British 303 Surplus Ammo with Cordite- A Brief History

[@linomoro6974]

I found and used old .303 ammo that had been under the old farm house my grandfather put there in the 1950s it had floods over it and drought foul heat in summer this is in Australia out near the pilliga scrub they performed no problem, i was a bit worried about the first round . This was in 1980 when I was a boy

[@2009Berghof]

The 1960's vintage POF .303, in the 32 round boxes, is noted for lots of hang-fires.

[@SnoopReddogg]

Not just the POF 303 ammo their modern stuff is notorious for misfires with hard struck primers. The 9mm and 12ga ammo out of Wah Ordinance Factory is utter shyt. I'd hate to be relying on their 7.62 and 5.56 ammo if I was a hapless Pakistani frontier scout on the Indian Border.

[@stevephillips8719]

Damm, you got there first! All the POF ammo I have used was Click BANG! Click BANG! I still won matches with it, but it's like shooting a flintlock.

[@buckshot4428]

Who ever did that book got the velocities all wrong. The mark 7 is a 174 gr. @ about 2,400 fps. The mark 8 was about 100 fps faster with the same bullet.

[@kyfirearms]

Thanks for the information.

[@stevephillips8719]

The Mk8 was a boattailed bullet.

[@broznkyra4853]

HXP...Greek manufactured... bought IIRC 4 cans of the 30-06 from the CMP in 2008 shortly after that election...in anticipation of a panic...I get tired if the phrase.."The smell of Cordite"...when no one knows WTF it is...and that it hasn't been used in a damn long time...thanx for this vid, my friend

[@FullLeadTaco]

ha ha, cordite ammo... reminds me of when I went shooting with a buddy and he brought his .303 with cordite ammo. It felt like we were shooting some old flint locks with the sometimes delayed firing.

[@kyfirearms]

Yeah, I have read that. I didn't really know what it was when I bought it. I wad going to shoot some but haven't gotten around to it yet.

[@FullLeadTaco]

The stuff we used (old stuff of course) was very inaccurate and inconsistent... but fun(ny) to shoot

[@EzraMerr]

I believe the ball type propellant are the ones with delay issues not string load cordite

[@FullLeadTaco]

@@EzraMerr nope, these were cordite that we shot with the delayed firing

[@shawntruant7213]

pof ammo is known for hang fires. berdan primed garbage, the flash holes are very small , this causes the hangfires

[@kyfirearms]

It is definitely not the best ammo. I got it cheap and as a novelty item. Thanks for the comment.

[@scottorgan2255]

The main problem with the old 303 amo was the material used in the primer was VERY corrosive and unless you thoroughly cleaned the firearm after you shoot the residual would eat the breach and destroy the rifling, i was looking to buy a lee Enfield that was dated 1900 I put a box of 303 British though I couldn't hit the target at all and after firing each round the spent case didn't want to eject it had major pitting in the breach. To fix that problem was going to cost $800 Australian for a new barel plus a replacement bolt so I definitely wasn't getting that wall hanger

[@thorsaxe5881]

I saw a comment that it is Very corrosive, cordite is also abrasive and hard on the rifling as well, many .303 bores have throat erosion that exceeds more than five inches down the bore because of the abrasive nature of cordite, however, they were Government rifles and when worn out, they would re-barrel them. same with corrosive priming and cupronickel jackets and the electrolysis effect it has on steel. Best is to stick with modern factory or hand craft your rounds, I have a NOE 213 gr RN mold and cast them to fit my bore diameter, cast of linotype they drop at 203 Gr's and on top of IMR-4227 it is in the fps of the Mk-6 ammo of yesteryear, it is accurate with one inch groups @100 yards, it is a way of keeping well stocked with accurate ammunition that has very little effect on my barrel if any at all. as an added plus, you are lowering your chamber pressure and the brass lasts longer, all you need to do is neck size with one run through the full length sizing when it needs it. So, that's is another avenue to go with the .303. Peace out dude, good video. - Dave

[@kyfirearms]

Thanks Dave. I don't shoot it anymore. It was more of a novelty for me to play around with. Thanks again.

[@TreeTopFlier]

Very interesting, thanks for the video.

[@kyfirearms]

TreeTopFlier Thanks. There is a great reloading community that I just joined, you should check it out. join.slack.com/t/reloading/shared_invite/enQtMzExNzIwOTIyNzI0LWQ3MGE2ZDQ0ZGUzMWMyZTY3MDViNjQzNTI2MmNkZWU0MzE5ODM5YzA0YzM4NGRjMjk3ZGI0N2MzMGQyY2MxMWU

[@littleblacklab1]

Hello, this link doesn’t work anymore. Is the reloading group still active? I wouldn’t mind checking them out.

[@semperfi-1918]

I got a bunch of it. I heard a cure for it. Stick it in your car on a hot summers day,

[@nicuvlogs2889]

So basically cordite it was a dinamite derivative

[@kyfirearms]

Yes, I believe that is correct.

[@sevysnape]

They all should shoot fine, I've shot plenty of exmil through my old 1915 .303 just give it a good clean after as some those can have mercury in the priming compound and that is very bad for your barrel.

[@eltenda]

Really interesting

[@kyfirearms]

Thanks

[@beeleo]

Yep... books have good information in 'em.

[@brandonbentley8532]

My question being, can you reload with it? Was the primer different?

[@kyfirearms]

It is berdan primed. So reloading is possible, but difficult. Even if you were able to get berdan primers or convert them to boxer prmers, I would think they might be good for 2 firings tops. Thanks for commenting.

[@2009Berghof]

As stated below-Berdan Primers-common in Europe years ago. Few reloaded these even decadess ago when you could still get Berdan primers-almost impossible today. Second, British & POF Berdan primers are a very big size, larger than standard. The simple answer is, NO.

[@factorybear5264]

I would love a box. I would only open one to play with and hold on to the rest

[@ItAintJustPaint]

Colossal COOL!

[@kyfirearms]

+ItAintJustPaint Thanks, I thought it was COOL.

[@sylvainster30]

Spaghetti powder 🤣

[@kyfirearms]

Haha, that's what it is.

[@yakumoyukari4405]

Cordite... And then bullet fires for no reason... Becouse it's cordite.

[@kyfirearms]

I have shot some of this and you are correct. It's almost like shooting a muzzle loader. You hear the primer fire and then a pause before the cordite fires. Interesting stuff for sure.

[@yakumoyukari4405]

@@kyfirearms I meant that it's fired spontaneously becouse was extremely unstable. Looking at HMS Saint Vincent IJN Mikasa IJN Kawachi IJN Mutsu And other ships that detonated at port (and they were using cordite chargers) for no reason +HMS Queen Mary, HMS Invincible, HMS Indefatigable, HMS Hood, USS Arizona, IJN Fuso, IJN Yamashiro, IJN Yamato, IJN Musashi, IJN Kongo etc that exploded like fireworks in WW1 and WW2.

[@littleblacklab1]

Remember the Maine?

[@MrTAGGER88]

3:30 "this is a good website" -shows a book 😂😂😂