careful.

[Alberta woodsman]

I'm pretty sure they are real British made sniders. The markings seem to be right. I won't know for sure until I get them.
Woodsman

[Alberta woodsman]

I know that it is hard to get a snider to shoot well and I don't have a lot of money too spend, so can anyone recommend me an accurate bullet/mold that won't break the bank? I was looking at RRR's 58 paradox but it's a little too expensive. I am going to buy a a round ball mold once I slug the bore but I want a minie or other "slug" for longer ranges?

Woodsman

[DangerousDrummer]

If we had a "like button" I would press it. Nice article, sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

[dromia]

Trust me Red River Ricks Paradox is the best of the bunch out there bar none in all my Sniders, and I have at least tweive "Snider" moulds by different makers. Including Lyman, Lee, Accurate, RCBS, KAL and CBE. Cast and shot them all and the Paradox came out tops out to 200yrds.

As I have seen said here cry once.

Ideally if you could get samples from different moulds to try before you buy that might help you decide.

[Alberta woodsman]

Just like to saw I received my sniders! And love em. Cleaned them up a but and the usual, gonna measure the bore tomorrow and I am going to order a mold from accurate molds. Sorry but I take terrible pics and honestly do not think they are worth uploading

[Bad Ass Wallace]

Cast Bullet Engineering make a .590 boolit mould called the "Bumble Bee". These look like a scaled up 45ACP semi-wadcutter but they shoot very tight groups and have become essential for good scores on match day!