Ever wonder what was in .303 British ammo?

[Jenrick]

I've got a decent supply of surplus Berdan primed .303 British and I today I decided to pull some bullets. The plan was to remove the powder, deactivate the primers, drill out the flash hole (and removing the primer at the same time), and put the bullet back in. The round would then be used as a training round, since dummy .303 rounds are not particularly easy to find.

What I had on hand were 1964 and 1944 surpuls. The bullets from the '64 lot had some tar like sealer that was a bit of a pain to get through the '44 bullets pulled just fine. Both had quiet a bit of crimp on them, and took a decent crank on the press. Once I got the bullets out, the next thing I noticed that was odd: there was a cardboard disk set into the bullet above the powder. Surely these weren't loaded with cordite? A bit of work with a pick, and out came the disk, low and behold they were loaded with cordite!

I'd never seen cordite in person, and it was pretty cool to pull out the little strands. Of course some testing was in order Individual strands burn just like a fuze, taking about a second and inch to burn. A pile of the strands creates a nice low fireball with no real smoke. I took a hack saw to the bullets, and found the ones from '64 actually had a wooden tip, while the '44 bullets were simple FMJ rounds.

Overall it was quiet a treat to do. I don't have a picture of the section rounds, as my camera's batteries died after shooting the one of the cases and it's contents.

-Jenrick

 

[Carter]

Not knowing what cordite looked like (only ever heard of it in some British sci-fi books) I thought that was spaghetti...

That is pretty interesting though. I never knew there were propellants like that in ammunition. Nor that anyone used wood in bullet tips.

 

[Strykervet]

I didn't know they used cordite that late... I also thought it looked more like strings than spaghetti, so that is pretty cool, thanks for the pics. I also never heard of wooden bullets outside of (Norway?). They ran out of real bullets and used wooden ones, said they did more damage when they hit at close range, but weren't that accurate. The Germans were supposedly real scared to be hit with one, they splintered up pretty nasty I guess when fired out of a WWII bolt action rifle (it was a 6.5mm or something I think...).

 

[Shadow 7D]

CORDITE
cool stuff, burns pretty

I do believe that it's a form of Nitro-Cellulose, but it's been a while since I researched it.

 

[sansone]

jenrick-
thanks very much for the interesting thread

 

[mokin]

That's pretty cool. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Jenrick]

Just for clarification, the round with the wooden tip had a large lead base, with the tip of the bullet containing a very small airspace and then wood. So overall it's got a decent bit of weight on it still. The idea was that the wooden tip would cause the bullet to upset or mushroom like the famous "dum-dum" round used in India. To my knowledge they were not used during WW2 due to complaint during the early part of WW1 that they were in violation of the Hague accord. That might be way the later stock was loaded with them.

Sansone: No problem, as soon as I saw the cordite I knew I wanted to share as I had never seen it myself. I figure other folks would be quiet interested as well.

-Jenrick

 

[dfariswheel]

You'll often read where someone, (often military people who should know better) speak about smelling Cordite in the air after firing a gun.
Modern firearms ammo, especially pistol ammo hasn't used Cordite for a long time, and never in American ammo.

Cordite is an obsolete propellant and hasn't been used for years.
The only case of the use of Cordite in America that I know of was as the propellant charge in the"gun type" first atomic bomb used on Japan.

 

[Murphy4570]

Why is cordite obsolete?

 

[wally]

I'd always heard it looks like spagetti, thanks for showing the photos!

Why is cordite obsolete?

Think of the difficulty of controlling the charge vs. ball or flake powder. Seem obvious it'd go aways as soon as flakes could be slowed down enough to propel instead of explode.

I suspect since they already had the factories, they used them until it was cost prohibitive to continue with it.

 

[Lone Star]

What wonderful photos! I'd always pictured Cordite sticks as being gray.

Cordite is no longer used because modern flake and ball powders burn cooler, I think, and are easier to load. Cordite seems pretty harsh on bores. And it's probably harder to make than non-stick powders.

Mystery and thriller writers use the term because it sounds cool and they see it elsewhere and they don't usually know zip about guns, let alone powders.

Jack Higgins would have you believe that a Colt .25 loaded with JHP bullets is a bigtime "stopper"! And the jackets of his books say that he's a "marksman".
He does live in the Channel Islands, which I think were exempt from the 1997 UK gun ban, but he seems to have limited knowledge of firearms. He often just names brands, like CZ, and you have to figure out the model, if the way it's carried is a clue. He does cite Browning Hi-Power and Walther PPK pistols, but those are routine items in British service, so easy to know.

I can't recall if he calls gunpowder "cordite", but many authors have.

 

[Odd Job]

Last time I saw cordite was back in 1989 when we were firing 25-pounders on an artillery range (organised by the school) in South Africa. We were shooting fairly close so some or all (I can't remember which) of the cordite was removed and burned there at the range. Looked exactly like the OP's pictures, but longer sticks.
I confess to "liberating" some of those sticks and enhancing a match-box bomb (or two) with them.

 

[Al Thompson]

Jenrick, super job! Thanks!

 

[Jenrick]

Cordite is not a very powerful propellant, and this is a limiting factor. It's actually not terribly difficult to produce and these days is nicely stable and long lasting. For legacy rounds that started life as black powder, or the first batch of smokeless powder rounds, it would work quiet nicely.

Also BTW this stuff doesn't really smell all that different after shooting then normal powder. It's certainly not noticeable like black powder or the like. I honestly figured that it was loaded with conventional powder, as I had never noticed a unique smell to it.

-Jenrick

 

[7.62 Nato]

Very interesting, thanks for sharing. My quest to find out what was inside things probably explains why I was frequently frisked for tools before being allowed out to play unsupervised in my younger days.

 

[rcmodel]

Very few people today know cordite is good served with meatballs, marina sauce, and garlic cheese bread either.

rc

 

[303tom]

That is cordite !!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Dr.Rob]

Pretty neat, I've only seen old pics of 'safari' rounds broken down to show the cordite strands. I recall them being 'black' as well.

Cordite and gun cotton are long 'forgotten' steps in the evolution of gunpowder.

 

[nathan]

Cordite is synonymous to British empire.

 

[The Lone Haranguer]

You'll often read where someone, (often military people who should know better) speak about smelling Cordite in the air after firing a gun.

Alistair MacLean often wrote of it having an "acrid stench."
Alistair MacLean's Wikipedia entry

 

[bigedp51]

Cordite powder was a early double base smokeless powder with a high nitroglycerin content, cordite powder had a higher nitroglycerin content than many pistol powders have today. It was hot burning and the early versions of cordite powder cause throat erosion but by the late 1930s with new additives and manufacturing techniques it was made cooler burning. (But still hot compared to todays modern rifle powders)



The neck of the .303 cartridge case was not formed until "after" the cordite had been placed inside the case to ensure the long strands of cordite would fit inside the case.









If possible cordite ammunition was not used in machine guns during WWII because of barrel life. (cordite was hot burning)











Dutch Enfield manual dated April 1945

 

[HOOfan_1]

Alistair MacLean often wrote of it having an "acrid stench."
Alistair MacLean's Wikipedia entry

My dad was just complaining about that the other day.

I think he was complaining Cussler did it as well

 

[Jenrick]

I've often wondered if writers read old military accounts and got the idea for cordite having a peculiar smell due to their lack of knowledge regarding the loading of the round. The .303 British began life as a black powder cartridge, and for those who don't shoot BP it certainly does have it's own smell (some where between "some" and "a whole lot" of sulfur scent depending on the quality of the powder). I can certainly see a bolt black powder rifle producing a copious stench on the field of battle, due to it's high rate of fire. I'm guessing the authors largely weren't aware that this phenomena stopped occurring when the round began to be loaded with cordite. I imagine in the later years, authors simply followed the literary tradition.

-Jenrick

 

[Jenrick]

bigedp51: The two British texts you have scans from, do you know where I could find them in their entirety (electronically preferably, but I do love an old book)? Quiet interested.

-Jenrick

 

[bigedp51]

Jenrick

I collected the Enfield rifle for over 10 years and I also tracked down 95% of all the Enfield books and manuals you see on the Internet today. So yes I scanned them into Adobe acrobat format. They are available for free download at Milsurps.com Enfield forum.

Below are just a few examples of the many books and manuals I donated to Milsurps.