Help with a ballistic question?

[RobD]

Hello
I am preparing a talk on the Boer war, I would like to ask: Does anyone know the velocity of the Mk II .303 bullet (and the 170 grain 7 mm Mauser bullet?) at ranges of 500, 1000, 1500 and 2000 metres or yards? Fired from the Long Lee or Boer Mauser rifle.
thanks
Rob

Information

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[Thunderbox]

You'll probably need to find a copy of the Text Book of Small Arms from the correct period - eg the 1929 version lists comprehensive ballistics tables for MkVII, and also the contemporary rounds of the major world powers.

[RobD]

Ja, the 1909 edition would do it. On Abebooks for £70 but I am a skinflint, hence asking here...

[smellie]

TEXT BOOK OF SMALL ARMS - 1909 gives MV for the Mark VI Ball round at 2060 ft/sec, just 100 ft/sec above the 1960 f/sc of the Boer War Mark II.

Using the Mark VI ammunition as their example, they give remaining velocity as:
1281 ft/sec at 500 yards
961 ft/sec at 1000 yards.

Time of flight is .933 second to the 500-yard mark and 2.321 seconds to the 1000-yard line.

(My figures now) Kinetic energy available to be expended upon the target would therefore be: 783 ft/lbs at 500 yards, 441 ft/lbs at 1,000 yards.

The book also gives (Page 235) 796 ft/sec remaining velocity at 1,500 yards, 658 ft/sec at 2,000 yards.

The book then goes on the generate figures for the new (1904) German ammunition and for the French Balle D, then just being intoduced into Service.

The book has no figures for the 7x57 loaded with the 173-grain RN bullet but Barnes in COTW-6 givs the MV of this round as 2296 ft/sec. Downrange performance would not be too radically different from the .303 as the two bullets had similar ballistic coefficients; any 'plus' in the performance likely would remain with the Mauser due to the higher initial velocity. The actual difference is only 230 ft/sec at the muzzle: certainly not enough to notice if you are hit by one.

Here is something else: a very good friend (deceased just a year ago) and myself spent more than 20 years working on a single question: just HOW good were the military rifles of the period of the Boer War and the two World Wars? To this end, we burned up a LOT of powder and put literally dozens of rifles through their paces. We started each test with handloads duplicating the Service performance, just better-made than factory stuff and FRESH so that we were not battling against century-old primers. We all know that any given rifle will exhibit a preference for one load, another rifle for a slightly-different load. We wanted to find out HOW good a near-new or new rifle, properly made, COULD be if it were to be given a load that it 'liked'. The conclusion we reached was that, given good ammuntion, a good rifle in good condition, a shooter of the period could have anything up to ........ or beating...... ONE MINUTE OF ANGLE performance. This included a Norwegian Kar98k in .30-06 which consistently (over 8 years) shot a THIRD of a minute with iron sights, a 1910 Ross which equalled that at 100 yards but was not shot at longer ranges, DWM Mauser rifles built in 1908 which came in at HALF a minute for an almost-new rifle and still just under a minute for a rifl with visible bore wear, half a minute for a 1918 Australian SMLE. ALL rifles had their original barrels. Yes, we shot from sandbags. Yes, we did bring the bedding back to its original specs. But a 1918 NRF SMLE, which we didn't even take apart to inspect shot slightly under an inch at 100. Our conclusion was that any soldier of any of those wars was armed with a weapon which had minute-of-angle potential..... or better.... depending upon the condition of the rifle, its maintenance, and the availability of ammunition which that particular rifle found to its liking. By and large, the rifles were better than the men using them, the art of precision manufacture having removed so much of the fallibility to which men, being only human, are heirs.

Hope this is of some help.
.

BTW, stick around. The TBSA 1909 IS coming; just takes time to scan the thing!

[TonyE]

Hi Rob

The original load for the 7mm was a 173 grain round nose bullet at 2,296 fps.

The Hornaday range tables for a modern reproduction of this load with 175 grain round nose give:

MV 3,000 fps
100 yds 2,019 fps
200 yds 1,760 fps
300 yds 1,527 fps
400 yds 1,327 fps
500 yds 1,168 fps
600 yds 1,057 fps

Eley 1910 catalogue for the original military load gives MV at 100 yds as 2,052 fps and Kynoch 1935 catalogue gives 2,083 fps so the Hornaday figures are reasonably accurate.

For the .303 Mark VI the figures for the MV and 100 yards are:
Eley catalogue - 2,060 and 1,861 fps.
Kynoch - 2,050 and 1,893 fps.

Since the Mark VI differed only slightly from the Boer War Mark II the numbers will not be that much different.

Regards
TonyE

[RobD]

Thanks, fellows.
Smellie: yes, i agree these rifles are very accurate! I shoot them regularly.
I am preparing a lecture on medical aspects of the Boer War. What I am trying to reconcile is the discrepancy between (1) the reports of amazingly humane bullets compared to large calibre bullets of previous eras (the Lancet and other journals were full of this kind of thing in 1900-1902) contrasted with (2) the fact that the kill-to-wounded ratio in the Boer War was in fact remarkably similar to the Franco-Prussian War, Crimea and Waterloo. The likely explanation is the enormous energy of the bullet when flying fast, causing explsoive effects on tissues and often-lethal wounds; and then the completely different effect at great range - so that at, say, 2000 yds the wound was "humane".
From the figures you give, the energy of the .303 bullet at 2000 yds is a mere 10% of its energy at point-blank range.
And that explains the mystery of "humane bullets" - it is the vast range they could fly, in a stable flight, and thatwhen they struck, their small calibre and solid jacket enabled them to pass through the soft tissues of a man with little disturbance to the soldier.

[TonyE]

It is also interesting to compare these reports with those from WWI where the ranges were generally much shorter (400 metres or less) between the trench lines.

Often reports were made of "explosive bullets" or "Dum-Dums" being used when actually it was the effect of high velocity bullets at close range, causing cavitation wounds in tissue or shattering bone.

Regards
TonyE