Mauser 1887 spandau model 71/84 11mm ammunition reloading

[singleshotman]

Back in the old days i used to use lyman 439186 bullets unsized, cast soft and they'd shoot good with about 80 grains FFG blackpowder.Of course you'd have to clean every five shots if you didn't want to have the bullets go everyplace. I found some smokeless loads no good-like the one quoted in cartridges of the world(35 grins 3031).What a joke, fire gun, hear primer go off and bullet poops out at muzzle, powder doesn't go off.New lazy way to slug barel? I built a new shooter only from a package of three from SOG's junk, now i 'm thinking of selling it,if anyone is interested in it email me cagunsmith@aol.com

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[Patrick Chadwick]

Of course you'd have to clean every five shots if you didn't want to have the bullets go everyplace.

Dear Singleshotman,

if you would be so good as to read my musings on this subject (search for "To carry on where we left off" on the Mauser forum) you will see that I took some trouble to explain just why it is a good idea to have a grease cookie under the bullet. And you have found out the hard (i.e. hard fouling) way that this idea is not just airy-fairy theory but hard (or soft?) practice. Don't give up on your smoke generator, just follow my recommended method, and you will have a load that may not be perfect, but is a PDG first approximation.

What a joke, fire gun, hear primer go off and bullet poops out at muzzle, powder doesn't go off.

Yeah, I had that firing a commercial smokeless load in my Long Range Sharps, except that the bullet did not pop out. I had let a friend try it out. After the pop we both looked at each other, and then unloaded the rifle to look through the barrel. The powder was unburnt in the case, but the bullet was stuck in the barrel, just far enough down that it would have been possible to load and fire another cartridge. Potentially very, very dangerous. I have not fired another nitro-shot in a BPCR since then.

I think the explanation is that if you have just 35gn of nitro powder rattling around in a BPCR case it all just sits on the bottom. The primer flash passes over the powder and is sufficient to drive the bullet out of the case, and there is no pressure build-up to really get the nitro going. I have not yet (avoiding the use of that provocative word "never") heard of this flash-by effect occuring with blackpower. If BP starts going bang, it keeps going. And increasing pressure accelerates the ignition.

Take a look at the biggest rifles still in existence (at least, I hope there still are a few left!) - the 16" rifles on the Iowa class battleships.
The powder charges include a blackpowder igniter charge around the igniter cartridge. And that is (was?) surely not for sentimental reasons, but to ensure rapid, reliable ignition of a great mass of nitro powder.

Sorry to be a bore about this, but I must repeat BPCRs are Black Powder Cartridge Rifles, not nitro poppers!