I got an untouched Mark IV British Martini Henry a few months ago and cleaned it up in this thread.

I finally got the necessary tools and supplies together to reload ammo for it.  I again used Iraqveteran8888 as a resource to get this rifle shooting, particularly his video on reloading .577/.450 MH.


I actually had never cast a bullet before, so this project opened up a new aspect of the shooting sport to me.  I decided to go with the cheap Lee Precision Pro 4-20 as my entry level casting pot.  I don't know of any local sources for lead and I am not going to cast thousands of bullets so I decided to buy some pure lead ingots off amazon as well.




There is a guy named "Xring services" who sells a custom .468" mold for making the bullet on some of the casting forums.  Bore sizes on these rifles can vary, but most Mark IV British made rifles will accept the .468 bullet.  This is of course talking about bullets that you won't make a paper patch for.  You should always slug your bore to be sure, however the MH has a weird tapered bore that is variable.  I know a lot of people shoot various soft alloys that are slightly harder than lead through their MH and I may experiment with that in the future if I try to make bullets for smokeless powder cartridges, however for the time being, I am set up for pure lead casting.  I also made some .451" round balls for my cap-and-ball revolvers.

Casting is definitely an art that I have not yet fully mastered.  A lot of my bullets have defects and small voids, however I am not OCD enough to remelt every minor defect.  I ended up with a large number of "good enough for me to shoot" bullets:




For lube I made a mix of approximately 1 part beeswax and 1 part vegetable oil.  I tried to pan lube but it turned into a huge mess with huge chunks of lube sticking to each bullet so I just used the heat from my hands to get the lube soft enough and then removed the excess (while wearing gloves).  Here are some bullets with most lube removed before being wiped down to get the last excess off:




I had multiple backorders for Magtech 24ga brass that kept getting delayed, so I finally broke down and ordered a 20 piece box of Bertram brass.  This stuff is ridiculously expensive but I wanted to shoot my rifle.  Of course as soon as I ordered it all the 24ga brass got shipped, but at least I have fresh brass to load.  I will trim, anneal, and form the 24ga brass later on.




I needed to make some proper sized wads.  I used a chocolate milk carton and a 12mm punch:






I then bought some 1Fg black powder.  Grafs also had a sale on 1.5Fg powder so I got some of that to experiment with:





After all that I was finally ready to load. First I primed the brass:




Then I loaded 85 grains of 1Fg black powder.  You will spill a lot so use a container or big piece of paper to catch it all for "recycling":




Iraqveteran8888 used Polyfill in his video, and it seems to work fine.  However I decided with blackpowder to make my cartridges and loads all natural plant and animal based so I got some cotton filler off Amazon.

I put enough cotton in to fill up to the neck.  I then tried to make a grease cookie but I probably cut into the pan lube too soon and it made a huge mess, so I just grabbed a little bit and made a ball.  I then put a cardboard wad down over the cotton, the grease ball on that, and another cardboard wad down to compress into a disc.  I then seated the bullet and compressed it down as far as possible:




I still have one grease groove visible on each cartridge.  Did I fill up too much space in the case, or is it OK to have a grease groove exposed?  I chambered several live rounds and they fit in the rifle with no problem.

It's okay to have the grease groove exposed, in general for BP ammo the bullet should just touch the rifling of the best accuracy.

For the lube I would add some more beeswax you'll end up with a stiffer lube that will stay in the grooves of the bullet. leave the last groove un lubed if it is going to be outside the case.

I just put a MH on layaway at a local shop. Neat rifles, my friend has one and I got to shoot it last week. He's using the converted shotgun shells.