TOPIC:

This soapstone bullet mould was taken from a Boer prisoner in the Western Transvaal in 1902. Three of the projectile moulds are .45-inch calibre and the fourth roughly .5-inch. The iron plate, with aperture for pouring molten lead, is set for the latter size. The .45-in moulds do not appear to be deep enough for the production of Martini-Henry rounds (29mm, opposed to 32mm), so were, I imagine, used to cast bullets for some type of hunting rifle. Either that or the stone has been modified, with 3mm shaved off the top surface.

With two paper labels, inscribed: "BULLET MOULD TAKEN OFF BOER PRISONER. Western Transvaal 1902" and "BULLET MOULD TAKEN FROM BOER [illegible] During S.A. War 1901-02. C.J.M."




Photographed with a Martini-Henry bullet to highlight the 3mm difference between projectile length & mould depth. The stone has been cut down at one end, bisecting one of the individual .45-inch moulds.















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What a fascinating item, Neville. Excellent picture too (as always with your posts).

Interested Forum members
Neville' s post shows a very interesting artefact. I would make a couple of points about the mould, its use and the type of .45" projectile it once cast (and indeed may still be capable of making!).
Regarding the mould itself, the pivoting metal plate certainly does assist in funnelling molten lead into the selected cavity/s as Neville says. Not only that, when given a sharp lateral blow with a hammer, the pivoting metal plate acts as a "sprue cutter"; it lops off the "tail" left on the projectile by the casting process. Otherwise, the user would have to snip off the excess by some means to attain something like a relatively uniform projectile weight and length. In other words, the soapstone mould was rudimentary - but did work.
Next, Neville shows that the .45" mould cavities do not produce projectiles of suitable length for the MHR; they are 29mm in length - and may be for some type of hunting rifle. The answer is I think, that the soapstone mould was intended to throw .45' projectiles for the Martini Henry Carbine.
To illustrate, digging into the collection provides an illustration of .45" projectiles for both rifle and carbine:

The 480 grain MH Rifle projectile measures 32mm in length and that for the Carbine (410 grains) goes 28mm; pretty close to Neville's 29mm and understandable in a home made mould.
Why would the maker of such a mould prefer to cast Carbine projectiles instead of those for the rifle? Was lead a scarce commodity in the backveld of those days? I don't know and perhaps someone might comment on that.
For completeness, loaded examples of the .45" MR Rifle and Carbine rounds are shown here side by side to illustrate the difference.

Plese note - illustrating the rolled, Boxer MH rifle round alongsude the Solid Drawn Carbine variant is not entirely anachronistic; the latter was approved in 1887 and the two types would have been in use in SA aroudd the same time.
Regards
IL.

A rolled carbine cartridge.



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Thank you, Linneyl and Terry,

Would the shorter bullet work with a MH Rifle, or would that lead to all sorts of sighting problems (in terms of range)? The use of the iron plate as a sprue-cutter hadn't occurred to me.

Another possibility? The Westley Richards No 2 Musket. This example came from Cronje's laager at Paardeberg, so some Boers certainly took them on commando, I imagine for hunting rather than combat purposes. I don't have an example of the bullet out of its case, so do not know its length, but from the amount of exposed lead, it looks like it might be shorter than an MHR projectile.




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Using a carbine weight projectile in a .45" MHR would certainly affect the ranging and point of impact. However, given the liklihood of a projectile cast in such a mould having inherent defects such as minor air bubbles, etc, it would not be anywhere as accurate as the compression-formed projectiles of the official .45" MH round. However, the user probably would not mind too much, given the rudimentary nature of the mould.
At one point, in order to reduce the recoil of the .45" MHR round, Woolwich Arsenal did produce a Mk. IV version. It featured the usual charge of 85 grains of powder and a Carbine weight bullet. The Mk.IV was soon dropped as the trajectory did not match the markings on the backsight.
The 500/450 No.2 Musket round featured a 480 grain lead, paper patched projectile. Most likely identical to the .45" MHR. Incidentally, the No.2 Musket round used the same case as the .45" Gatling round.
Regards
IL.