Snider Bullets

stevejones

stevejones

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Courtenay, BC
I'm looking for a supplier of bullets from the mold made by Cast Bullet Engineering (Australia manufacture) and/or from Kerry Jenkinson's mold. I am hoping to get enough to test so I can make an informed decision before purchasing a mold. I know the Allison mold is available but I'm not sure if Kerry's mold is. Can anyone shed a little light on the subject?

Cheers. Steve.
 
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stevejones said:
I'm looking for a supplier of bullets from the mold made by Cast Bullet Engineering (Australia manufacture) and/or from Kerry Jenkinson's mold. I am hoping to get enough to test so I can make an informed decision before purchasing a mold. I know the Allison mold is available but I'm not sure if Kerry's mold is. Can anyone shed a little light on the subject?.
Click to expand...

I suspect that Kerry may have made or modified his own molds. In looking at a couple of original snider slugs recovered from the former range at Clover Point in Victoria, the skirt is about .1" thick and much thicker than most modern molds cast. I suspect that you need to slug your bore and use slugs that are close to bore diameter, at least in my limited experience. I did find that using shotgun type wads to partially fill the case and pieces of same to fill the base cavity was not very accurate and accuracy improved considerably when I used corn meal as a filler and filled the base cavity with lube.

cheers mooncoon
 
CBE Mold

The mold from CBE is a .590 diameter bullet with a very round nose, solid base, single deep groove, and is short. It looks like it could have some real potential in a 3 band. Now only if i can get my hands on a couple dozen....

I think that any kind of wad in the snider is a bad idea when you are using hollow based bullets. I just went through a very frustrating experience with mine involving lube cookies. The bullets scattered in every possible direction! Maybe the wads stick in the base and upset it?

I find that a single milk carton wad, cream of wheat filler, and lubing the base of the bullet as well as the grease grooves gives the best result.

Cheers. Steve.
 
I have Kerry's mold it is .590 has a single lube groove and resembles a large 45 auto bullet sounds alot like the CBE mold if you can find one of Kerry's buy it as I believe he is sold out they were a double cavity made by lee he did a run .Here is a pic of some these were shot out of my Kerr sporting rifle
PC060164.jpg
 
WoW!

Allot of trouble for such a basic round.

Slug your bore.

I use a Lee Minie right out of the mold.

Yepper, LEE!

Pan lube. (Paul Mathews BP Lube recipe) great for starters.

Then fill the base with lube.

50 grains FFG with Corn Meal as a filler on top.

The secret is the Corn Meal.

Brass made from MagTech .24 gauge

Large PISTOL Magnum primer.

Anyone I shoot with is amazed on BP night at our club.

I'm not new to this game.

I have been at this seriously for over 37 years.

Any more info needed, may take a while to come.

I will be in Winchester, Virginia at the North South Skirmish Association -Nationals.
 
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The Lee 0.600" round ball always shot well from my Snider. Tap it into the case and lube the exposed surface.
 
Mold

I have to agree that Kerry's mold and CBE's appear very familiar. Guess I'll have to keep my eyes and ears open still for a supplier...Maybe there is a member out there who can part with some for a reasonable fee...? I've had pretty good success with minnies and round ball. I believe that the larger diameter and design of either of the two bullets in question will produce better results though.

Cheers. Steve.
 
I have a Rigby sporting rifle, a double rifle, a military snider and a percussion Enfield and the bore diameters vary from .577 for the Rigby up to .590 for the percussion gun. I think it is critical to slug your bore. Also the short solid base and bore size or over size slug makes a lot of sense because you would not have to worry about skirt deformation with too much powder and not flaring out with too little powder

cheers mooncoon
 
Snider bullets

Steve,
This is the bullet I have been using. I get it from a guy who casts near Maitland. Ontario.
It looks to my eye just like the pictures above. Measures about .588" & about 475 grain, short, one groove & a flat base.

Well I could not manage to post the picture, so if you want to PM me I will email you a picture & the contact info for the guy I get them from.

I shoot at the same club as Cigarman (above) & when I started using the load he talks about, my weekly score jumped from 60's/70's up to mid to high 80's (occasionly in the 90's thanks Cigarman). I think it's because the corn meal is a lot more uniform as a filler than the carded wool I was using before.

I am now experimenting with a slightly smaller .578" dia., hollow base but longer bullet Vs the bullet above & while it is early days, the short FB does not seem to be performing noticably better so far.
I have been shooting a 13 string of each type with the same load & comparing results for the last 2 weeks. Another few weeks & I will start to draw some conclusions.

Peter
(Burlington, Ontario)


stevejones said:
I'm looking for a supplier of bullets from the mold made by Cast Bullet Engineering (Australia manufacture) and/or from Kerry Jenkinson's mold. I am hoping to get enough to test so I can make an informed decision before purchasing a mold. I know the Allison mold is available but I'm not sure if Kerry's mold is. Can anyone shed a little light on the subject?

Cheers. Steve.
Click to expand...
 
If you are going with a .590" mould you will be able to put a card wad underneath as the bullet will be the fill of the bore. I have a Lee mould at .590 and have never been fully satisfied with it. My main bullet for accuracy is a .590" round ball. Dave
 
577 brass

cigar_man said:
WoW!

Allot of trouble for such a basic round.

Slug your bore.

I use a Lee Minie right out of the mold.

Yepper, LEE!

Pan lube. (Paul Mathews BP Lube recipe) great for starters.

Then fill the base with lube.

50 grains FFG with Corn Meal as a filler on top.

The secret is the Corn Meal.

Brass made from MagTech .28 gauge

Large Rifle Magnum primer.

Anyone I shoot with is amazed on BP night at our club.

I'm not new to this game.

I have been at this seriously for over 37 years.

Any more info needed, may take a while to come.

I will be in Winchester, Virginia at the North South Skirmish Association -Nationals.
Click to expand...

the 577 is made from reform 24 GAUGE BRASS cut at 2.00 inches max.
 
Parker Hale Mold

I recently tried a run of loads using the Parker Hale minnie (mold is made by Lyman now) and did not do too bad. The mold is a .577 diameter so I thought the slightly larger size might help. I used my digital caliper to check the diameter and they turned out to be casting at .590. I was surprised that it did as well as it did as accuracy was consistent all the way from 55 to 70 grains (ouch) of 3F. I use cream of wheat as a filler, I have used corn meal and have never had a problem with it but I was told that it is abrasive and will leave a very hard fouling residue that defies cleaning with anything short of a laser beam....I do agree that using either of these is the key to getting consistency as the filler seals the base of the projectile to seal and expand it properly.

Cheers. Steve.
 
cigar_man said:
WoW!

Allot of trouble for such a basic round.

Slug your bore.

I use a Lee Minie right out of the mold.

Yepper, LEE!

Pan lube. (Paul Mathews BP Lube recipe) great for starters.

Then fill the base with lube.

50 grains FFG with Corn Meal as a filler on top.

The secret is the Corn Meal.

Brass made from MagTech .24 gauge

Large PISTOL Magnum primer.

Anyone I shoot with is amazed on BP night at our club.

I'm not new to this game.

I have been at this seriously for over 37 years.

Any more info needed, may take a while to come.

I will be in Winchester, Virginia at the North South Skirmish Association -Nationals.
Click to expand...

Which Lee Mini mold are you using? Looks like there are a couple different ones available. Are you shooting a Snider? I'm trying to clean the bore on one I just bought and luckily it still has some rifling! New to black powder and Sniders so don't know nuthin yet! Where in Ontario do I find the Magtech shot shells? Will I need to buy the dies? Sounds like once they are sized you can basically reload them by hand without dies?
Rodney
 
rodauto said:
Which Lee Mini mold are you using? Looks like there are a couple different ones available. Are you shooting a Snider? I'm trying to clean the bore on one I just bought and luckily it still has some rifling! New to black powder and Sniders so don't know nuthin yet! Where in Ontario do I find the Magtech shot shells? Will I need to buy the dies? Sounds like once they are sized you can basically reload them by hand without dies?
Rodney
Click to expand...

you will need dies to form cases along with those dies you will need a press that can take 1 1/4" dies for the snider you will want real BP goex fg is best but ffg can be used also.

bullet diameter will vary but common sizes used are .585" to .595" conicals(20-1 lead-tin) and .585" to .600" round balls(pure lead) some think this is over size but in reality you can slide a minie ball down the bore of these guns just like intended for that design of bullet the grooves of these guns are much larger then the claimed .577 once these guns were converted from p1853 Enfield's to the breech loading snider just like any breech loader best accuracy will be with a bullet above bore diameter.

twist rates on the snider are 1 in 78" for 3 groove rifles and 1 in 48" for 5 groove the 3 groove will shoot well with round balls and short conicals and the 5 groove will handle just about any length of bullet
 
antiqueguy said:
you will need dies to form cases along with those dies you will need a press that can take 1 1/4" dies for the snider you will want real BP goex fg is best but ffg can be used also.

bullet diameter will vary but common sizes used are .585" to .595" conicals(20-1 lead-tin) and .585" to .600" round balls(pure lead) some think this is over size but in reality you can slide a minie ball down the bore of these guns just like intended for that design of bullet the grooves of these guns are much larger then the claimed .577 once these guns were converted from p1853 Enfield's to the breech loading snider just like any breech loader best accuracy will be with a bullet above bore diameter.

twist rates on the snider are 1 in 78" for 3 groove rifles and 1 in 48" for 5 groove the 3 groove will shoot well with round balls and short conicals and the 5 groove will handle just about any length of bullet
Click to expand...

Thanks for that, this has been a rather confusing journey to say the least! My barrel is 3 groove but the specs I have seen says 5 groove for the short barrel. Appears I have an an amalgamation of a few different varieties of this rifle! Still pretty cool as going by the patina/rust it was put together many years ago!

Rodney
 
Can't remember if I posted this but I took apart two factory rounds. I think one was Kynoch (on left) and the other Dominion (on right). I have the applicable measurements somewhere but I was surprised by the filler or lack thereof. Both had hollow base bullets.

The left one has the small wisp of cotton like stuff and that is it. The right had no filler.


 
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