.577 Snider load development -the first phase

[Gert Odendaal]

Good day to you members.
My good friend Herman Nel own a .577 Snider. He commenced on a journey to develop a load for the .577 Snider. Herman enlisted the assistance of Hansie Minnaar ( Steward Bullets)who took over Stan Steward`s brass/ bullet fabrication.
Hansie Minnaar made brass and cast bullets for the .577 Snider owned by Herman Nel. Hansie and Herman did a chamber cast on the .577 Snider to determine the bore diameter of the rifle.

Recently , while visiting Herman Nel for another building/brass casting project we set out to see how good grouping can be shot with the .577 Snider.
Herman commenced by paper patching the 420 gn hollow core bullets:
The bullet swage block and paper for paper patch...

Paper patching the bullet:

Paper patched bullets:

The paper patched bullets are dunked into a mixture of beeswax/olive oil, seated and then the whole bullet /paper patched surface is dunked in the hot liquid again:

Excess wax is removed by thumb nail to ensure a tight fit in the chamber:

Fit the chamber:

The shooting range on the farm, back stop is extremely dense potters clay:

Herman Nel shooting at the target:

Ruan and me did some shooting as well , to see if a good grouping can be achieved ...

We did manage to get acceptable groupings. One of the problems was that the bullet tend to tumble with the first lot of loads that was develop.....these following pictures shows the tumbling had stop with the new loads and paper patch bullets. This photo indicate a straight line penetration, extremely deep penetration since the potter`s clay is extremely dense and hard .

What is evident as well is that the bullets Herman shot is extremely hard lead as well since deforming did not occurred when deep penetration into the dense clay took place:

This is the distance the bullet penetrated..at least eight inches into this dense potter`s clay wall that is the back stop..The bullet lodge in the clay:

Distance of penetration/wound channel:

.577 Snider bullets retrieved:

Conclusion:
We all got good groupings at seventy meters, but everyone who shot this rifle concur that the sights is not up to standard and therefore Herman Nel will build a ghost ring aperture sight for this rifle and a larger front bead to enable him to see the sights better and increase accuracy.
Phase two will be about the designing of a ghost ring and front bead to increase accuracy....