I'd think we'd have to amicably agree to disagree about these points; There is a lot of urban myth about cordite out there, and I don't think any of the points I have selected are really true:
- I don't observe much "crud" when firing cordite; it seems a relatively clean propellant and no real difference from nitro powders in terms of residue;
Are you joking?
As I said the crud left behind by cordite loads is the resin goop that is placed on a card wad over the Cordite charge. Wiothout the goop the bores would be erroded to an unsafe condition in as little as 1000 rounds, thats why the goop is there, and thats the stuff that is so hard to remove.
Apparently you either haven't fired much cordite ammo or are missing the build up in your cleaning. Regular solvents don't touch it so you may think the bore is clean but its coated with the resin.
- Never seen a bore that developed cordite erosion in that pattern, bores just exhibit progressive erosion from the throat and lead up to the muzzle. I'm sure that people have damaged their rifles through handloading with inappropriate powders, but official British military documents don't show any evidence of hazards from cordite - in fact the various trials evidence concludes that barrels last longer with cordite than with nitro;
As long as the heat shield formed by the resin does its job, but I've seen several bores that showed the beginings of the erosion I mentioned, and its a recognized situation.
- Strongly disagree that ammunition can cause erosion leading to a dangerous situation. Most of us have seen Enfield barrels shot out to the point where they were completely smoothbore, yet there is no recorded example - as far as I am aware - of any of the millions of Enfields suffering a catastrophic barrel failure for this reason. I've seen barrels with the bore corroded away almost to the external face go on to pass UK Proof firing. What were the circumstances of that hunter's death? How did a shed bullet jacket kill him?
The second bullet telescoped into the shed jacket, pressure went through the roof, the bolthead disintegrated and part of it including the extrctor somehow ended up in his abdomen. He bled to death in a short time. I suspect that after his first shot acted funny, probably the bullet core exited and hit very low, held held the rifle down and away from himself thinking it was a bad cartridge. That would explain the bolthead fragments striking his lower abdomen.
I first read of this in American Rifleman magazine, they often did articles on court cases, and gave detailed descriptions of firearms failures. This was either mid 60' to early 70's.
You do realize that Smokeless powder loads were in use by WW1 and that many Enfields may have never been fired with Cordite.
Cordite was for the most part used in the tropics, while smokeless was more common in European theatre.
Other enfields rebarreled in later years may have been fired with smokeless only loads from that point onwards.
The majority of wear and bore damage to the Enfields was due to poor cleaning practices.
Eroded barrels would have been replaced as soon as the armorer was aware of the situation.
- hangfires and misfires are due to failed primers. Cordite itself is virtually imperishable inside a round, and incredibly robust even when exposed. Many people have dug up corroded rounds on the WW1 fields and found them to be functional. Recently, a documentary team lifted some of the naval cordite charges that had lain on the Dardenelles seabed since Gallipoli - the cordite strands ignited and burned quite happily after 90 years in the sea. The fact that you can fire mixed batches of old cordite and achieve a group proves that the propellent performance has not in any way deteriorated.
Misfired Cordite cartridges I've sectioned showed that the resin goop had leaked past the card wad and the strands were brown and greasy looking. The primers had ignited and the strand ends were melted like a nylon rope end sealed by fire.
- the most accurate .303 ammunition I have found to date (i have maybe 100 different types) is that red box Kynoch air service - dated 1928.
The facts are that Cordite burns at a much higher temperature than smokeless powders. Hot enough to erode barrel steels.
The resin heatshield is there for the purpose of protecting the bore, it doesn't always do the job.
As I said I would not mind shooting recent production Cordite ammo. The POF ammo was stored poorly in conditions of excessive temperatures, which probably caused the resin to leak down past the card wad. All the primers detonated but in the misfires the cordite was deactivated by the contamination.
Its likely that the cordite of the hangfire rounds was also contaminated to a lesser extent.
The reason few incidents involving eroded barrels have happened is because the British army knew about the possibilities far ahead of time and took steps to remove from service any barrels that began to show erosion.
Unfortunately a few rifles with deeply erroded bores ended up on the surplus market in the 60's.
My own No.4 two groove showed the beginings of errosion at the point I mentioned.
I was able to polish the broad lands of the two groove bore using a fitted leather lap.
While polishing I noted the difference in the amount of resistence, tiny though it was at that stage.
PS
Page 217 of the following PDF
http://books.google.com/books/pdf/T...ut=pdf&sig=ACfU3U3eGwBGp4zQIwEPNv8zR4XwsHkp5A
Explains why high temperature erosion from Cordite and similar propelents is rougher at the mid point of the bore than at breech and muzzle.
As a bonus it also explains the phenomena of "Craze Cracking" which some also seem to believe to be an urban legend these days.
