Shooting the Martini Henry Sportster .450/.577 and Mauser 1871 single shot black powder rifle

[fourfive8]

One thing I forgot to mention about BPCR loading and shooting is to remind of the requirement to clean both the bore and the brass after shooting. It’s a well known requirement for both muzzleloaders and BPCR guns including the use of many of the BP substitutes. Some of worst, sewer pipe bores I’ve ever seen were those that have been shot with Pyrodex then neglected. This cleaning requirement also applies to the Russian duplex loads that typically use only the small amount of 5 or 6 gr of BP. After shooting, I thoroughly clean and re-oil the rifle’s bore. I decap the brass, clean with bottle brush in hot soapy water, rinse and let dry.

 

[TOBY458]

One thing I forgot to mention about BPCR loading and shooting is to remind of the requirement to clean both the bore and the brass after shooting. It’s a well known requirement for both muzzleloaders and BPCR guns including the use of many of the BP substitutes. Some of worst, sewer pipe bores I’ve ever seen were those that have been shot with Pyrodex then neglected. This cleaning requirement also applies to the Russian duplex loads that typically use only the small amount of 5 or 6 gr of BP. After shooting, I thoroughly clean and re-oil the rifle’s bore. I decap the brass, clean with bottle brush in hot soapy water, rinse and let dry.

I wonder if a load could be worked up with Blackhorn 209? It’s a much cleaner burning BP substitute than either BP or Pyrodex.

 

[Spacebogan]

I wonder if a load could be worked up with Blackhorn 209? It’s a much cleaner burning BP substitute than either BP or Pyrodex.

That's a new powder to me. I must read up on it.

Re after range cleaning. I found a couple of nitro for black shots after a BP session were a great aid to bore cleaning.

I used 11grn VV-110 in turned brass cases

 

[fourfive8]

I wonder if a load could be worked up with Blackhorn 209? It’s a much cleaner burning BP substitute than either BP or Pyrodex.

Yes absolutely! Blackhorn works great as a BP sub, one of the best. Far Superior to Pyrodex which is one of the worst, But Blackhorn is hard to find in many locations and is a tad expensive. Have to order and ship here.

 

[fourfive8]

My recently acquired MH 577-450 was originally stored in an armory in India, Brits sent a lot of these onto Nepal in 1908 as more 303s were becoming available. This one has 1908 Nepal date.

Pics of right side plate and Nepali arsenal mark on sling.

 

[fourfive8]

While waiting on a bullet mold from Accurate, decided to disassemble the action, clean and try to reduce an extremely heavy trigger on my new acquisition - a 577-450 M-H Mk IV Enfield. Unreal how much solid, gritty oil builds up in these things. This one may have remained untouched since its transfer from storage in India to service in Nepal- probably exceeding 100 years. I thinned and polished the trigger spring, polished the sear contacts and completely cleaned and re-oiled all the action parts.

The trigger is now smooth with a 5 pound break instead of the “yank and hope” pull exceeding 15 pounds when I got it.

 

[fourfive8]

I must say that M-H action is unique! I’ve worked on quite a few different guns/actions but never a M-H until now. Pretty slick engineering with relatively easy take/down and re-assembly. Whomever came up with it in their head, was visualizing in a “different way”. Seems pretty advanced for mid-1800s. Very different compared to other designs of that era- both American and European. The fly is massive and is held captive in a slot in the striker which is driven by a powerful, short coil spring. I think that allows for the short stroke, cock on opening system. Anyway, pretty cool and anyone with basic tools shouldn’t be afraid of taking one apart, if for no other reason than to clean, especially if old original.

 

[fourfive8]

Still killing time waiting for bullet mold

I think an interesting part of 577-450 MH history was the battle at Rorke’s Drift, Natal (Kwazulu-Natal RSA, north of Durban) where about 150 Brits held off about 4000 Zulus in 1879. Records show some 20,000 rounds were fired- mostly 577-450 out of the issue MHs. The ammo was early design ‘79 577-450 w/85 gr blackpowder and the coiled brass case. Mystery to me how that many rounds of that type ammo could have been fired over the relatively short duration of the 2 day battle without s major failure of arms leading to an inability to continue the battle??? Must have been a continuous repeating drill of: shoot ‘til jam, clean, repeat. Also a testament to the robust design of the MH.

 

[Sarg]

While I wasn’t a fan of the .577/450 I do like the Martini action, cool old rifles.

After again recently getting a cool old carbine in .577/450 with a nice bore I thought I’d give the cartridge another go with nitro, it has been great fun & getting very good results using jacketed bullets.

Oh strangely these are .458 bullets, when I can restock on projectiles I will try in the Jones Underlever Single Shot & Cape Gun.

 

[fourfive8]

Yes, I will never understand the 577-450 cartridge design but no choice when loading for and shooting one of these originals.

The .458 jacketed works because likely it’s just enough larger than bore diameter to take spin from the lands even though well under groove diameter. Light charges of powders like 5744 under some form of space filler works well. Some shooters use loose wool for filler as that was historically used … including with BP loads. Just as with the Snider, consistent ignition can be problematic in these over-sized cases with many smokeless subs. A sure cure for poor, inconsistent ignition is the “Russian duplex” where about 5 gr of BP is loaded first, on top of the primer with the light smokeless charge on top of that… all held in place by a filler like Dacron.

 

[fourfive8]

One caveat if contemplating shooting a Russian Duplex. Treat this ammo and rifle the same as if shooting old corrosive primers and/or regular BP powder loads.

After shooting - deprime brass, wash using bottle brush in hot soapy water, rinse and dry. Clean the rifle’s bore by completely swabbing with some BP solvent like moose milk or soapy water, swab dry and carefully oil.

That small amount of BP (+/- 5 gr) will affect the brass case and bore similarly to regular BP loads. No issue if you’re used to shooting muzzleloaders or BPCR rifles with BP. There is no advantage to using something like Pyrodex instead of real BP. Matter of fact Pyrodex is slightly harder to ignite than BP and Pyrodex is much more corrosive than BP.

I view the Russian Duplex load as something akin to a load with a “super magnum” primer but with the slight inconveniences outlined above.

 

[fourfive8]

Received the Accurate mold and cast some up yesterday. Gas checked and pan lubed about 30.
Drive band diameter right at .465” and 440 gr. as ordered from Accurate. The gas check diameter on base was a little wide for easy gas checked seating but overcame that by sheer luck epiphany Set base in .416 Lee FCD, squeeze … voila! Perfect diameter for proper 45 cal rifle gas check seating!

Went to the range to shoot a couple of freshly cast and loaded rounds. A shooter I recognized was there. carp!! Ughh, sure nuff he was shooting his braked 300 mag. He may enjoy giving himself and everyone else on the line the flinches but I refuse to subject myself to that nonsense so I turned around and went home. There's always tomorrow.

Here are a couple of bore pics (breech and muzzle end) showing unique “W” Henry profile of rifling in the MH and one of the cast Accurate mold bullets ready to load.

 

[93marlin]

Received the Accurate mold and cast some up yesterday. Gas checked and pan lubed about 30.
Drive band diameter right at .465” and 440 gr. as ordered from Accurate. The gas check diameter on base was a little wide for easy gas checked seating but overcame that by sheer luck epiphany Set base in .416 Lee FCD, squeeze … voila! Perfect diameter for proper 45 cal rifle gas check seating!

Went to the range to shoot a couple of freshly cast and loaded rounds. A shooter I recognized was there. carp!! Ughh, sure nuff he was shooting his braked 300 mag. He may enjoy giving himself and everyone else on the line the flinches but I refuse to subject myself to that nonsense so I turned around and went home. There's always tomorrow.

Here are a couple of bore pics (breech and muzzle end) showing unique “W” Henry profile of rifling in the MH and one of the cast Accurate mold bullets ready to load.

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Beautiful bore!!

 

[fourfive8]

Beautiful bore!!

No pits, erosion or roughness. Pure luck! for one of these after service in both India and Nepal since late 1880s. Always a mystery to me…

 

[fourfive8]

Here are pics showing how I was able to resize the gas check shank on the bullets just cast with the new mold. Set shank in a 416 Rem Mag Lee FCD and squeeze. Also the FCD is adjustable within a few thousands for best gas check fit.

 

[fourfive8]

Was able to get to range to try redone trigger and fire a couple of rounds with the new bullet. Trigger at about 5 lbs was excellent, great improvement over the yank and hope it was before! The new bullet POI was right on POA at 50 yards. Zero leading in bore. Easy cleanup. Loaded up a batch of 5 for a range session to check group size next opportunity.

 

[fourfive8]

Went back to the range this morning to beat weekend hunting season sight in crowd. Set up target @ 50 yards. Shot 5 shots off bench with the M-H Mk IV and new Accurate Molds 440 gr bullet. Mild Russian duplex load… BP primer plus 5744 main charge plus Dacron filler. Estimated MV subsonic @ 1050-1100 fps. Will have to verify with chronograph. 1.2” C to C circular group. No bore leading.

Pic of today’s target

 

[fourfive8]

Got lucky and was able to chronograph the 577-450 load today. 1130 fps. So it is in the trans sonic area. But, I can’t hear a sonic crack. Just 2 more grains of the primary charge of 5744 does produce a sonic crack. I’m guessing this load is right at transition. It is a conservative and accurate load so I’ll will stick with it. Lower pressure loads in this velocity range for these old original rifles seems to be a good place to be.

 

[fourfive8]

During the load development process I was also able to do a simple terminal performance torture test on one of the bullets. Backed target with a juniper log. Juniper is very tough and fibrous. 1130 MV so 50 yard velocity at target would be some less. The test shows toughness of bullet within the terminal velocity range- from point blank out to max practical hunting limits of less than 150 yards or so. The test also demos if the gas check remains on bullet in flight and through stop in terminal media. Gas checks coming off during flight… not good for accuracy.

The bullet penetrated about 9” of the juniper, maintained stable nose first attitude and with straight line path. The bullet was cast of a fairly soft alloy of lead and tin with BHN of 10.5. The retained weight was 95%, from 440 gr to 420 gr. The gas check remained secure to the bullet.

 

[fourfive8]

Well after much work I think I’ve arrived at best potential for my 577-450 M-H Mk IV. It has taken patience the last couple of weeks to find a time at the range without at least one braked big rifle blasting away. It’s nearly impossible to shoot anywhere near them. One idjit spent hours there every day for a week shooting a braked 30-378.
No doubt the blast has given him the flinches even if he didn’t already have them from recoil.

Got four sessions in over the past week. Groups averaged 1.2” to 1.5” all circular and about 2.5” above POA.

Last group fired yesterday. 1.5” center to center. 6 o’clock hold.