A couple years back I picked up this 577-450 MH. My plan was to strip it to the action and build a sporter in 45-70 or 40-65. Once it arrived it was in better shape than I expected and was complete. I haven’t had the heart to cut it up. I bought some cases and slugged the barrel at .475 so bought a Lee mold and dies for a 480 Ruger.
I only size the necks and load it with about 12 gr of Unique. Very pleasant to shoot and gets about 1100 fps. Plenty for Whitetail but I haven’t took a deer with it yet.
Not sure what I’ll do with this old war horse. What do you guys think?
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I started with a pair of "As found" Mk IVs from IMA when they were cheap then picked up a pretty nice Mk II made in 1877 from a local guy. I watch a lot of the "British Muzzle Loaders" channel on YouTube and started loading paper patched bullets with grease cookies / cotton wads like the original British loading. My Mk II shoots pretty good considering its age and is one of my more favorite rifles to take to the range.
Early cartridge rifles like the Trapdoor, Mauser 1871, Martini Henry, etc. are a lot of fun especially when loading them with original style cartridges.
Here's a competitor, lost out in the experiments before the Martini-Henry was adopted. This is an Alex Henry, made by BSA in 1869, perhaps in their first week (or day?) of production, the 5th rifle produced. The BSA "APU" action patent use number started with 5. This rifle has an APU 9 stamp.
Caliber is .450 Boxer-Henry Long. Bore is septagonal, 7-sided. Modern .500/450 3 1/4" thin rim cases from Buffalo Arms are an exact fit. I learned that after I had 20 cases turned from solid brass. Note that the side hammer is on the left. Had something to do with the Manual of Small Arms, all that slamming about of the rifle and the hammer catching on straps and uniform bits. This must be a semi-experimental. The lower (rear) barrel band is not secured. Moves about 5" with every shot. The upper barrel band comes loose.
This rifle has the nicest trigger pull I've ever encountered in any side hammer action or with any military rifle. The action itself is very much like a Ruger #1, except that the Ruger doesn't have an external hammer. It's easy to see why this thing failed as a military design, but it would have made a damn nice hunting rifle and an amazing target rifle.
The British rifle trials found the Swiss Martini action, (a 'hammerless' modification to the Peabody action), to be a superior action.
In terms of a barrel & rifling producing black powder accuracy, the Henry polygonal rifling won the trials.
The result was a hybrid, the "Martini-Henry" rifle.
Initial test rifles had a very long action, to accomodate a 'straight-walled', .450" caliber cartridge, that held 85 grains of BP.
The ammunition and action were soon shortened, by 'necking down' a .577 coiled-brass cartridge to .450" caliber,
resulting in the .577/.450 Boxer cartridge.
This allowed a shorter action and cartridge with an identical power charge and .450" bullet.
The 480 grain bullet had no grease grooves, but was wrapped with a lubricated paper patch.
The paper patching and slightly concave bullet-base expanded to fill the complicated rifling profile, that measured .462" minimum,
and approximately .470 across the 'corners'.
Woody's Mark IV M-H, started life as a .42 caliber modernized Martini model.
The British saw that small caliber jacketed bullets, driven by 'smokeless' powder, were on the horizon.
Not wanting to have two B-P cartridges in service, the long-levered Mark IV Martini rifles were rebarreled to .577/.450.
I've never really put the AH on paper. The military sights go up to something like 1200 yards. I loaded some cases with 48 grains of FFg, compressed the load and followed that with greased wads. Used commercial RCBS 480 grain lead bullets supposedly for the M-H. They seated "properly". I was invited to a 1,000-yd 20-shot gong shoot on a friend's ranch. Took 40 rounds. Ran the leaf sight up to 1,000 yards. Took a sighting shot. Hit the gong.
We shot the match across a big draw, not quite a canyon. Each person fired once, the rest of us spotted. If the gong was hit, you could hear it, maybe see the bullet strike. If a miss, chances were good that someone would see the bullet strike on the hillside. We each fired 20 shots in sequence. I hit the gong twice. Finished dead last.
