Snider Brass Scrounging
Back in days
gone by, the choices of brass for reloaders of the Snider cartridge would
have been pretty well limited to Kynoch's cases. Until recently they were
Berdan primed making the reloading process even more involved than most
North Americans are used to.
Today we actually
have more choices than ever.
Kynoch is once again producing brass. And this time it is Boxer primed!
From Australia, rather expensive but apparently very high in quality is
Bertram brass.
There is also 24 gauge brass shotgun cases
that can easily be formed into Snider cases. search for "Magtech Brass" to find some.
No longer produced but very nice brass that often is found at shows is
BELL brass. This is head stamped .577NE but if it is 2 inches in length
it is Snider brass.
All the above
choices are manufactured with the familiar "drawn brass" process.
But there are other manufacturer's that produce quality and durable brass
that is turned from solid bar stock.
I gave this
process a try on my Lathe and it was very labour intensive.
It's amazing that such a process can be made commercially viable.
A company
called NDFS in England had been producing all sorts of obsolete cartridge
brass for years. The company was a one man operation run by a fellow named
Jim Goodwin. Unfortunately he has now retired.
Another small
firm in the USA, Rocky Mountain Cartridge, having heard that NDFS was
shutting down, also started producing some turned brass. I have not seen
their product personally but I did hear some good reviews.
I have found
that each of the brass makes listed above vary widely in case capacity
and therefore vary widely in how they end up being loaded which boils
down to the fact they all will shoot a bit differently.
It's wise then to try and stock up on a large enough amount of one make
of brass. That way you can eventually settle on one load that will be
consistent. Or at least as consistent as old Snidey can ever be!
From what
I have seen so far, the turned cases have the least case capacity while
the converted shotgun cases hold (by far) the most powder capacity. With
heavy compression I can stuff over 80 grains of powder in the NDFS cases.
I have heard of over 110 grains of powder being held in the converted Magtech/
CBC brass!
Another factor
to consider before you hunt down brass is whether or not you will ever
experiment with smokeless powders in the Snider.
When done properly this seems to be a excellent practice but keep in mind
that the makers of TURNED brass usually state that their brass is not
to be used with smokeless...I know people are doing it anyway but I think
a reminder is always a good idea when safety is the subject.
Again, the
bottom line of this topic is to get a good supply of which ever brass
you wish so that you can develop one consistent load over a long period
of time. Any of the brass mentioned here is capable of doing the job but
all will require slightly different loading practices.
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