For some time now I keep trying to find an accurate load for the 577 snider cartridge. Without question it is one of the most difficult to load accurately, at least for me. I bought a new mold in September and think I might finally be on the right track. I have been shooting the various loads out of a 577 double rifle and this newest slug seems to be grouping but initially the barrels were cross firing about 4" apart at 25 yards. Conventional wisdom says that you should shoot standing up and that you need to change the powder charge if the gun is either cross firing or firing apart but not crossing. I made a guess that increasing the charge would increase the recoil and perhaps rotate the barrels closer to the center line of the sights. I started with 70 grains of 1F powder compressed moderately heavily with a plunger then corn meal filler to the base of the bullet then the newest slug; a sort of collar button type. That load cross fired so I loaded another group of 6 shells with 80 grains of 1F and just to hedge my bets, a second 6 with 60 grains. Corn meal filler in all.
Low and behold, the 80 grains charge brought the two barrels together.
The photos below are the final 25 yard target and some of the bullets that I tried. Also are two original slugs; the mushroomed one is a snider bullet dug out of the rifle perm at Clover Point (50 years ago it was still there) and the round nosed slug covereed in oxide is a battle recovery souvenir from the US civil war. Worth noting that the skirt on the snider is much thicker than on the US mini and the cavity is filled with a brick like material giving it a very shallow cavity
The slugs to the left of the collar button one, one is a Lyman mold 611 with the base plug modified to give a thicker skirt and square ended cavity plus the slug has been lengthened a bit. The next two are two standard mini versions although with a modified skirt and finally some other molds that I tried
As an afterthought, it is perhaps significant that I tried using partial 20 guage muzzle loading shotgun wads as a filler between the powder and the bullet and my accuracy improved noticeably when I went to corn meal filler. At the same time as that change I also changed from filling the cavity of the mini with the same type of wadding to filling it with bullet lube. On the one slug that I recovered from snow, there was no sign of the grease type filler so it apparently is blown out during the firing.
cheers mooncoon
Low and behold, the 80 grains charge brought the two barrels together.
The photos below are the final 25 yard target and some of the bullets that I tried. Also are two original slugs; the mushroomed one is a snider bullet dug out of the rifle perm at Clover Point (50 years ago it was still there) and the round nosed slug covereed in oxide is a battle recovery souvenir from the US civil war. Worth noting that the skirt on the snider is much thicker than on the US mini and the cavity is filled with a brick like material giving it a very shallow cavity
The slugs to the left of the collar button one, one is a Lyman mold 611 with the base plug modified to give a thicker skirt and square ended cavity plus the slug has been lengthened a bit. The next two are two standard mini versions although with a modified skirt and finally some other molds that I tried
As an afterthought, it is perhaps significant that I tried using partial 20 guage muzzle loading shotgun wads as a filler between the powder and the bullet and my accuracy improved noticeably when I went to corn meal filler. At the same time as that change I also changed from filling the cavity of the mini with the same type of wadding to filling it with bullet lube. On the one slug that I recovered from snow, there was no sign of the grease type filler so it apparently is blown out during the firing.
cheers mooncoon
