To carry on where we left off...Smokeless in a Mauser M1871 or 71/84

[Patrick Chadwick]

This load was developed for shooting at 300 meters and above:

470 gn GG bullet with 3% tin in pure lead (NO wheelweights).
Sized to 0.446" (slug your bore and size accordingly).
Bullet inserted in case so that case mouth is on front grease groove.
In my M71, this is about 1 mm off the lands. Going closer makes problems in military competitions where you are not allowed to clean between shots!

This is the first step, as you need to establish the seating depth BEFORE deciding on the powder charge.

In case: powder, shake down powder by tapping the case on the bench, two wads from milk carton, 0.5 cc of lube from a medical syringe, wad, bullet.

The amount of lube will vary according to mix and whether you want to shoot military competitions without cleaning between shots.

Powder: Swiss No. 4 to fill space under bullet/wad/lube/wads stack. Empirically: 67 gns. No compression, as that would be yet another variable, and reports say that Swiss powder doesn't like it!

It too me quite some time to establish this load, so if you work up a satisfactory load with BP for the 350 gn bullet I would be grateful if you would post it here, to save me some work! My estimate is that, with the shorter bullet, about 75 gn will fill the space without compression. That combination should produce a significantly higher muzzle velocity, and may well perform better at 100 meters, than my load, which is intended for long-range shooting.


Patrick

[gunner]

Thank you Patrick for your efforts. We`ll try it out with the lead bullet and the 350grs H&N bullet. And i post the results as soon as i have it. As i know you get a BP crust in the chamber near the rifling when you fire longer series. Is there no problem with that in military matches ? I`ll post also the results of the pressure test from the nitro powder from the "Beschussamt München" wich has the only barrel to test it, but unluckily is the man who makes the tests out for vacation.

Best Regards

Ulrich

BTW. If you ever being in the south than, let me know and we can meet for a nice talk and go shooting if you want to.

[Patrick Chadwick]

Gunner wrote:
"As i know you get a BP crust in the chamber near the rifling when you fire longer series. Is there no problem with that in military matches ?"

Yes there is. That is the reason why I backed off the bullet 1mm from the lands and increased the lube quantity to 0.5cc.

Patrick

[gunner]

Ahh, ok! Thank you.

Regards

Ulrich

[Patrick Chadwick]

Gunner, if you sized down H&N cal45 bullets (diameter 454?) to 446 or thereabouts, how did you do it without stripping the coating off the bullets?

Patrick

[gunner]

Patrick, at first i must admit, that i wrote you the wrong bullet weight not 350grs. Sorry for that. We use 300grs. KSHS with .451 dia in .45 cal downsized to .446 with a H&E sizeing die in the Lup a matic RCBS press. Lubricate it with Redding case wax from Henke (# RD21022). You loose a bit of the coating appr. 3-5% on some bullets, because they aren`t exactly straight. After sizing you can easily rub the wax down with a towel . The OAL is 74mm. The loads in SP4 are not ready if they will be ready we send them and also the TB loads to the Munich Proofhouse. Did you ever used Pyrotex ? Have you some experiences with this stuff?

Regards

Gunner

[Patrick Chadwick]

OK, that sounds a bit more plausible with a .451 bullet. 300gns is actually lighter than the original bullet (which was 386 gns) so you ough to be able to get 75-80 gns of Swiss 4 in the case, if you shake it down well. As to Pyrodex. I have never used it, so I cannot offer any comment.

Let us all know how it turns out at the range!

Patrick

[jmoore]

I have never cared for Pyrodex, it'll corrode a bore as well as black powder (if you don't clean it correctly) and doesn't smell right. The only advantage is that more places sell it, due to relaxed shipping and storage regulations vis. "black". If you can get it, stick to the "real stuff"!

[Johnny Peppers]

It is not the black powder combustion salts themselves that are directly corrosive, so much as the fact that they are extremely hygroscopic. And when the water gets into the salts, boy, then that is corrosive!
Patrick

When the U.S. Military went to smokeless powder loads they originally thought that the combustion of the smokeless powder was forming an acid which quickly corroded the bores if not thoroughly cleaned. They finally figured out that the potassium chlorate in the primer compound formed potassium chloride when fired, which is nearly identical to table sale. With the humidity below 50% no corrosion took place, but as the humidity went up the corrosive became more aggressive. It was found that the potassium chloride had to be dissolved to clean it, and plain old water worked best to dissolve the salts. Windex works good because it has water in it.
We use to shoot the Mauser 71/84 when they were $10 and the ammo was $10 per hundred. The ammo was absolutely sure fire, and the original BP load with the paper patch bullet was extremely accurate. Like so many others, we never found a suitable smokeless load.

[Patrick Chadwick]

Well, people have being attempting to use smokeless powder in the '71s for a century!
The German colonial troops in East Africa tried nitrocellulose loads in 1909, using "Reichscolonialpulver". The trial was judged to be a failure.

Patrick