.577 Snider

[The Goose]

I know that my whacky posts only interest a few, but here goes anyway. I have been struggling for about 2 years now trying to get some decent accuracy from my old Snider Mk II in .577. I had two different bullet molds made in an attempt to replicate the original bullet. At best I have been able to keep my shots on a 12" target at 50 yards. So I decided to try something new. I loaded up 70 grs of 2F, some cotton ball filler, a wad, a grease cookie and then another wad and then just pressed a .595 round ball down with my thumb. Then I ran the loaded round up into the sizing die (sans decapper) and got just enough neck tension to hold the ball in place. Today I hit the range.

At 50 yards my first shot hit dead center. I was shocked and sorely tempted to just stop right there. I fired a second shot and went "damn" I missed the entire target. I went down range for a closer look and the second ball had passed through the same hole with just as slight tearing to one side. I went back and fired 3 more shots. The results are below. That is 5 shots at 50 yards. By the way I have a witness who was there also. Oh yeah, today is my 65th birthday and I guess this was my present. So after spending a few hundred dollars on custom molds the answer is a cheap round ball. Go figure.

 

[sieveboy]

Congrats! I am lucky to even hit the backer board with my 3 banders

 

[Dean Crawford]

That's right up my alley, mazel tov.

Dean

 

[Fixxah]

Happy birthday. Excellent results. Maybe a round ball profile in a longer boolit will yeild the same results. Any pics of the molds you had made?

 

[jct61765]

Happy birthday

 

[asp]

Your posts are some of the best. Keep em coming! And Happy Birthday!

 

[38ExtraSpecial]

Happy Birthday!

Glad to hear the good news. It's always awesome when you get something to work out.


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[EddieCoyle]

What's the twist rate of the barrel?

A ball can be stabilized with a much slower twist (and at lower velocities) than a conical bullet.

... and Happy Birthday!

 

[The Goose]

This Snider has a 3 groove barrel with a 1:72 twist. It started life as a muzzle loader in 1863 and the Snider conversion was installed in January of 1866.

 

[38ExtraSpecial]

Makes sense with that twist.
What weight was the custom bullets you were trying? We're they common weights for that cartridge?
I know the Snyder isn't known to be a super accurate gun. Maybe they had it wrong the whole time and should have stuck with the round ball


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[The Goose]

I had 2 molds made by Accurate. The one below which is a .595 and weighs about 500 gr. with pure lead. The other is a round nose .600 and weighs about the same. I also tried loading a .577 Minie into the case, but the diameter is too small and the case inhibits the base of the bullet from "bumping up" or expanding properly. The Minie would have been used when it was a muzzle loader, balls were rarely used. Both bullets are pretty close to the originals. I post on the British Militaria Forum and finding the right bullet is always problematic. Just a note that yesterday I only had 20 rds made up with round balls which were all as accurate as shown. I fired another 60 rds with the bullet in the photo. At 50 yards I could not consistently get on the cardboard never mind the 12" target (20 rounds). However, when I moved the target out to 75 yards I was able to put all 40 rounds in about a 10" group. Maybe the bullet stabilizes at a longer range? Does that even make sense? I was just so thrilled with the round ball performance that I wanted to blow off all of my loaded ammo so that I could reload with the roundball.

 

[38ExtraSpecial]

What speeds are they moving at?
I remember reading an thread on cat sneeze loads for rifles. GMDR lever gun page lists a bunch of those loads and the accuracy (50 yards) always dropped off when the bullets were pushed over 1200 FPS. someone had noted that the groups opened up because the bullet was going trans sonic and ran into turbulence issues. If they kept the loads sub sonic there were no issues. The poster also noted that when he tested the loads he found the same issues but when he tested out to 100 yards the accuracy seemed to settle down and the groups closed. He attributed that to the big slow bullets getting past the trans sonic point and stabilizing once they went sub sonic.

I'll try to dig up the thread.


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[The Goose]

I doubt these bullets are even hitting 1000 FPS

 

[55_grain]

I wonder what the rifling on the round balls looks like if you could recover one. They're not patched, right? Just a bare round ball on top of the wads?
Make more round ball and remelt the regular projos.