Possible source for bullets?

[Bruce_in_Oz]

The tricky part is that "official" military systems usually develop the ammunition slightly ahead of the weapon.

The idea is to come up with as close to what the engineers think possible and practical, from both a manufacturing viewpoint as well as the down-range ballistic behaviour.

Hence, in the late 1800s, suddenly, everybody started ditching their charcoal-burning, .40" to .50" soft lead slug launchers.

The drive for increased velocity had been going on for decades: flatter trajectories and "more interesting" terminal ballistics were driving considerations. A major fly in the ointment is that a "long" bullet MUST be spun faster than a round ball in order to remain stable in flight. However, getting a longish, soft lead bullet to spin fast enough was a problem. Basic inertia meant that the bullet had to be a reasonably close fit to the bore AND grooves, or it simply would not be spun. The longer the bullet, the faster it need to be spun (for a given velocity). Soft, pure lead bullets do not take kindly to this treatment, preferring instead to leave a generous film of lead in the rifling grooves . The wonderful Minie ball was a neat solution in a previous generation of arms, but that principal applied less and less at bullets got longer and their skirts got shorter.

Paper patches had been around for decades. These "bullet wrappers" served several purposes, not the least of which was to partially scrub the fouling from the previous shot from the barrel.

The advent of smokeless propellants AND smaller bores chucked that out the window. As velocities rose, paper "patching" rapidly reached its limits as an insulator. Besides which, "smokeless" (nitro-cellulose) propellants left a LOT less gunk in the bore.

Lead CORES were retained because high sectional density was required to maintain kinetic energy down-range.

Thus, nickel and later "gilding metal" jackets started appearing in the 1880s.

Our French cousins, as always, being magnificently different, decided that a bullet machined from solid BRONZE displayed a good combination of sectional density, toughness, accuracy and "useful" down-range performance.

Pretty much everybody else went with round-nosed, nickel jackets around a SOFT lead core.

The next thing was that suddenly, your average Digger could out-range light artillery with some degree of accuracy; see "Volley Sights" on Lee Metfords and Enfields.

Enter, stage right, some bloke called Maxim. OOPS!

Our Teutonic cousins, not to be outdone by their western neighbours, decided around 1904 that a lighter, MUCH pointier bullet was what was needed; thus the "spitzer" bullet with a thin, gilding-metal jacket over a lead core, but going a LOT faster than the old "torpedoes".

Total chaos ensued in Britain and the US, amongst other places, like Japan.

Changed the ammo, have we?

Bugger, now we have to rejig ALL of the range tables, ALL of the firing range safety templates, ALL of the safety distances for troops operating UNDER overhead fire, ALL of the sights on the rifles and LMGs, ALL of the rifle magazines, etc., etc.

When the SMLE was first introduced in 1903, it was fed Mk6 round-nosed ball. LOTS of things had to be changed in manufacturing to accommodate the new ammo; for starters, new magazine, new sights, new bedding. All of this happened as the war clouds were gathering across Europe. As it was, many of the troops who went ashore at Gallipoli on this day 101 years ago, were issued Mk6 ammo, regardless of what rifle they carried.