By the way, another reason (besides mechanical fit in the bore) why standard Minié-type bullets currently available don't work effectively in a Snider, whereas these short-bodied solid-base bullets work so well, is because the latter have a good "center of gravity' for proper stabilization in flight when fired from the breech-loading Snider.
"Dissertation Mode On ...."
When the British War Department were first developing the .577 Snider cartridge, they tried to use what was essentially the same bullet as the Minié-type "Pritchett" bullet previously used in the muzzle-loading Enfields (i.e. with a solid nose). However they soon learned that this type of bullet did NOT stabilize well when loaded in a metallic cartridge and fired from the Snider - particularly the slow-twist, 3-groove 3-band "Long Rifles" - because the center of gravity of the projectile was too far forward.
Although the bullets actually used in the various Marks of Snider cartridge may look like a normal Minié-type bullet externally, in fact they all had a significant cavity in the nose, for the specific purpose of moving the center-of-gravity back. The earliest versions had this cavity filled with a boxwood plug and later versions just had an empty cavity - although in all cases the front of the cavity was "spun over" with lead, so the bullets do in fact appear to have a solid nose.
This is excerpted from the War Department's "Treatise on Ammunition" (Fourth Edition, 1887) -
Although, as stated, the real purpose of this cavity was to lighten the nose and thus move the center-of-gravity to the rear, an incidental result was that these bullets were effectively hollow-point "Dum-Dums" .... and thus had a significantly greater shocking/wounding effect than the old muzzle-loaded Pritchett bullet .... or, for that matter, the smaller-diameter, higher velocity bullet fired in the .577/.450 Martini-Henry .... and there are numerous commentaries from that period remarking on this.
Note that the only reason they needed the nose cavity to move the center-of-gravity back was because they were still messing with hollow-base bullets .... which you will note from the above diagrams actually had a very deep, relatively thin-walled base cavity in conjunction with a tapered plug (boxwood or fired clay) which actually did result in reasonably acceptable expansion when fired from the coiled-brass cases virtually all British military Snider cartridges used. (I will, in fact, modify my earlier overly-simplistic comments to this extent.)
What "modern" experience has shown - and this is what I meant by my earlier assertions - is that none of the currently-available Minié-type bullet designs (most of which have relatively shallow base-cavities with fairly thick walls) seem to properly expand to fit the bore consistently in a Snider, particularly when used without a base-expansion plug and fired from a solid brass case. Anyway, with a larger-than-bore-size bullet, any need for a hollow base for that reason is gone, and the resulting solid-base bullet can be (and in fact must be) shorter, with a solid nose, and yet have a good center-of-gravity for ballistic stability ...
"Dissertation Mode Off" ....
"Dissertation Mode On ...."
When the British War Department were first developing the .577 Snider cartridge, they tried to use what was essentially the same bullet as the Minié-type "Pritchett" bullet previously used in the muzzle-loading Enfields (i.e. with a solid nose). However they soon learned that this type of bullet did NOT stabilize well when loaded in a metallic cartridge and fired from the Snider - particularly the slow-twist, 3-groove 3-band "Long Rifles" - because the center of gravity of the projectile was too far forward.
Although the bullets actually used in the various Marks of Snider cartridge may look like a normal Minié-type bullet externally, in fact they all had a significant cavity in the nose, for the specific purpose of moving the center-of-gravity back. The earliest versions had this cavity filled with a boxwood plug and later versions just had an empty cavity - although in all cases the front of the cavity was "spun over" with lead, so the bullets do in fact appear to have a solid nose.
This is excerpted from the War Department's "Treatise on Ammunition" (Fourth Edition, 1887) -
Although, as stated, the real purpose of this cavity was to lighten the nose and thus move the center-of-gravity to the rear, an incidental result was that these bullets were effectively hollow-point "Dum-Dums" .... and thus had a significantly greater shocking/wounding effect than the old muzzle-loaded Pritchett bullet .... or, for that matter, the smaller-diameter, higher velocity bullet fired in the .577/.450 Martini-Henry .... and there are numerous commentaries from that period remarking on this.
Note that the only reason they needed the nose cavity to move the center-of-gravity back was because they were still messing with hollow-base bullets .... which you will note from the above diagrams actually had a very deep, relatively thin-walled base cavity in conjunction with a tapered plug (boxwood or fired clay) which actually did result in reasonably acceptable expansion when fired from the coiled-brass cases virtually all British military Snider cartridges used. (I will, in fact, modify my earlier overly-simplistic comments to this extent.)
What "modern" experience has shown - and this is what I meant by my earlier assertions - is that none of the currently-available Minié-type bullet designs (most of which have relatively shallow base-cavities with fairly thick walls) seem to properly expand to fit the bore consistently in a Snider, particularly when used without a base-expansion plug and fired from a solid brass case. Anyway, with a larger-than-bore-size bullet, any need for a hollow base for that reason is gone, and the resulting solid-base bullet can be (and in fact must be) shorter, with a solid nose, and yet have a good center-of-gravity for ballistic stability ...
"Dissertation Mode Off" ....
