By Jim
The Dutch had .69 caliber rifle muskets hanging around their armories since 1848. By 1867, they were doing what the rest of Europe was doing….converting their obsolete muskets into breach loaders. The US used the Allin system for converting their CW muskets, but the Europeans did their conversion based on the Snider patent. Jacob Snider was an American inventor who came up with an idea on how to modernize the surplus muzzleloader rifles when cartridges became a military necessity.
The Snider conversion was pretty straightforward. A section of the breech was cut away at the back of a musket, then a swinging block with extractor was welded in place. There was no provision for an ejector. You empty the loading tray by tipping the gun over on its side and let gravity work.
The British Snider rifles were in a .577 caliber based off the original .58 caliber Enfield projectile. I’ve seen plenty of them, but recently we had a Dutch Snider in the shop. The gun itself is based on an M1848/67 Short Navy Rifle. As such it fired a .69 caliber cartridge. It was in service for only 3 years until the Netherlands adopted the Dutch Beaumont rifle in 1871.
The cartridge designation is 17.5X29R. The powder charge was 70 grains black powder pushing a 730 grain lead bullet to about 900 feet per second. While this ammunition is nearly impossible to find, a good source of casings can be found by using MagTech 16 gauge brass hulls cut down.
Using a bullet mold I ordered for this project, I’m able to cast .69 caliber Minie balls with a hollow base. My particular load is 80 grains 3fg powder and a couple of overcard wads between the powder and bullet. Instead of grease, I’m able to paper patch the projectile and bump up the diameter just a bit. I do the paper patch to prevent grease melting and running down in the case and contaminating the powder charge.
The new cartridges are a perfect fit in the breech. The extractor pulls them out after firing.
This old gun is a lot of fun to shoot. It’s sort of like shooting a shortened 16 gauge slug gun.
Commentaires