Yesterday's Weapons Forums

I've been thinking more and more of getting either a Snider or a Martini Henry. I am all about reloading old ammo sizes, and especially those of the British military. Don't know why as I'm a Texan through and through.

Anyway to my point. Was curious as to where or whom you purchased your Snider and Martini from? I know IMA and Atlanta cutlary have them but don't know whom would be best to go through.

As for the reloading of the Snider, I also shoot an remake of an 1853 cilvi war Enfield so am thinking the boolets would be pretty much the same. I would think that a Minie Ball would work really well.

Thanks again for your input and i look forward to your reply.

Hello and welcome to the madness... err... forum.

I got both my Sniders ( on sale @ monthly specials) from IMA. Unless you live close enough to hit their showroom... no wait - you said you're in Texas. Never mind - it's a real gamble on getting a nice one. I got lucky with my long rifle, but my sergeant's carbine was quite a project with all the bug holes in addition to the thick layer of dirty yak fat. There's a fixer-upper thread with pics of the Snider in the projects forum here. It took quite a while to fill all the bug holes and fit plugs to the missing stock pieces.

But the bore and action were sound, and they both shoot well. I really like shooting Sniders - there's just something about earing the massive hammer back to ignite the torpedo-sized cartridge. I went with dedicated Jamison .577 brass, but you can make it less expensively from brass 24ga cases like grafs.com sells.

A setback for me was not realizing I needed a bigger press for the bigger dies. But I grabbed a Lee and it works fine. There isn't much for data so I started with 50-70 loads.

So I see that you have three choices: get one from gunbroker ( probably expensive but you go shooting as soon as you unpack it) b) get one already cleaned up from IMA ( not quite as pricey) or c) get an "untouched" Snider from IMA and clean it up & repair the stock yourself. ( a lot cheeper but a gamble and labor-intensive)

Look over the DIY threads in the projects forum & pick yer poison. It will be fun! Seriously!

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And! In honor of your new membership, the lovely Megan was going to pose for a pic or two... but she was having a lot of OCD with her makeup, so we had to cancel the shoot. SW

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hey - i see where that "C" got caught up , here , let me help you with that .....

Any update on using those .600 round balls in your Snider? I have some round balls, but they don't like working with those plastic 24GA shotgun hulls. Arrgh, Growl, Arrgh. Original Minnie balls works just fine though. .025 seems to make a big difference. I think that is the difference between the thickness of the plastic hulls verses the thinness of the actual brass. I could use an update.

Best Regards,

Mark

No troubles here - which may have something to do with me using bass cases. SW

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Confused by people using plastic hulls. No telling what they used. My cases are trimmed to spec…kinda, so I'm rather baffled. I think I took one hull exceptionally short and it still didn't fit all the way. If I get brass, then I have to get dies. Dies are $85 bucks if in stock. Arrgh, growl, arrgh. Cases are $3 a piece, unless I play with a blow torch and do some trimming to 24GA Magtech cases. Oh the joy…horror. Now will the misses let me play with fire?

Best Regards,

Mark

If you get Lee dies, do not fail to get an RCBS shell holder. The Lee will fail within 5 rounds. As far as I know, the record is 8 before the rim snapped off. I made it to 3.

RCBS 22 or 23 shell holder. Works also for 43 Egyptian & Spanish. SW

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Ummh, wonder what C&H charges then?

Best Regards,

Mark

CH4D price list.

http://www.ch4d.com/products/dies/groups

Need to scroll down to see price.

Rad

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$213 for a three die set, not a good price.

Ummh, I might just stick to 24 GA plastic shotgun hulls. Maybe I'll look at my Lee Loader set for 45/70 and figure out a way to neck size using something I can whip up in HSS. Ummh, get the dimensions from the Lee set and make a good guess at what a .577 Snider should be. The Lee set for $85 might do for some things though, like bullet seating and such. Since I only have one rifle in .557 Snider, firing form fired brass exclusively might be the way to go. If straight walled plastic hulls shoot okay, only resizing the neck might be the way to go. Hope my caliber's battery has juice.

Best Regards,

Mark

I think a C&H neck sizer was $100-$120 by itself.

I had a custom set of dies made by CH, fl & trim for $110 and change. When I had those made I went down to their shop, now that would have very hard to find if I hadn't have a GPS.

Rad

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I need to look over all their prices once again. On some stuff, they were very competitive, others, not so much.

Best Regards,

Mark


I do wonder why they cost so much, since they probably all use the same tooling and the programs are all stored/written.

The extra cost is for heat treating and polishing? SW

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".....Confused by people using plastic hulls. No telling what they used. My cases are trimmed to spec…"

that is the result of the lack of ready made brass and ability to buy the 24ga hulls recently , i have those loads somewhere here but

my martini has a broken firing pin i need to replace ,

my snider needs a little TLC - cleaning ,

my P53 has a charge in it i need to remove one day soon ,

and my kaintucky rifle is calling to me ............"ME FIRST" ...........just waitin on the weather now , feelin i have a long wait these days ,

this will help explain the plastic 24 ga - http://britishmilitariaforums.yuku.com/ ... 4g-plastic

I finally took my Snider Mk III out last weekend. Its been a very long time since I've been able to shoot it and it certainly didn't let me down. I used 70 gr of Goex FFg , card wad and a 310 gr .600 round ball. Target was shot at 50 yards as the 100 yard line was obscured by fog. Brass was 24 guage cbc.
I am going to give the 24 guage hulls a try. At $16/100 its worth a try.
The two .45 Caliber holes on the left were from my Beaumont rifle. Still working on that one.
Ken

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Looks like some good grouping.

Rad

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I hadn't shot my Snider for quite a while, but our pal, SwihartMark made me a few cases from 24 ga brass hulls. Fit my rifle fine! Thank yew vurry much!!

I meant to load those but couldn't find my supply of boolets... probably because i shot them all. It was cool yesterday so i fired up the lead pot & made a fresh supply. Hand lubed them with SAECO NRA formula grease and put the 430 grain (lubed) bullet over 32.0 grains of AA5744.

i looked around online to find that was the hottest smokeless load anybody seems to be using. With good reason - the old Sniders just aren't too stout.

I should probably try real black, but in this part of the country, it's hard to find a place selling it other than Cabelas & I can't see driving 90 miles one way just for that.

I was otherwise occupied today but will post results from a range test later.

This is the Lee hollow base .585" bullet shown with French medals for size perspective. SW


medals 006 (1024x548).jpg [ 288.13 KiB | Viewed 8817 times ]

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The adventure continues... Took 5 rounds loaded as mentioned above out for velocity measurement today. (large pistol mag primers) Not much to report. Only 1 of the 5 fired. The rest popped bullets just into the bore & dumped powder all over the place.

The massive Snider cleaning rod is just the ticket for tapping stuck bullets from the bore, though! All can be used again.

But I've fired loads with AA5744 in this weight range before and no issues with ignition. Hmmm... what's the variable here?

I suspect it might relate to primer pocket. The 24ga cases have a rim of sorts inside the case that might be limiting primer flame travel. Jamison cases don't have that. I recently found my supply of Jamison cases & will load 5 of those tomorrow - same bullet & same 32 grains of AA 5744. I'll also try a couple 24ga/577 cases with large rifle mag primers just to eliminate a variable.

The one round that lit did 1049 fps, but we don't learn much from one velocity reading.

I know there are lurkers thinking I should go with real black. Maybe I should, but I've never had trouble with AA 5744 igniting before. Then there's the possibility 24 ga/577 cases are meant for real black - too soon to say for certain.

Hopefully, I can add more to this tomorrow. SW

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there is a huge amount of info regarding this on this site - https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/britishmilitariaforums/

Out for another try today. Loaded Jamison 577 cases with the 425 grain hollow base boolet over 32.0 grains/ AA5744. Tried large rifle mag primers this time & no failures to ignite. 5 shots went...
1 - 797
2 - 743
3 - 823
4 - 851
5 - 589 (???)

I loaded 2 of the 24ga cases the same.
1 - 747
2 - 629

That was all I brought of those - I was just interested if mag primers would ignite the powder & all was well that way.

I was surprised at the difference in case weight. Jamison cases went 342 grains while 24ga cases were only 206 grains. I'm not sure what difference that makes, but there's the info for your use. I should probably see how many grains of water each holds - more on that later.

Next comes a test @ 25 yards for accuracy potential. I'll try black one of these days... maybe. I need to get a good bend in my learning curve with smokeless first. SW

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