Britain adopted a turn-bolt, magazine fed action invented by one James Paris Lee, mated to a barrel with segmental rifling invented by William Metford, the whole being known as the Lee-Metford rifle. There were two distinct peculiarities with regard to this new cartridge, however. One was that it was rimmed. Admittedly, all the previous black powder rounds had also been rimmed, but the 8mm Mauser round, also of 1888, was of rimless design, which was far more suited to repeating rifles. The second curiosity was that the .303 was originally loaded with black powder. All other major powers were changing to the new nitro smokeless propellant, invented by the French chemist Vielle and adopted by France (a major rival) in 1886. However, Britain, although adopting a smallbore round which was modern by contemporary standards, only went the smokeless route in the early 1890’s. It appears that they were having problems with the development of a suitable smokeless propellant, and as a stop-gap measure used a compressed charge of 70 grains of black powder behind a 215 grain round nosed bullet. How they achieved this I don’t know, as it is a physical impossibility to stuff 70 grains of black powder into a .303 case by any conventional method! This gave the aforementioned bullet a velocity of 1850 fps, which was still pretty respectable for its day.
Eventually the propellant was changed from black powder to the famous Cordite in 1891 or 1892 (references differ as to the exact date of changeover) by means of the “Mark 1 C” cartridge, “C” denoting Cordite smokeless nitro propellant. A few minor changes necessitated by the new propellant resulted in the “Mark II C” cartridge. The same 215 grain bullet now achieved a velocity of 1970 fps, and everyone seemed satisfied.
Everyone that is, aside from those who actually had cause to shoot anyone with this new round and rifle. Good accuracy, yes. Flat trajectory, no doubt about it. Amazing firepower too, from this new magazine fed repeater. This was just as well, as those hit by it frequently failed to acknowledge the fact, and regularly took multiple hits before actually ceasing in the attempt to rearrange one’s internal anatomy with various sharp and unpleasant edged ethnic implements. In the 1890’s the British Army was engaged in a number of operations in the Indian and Afghan theatre, and this lack of effectiveness of the new ammunition was a cause of major concern. The previous Martini-Henry rifle with its 480 grain soft lead bullet had been proven time and time again, but this new rifle just wasn’t up to snuff. When small British detachments found themselves outnumbered ten to one against fanatically courageous opponents who took and gave no quarter, the problem was a serious one. Wound ballistics was a poorly understood science in those days, but even 1970 fps was insufficient for such a smallbore, relatively heavy, round nosed projectile to be effective as a military round. Penetration was fantastic - even up to and including an elephant’s skull - but it was too good on human targets, and energy transmission was virtually nil. Sub - 2000 fps speeds were too low for effective hydrostatic shock and temporary cavitation, all of which the British trooper was finding out the hard way on the field of battle.
As most of this unpleasantness was going on in the Indian theatre, the problem was tackled in situ and was solved at a place whose name must rank as one of the most over-used, misquoted and poorly understood terms in the history of firearms in general and projectiles in particular. The place was Dum-Dum arsenal in India. It was here that the full metal jacketed .303 bullet was changed to one having a small amount of lead core exposed at the tip, creating in effect a soft-nosed bullet which would expand in flesh - as did the previously used Martini-Henry lead bullets - and thus greatly increase its effectiveness. Any hunter having observed the differing terminal effects of solid bullets as compared to soft noses on lighter, thin skinned game will readily appreciate the difference. The .303 and the .450 Martini- Henry rounds were almost identical in their actual muzzle energies, but now the .303 could more effectively deliver that energy to the target. The infamous Dum-Dum bullet was born, and real-life fighting showed it to be far more effective than the old Mark 2 bullet. Troops engaged in savage warfare, but still equipped with the older Mark 2 ammunition, would sometimes file down the tips of the nully jacketed bullets to make them like the “Dum-Dum” projectiles.
In those days the Indian contingent of the British army had considerable autonomy in equipment and procurement of same, so while the Indian theatre was equipped with the soft nosed Dum-Dum bullet the same was never adopted by the rest of the British army. The same problem was appreciated, but dealt with in a different way by the adoption of a hollow-nosed bullet called the Mark 3, soon improved and widely manufactured as the Mark 4 in 1897, and the very similar Mark 5 of 1899. (It is emphasised at this point that “Mark 2”, “Mark 3”, etc, refers solely to ammunition development and bullet types. This nomenclature has an entirely different meaning when applied to the rifle itself).
It was at about this time, when Britain started to feel the heat politically over these expanding bullets. While such bullets were generally felt to be okay in outer corners of the globe where one’s opponents wouldn’t know acceptable codes of conduct in warfare if such codes ran up and bit them, the general consensus was that it would be a sorry thing if such bullets appeared in so-called “civilised” warfare. In view of what the First World War was to usher in in the not-too-distant future, one wonders what “civilised” warfare actually is. My view is that it is an oxymoron. Be that as it may, much political hay was made by Britain’s rivals over these allegedly “inhumane” bullets. All this culminated in the signing of the Hague Convention of 1899 (not the Geneva Convention, which is so often erroneously supposed, which deals with other matters). It was the Hague Convention which, among other things, specifically bound nations at war to refrain from using bullets which would “expand or flatten easily in the human body...” and which was specifically aimed at soft or hollow nosed bullets.
Britain could have argued the point, but was walking a bit of a political tightrope at the time in the form of the Boer War. The Boers did not wage war in any form of barbarous or inhumane fashion, and the use of expanding bullets on such an opponent was not justified by any means. What to do now?
Britain responded by withdrawing all hollowpoint ammunition from the South African theatre, and went back to the drawing board. What was needed was a bullet which would abide by the letter of the Hague Convention for use in Europe, should the necessity ever arise, but which would still retain adequate effectiveness in other theatres of conflict should one desire one’s hit foe to realise this and stay hit. The Mark 6 bullet was briefly flirted with in 1904, having a thinner jacket, but this was far from satisfactory and did not solve the problem at all. However, in 1905 the Germans startled the military world with the adoption of their revolutionary new bullet for the 8mm Mauser. This was the sharply pointed lightweight 154 grain bullet at nearly 2900 fps, which by virtue of its greater speed and superior ballistic coefficient bestowed by its streamlined shape gave ever greater advantages of range and trajectory. This once again shook the military world, and the new German “Spitzgeshoss” (or “pointed bullet”) lives on in modern bullet designation in the “spitzer” term, meaning the same thing. The exterior ballistic advantages of this new bullet were certainly not lost on the British, and the terminal effects of the enhanced velocities were beginning to be appreciated as well.
At these greatly increased velocities not only was there another quantum leap in even flatter trajectories, but now there was a greater effect evident on those hit by such bullets. Not only were the lighter, pointed bullets more unstable, tending to deform in flesh, but the velocity of the bullet was causing damage to tissue even some distance away from the actual bullet track, and exit wounds were now large, gaping, unpleasant affairs. Although not fully understood at the time, these were manifestations of hydrostatic shock. “Hydro” is, of course, anything to do with water. Among its other properties, one of the physical characteristics of water is that it is incompressible. This means that shock waves radiate through water very efficiently (just watch ripples on a pond when you throw in a stone, a half brick, the dog or whatever). Guess what the human body is largely made up of. That’s right - water. This is the same phenomenon that causes the familiar blood-shot, bruised meat in an animal when hit with a high velocity hunting bullet. All in all, anyone hit by one of these new bullets stayed hit! You can be sure that this was not lost on the British Army.
There were one or two problems, however. For one, the .303 round did not have the capacity of the 8mm Mauser case, and for another the Lee action was not as strong as the Model 98 Mauser when it came to handling high pressures. Furthermore, the British were unwilling to go to a pointed bullet of less than 174 grains. This bullet could only be safely driven to a velocity of 2440 fps in the Lee, and while this velocity produced hydrostatic shock effects
it was not as spectacular as the Mauser. The British army, sensitive to the earlier failures of the Mark 2 bullet, felt that a little bit extra was needed. This little bit extra was provided by the Mark 7 spitzer bullet, adopted in 1910.
To all intents and appearances, the new Mark 7 bullet was a fully jacketed pointed bullet weighing 174 grains. However, things were not as they may have appeared. Beneath the full metal jacket lurked a radical bullet design, for anyone who sectioned one of the new bullets found an aluminium tip under the point, which extended fully one third of the bullet’s length. Beneath this aluminium tip was the conventional lead core.
This design firstly ensured that the bullet was long for its weight, which is not a bad thing at all for enhanced long range performance. Mainly, however, the bullet’s centre of gravity was now further to the rear, which caused it to be unstable on impact and prone to tumbling. This of course greatly increased its wounding potential, but never mind - it had a full metal jacket to keep the politicians happy! Hypocritical, isn’t it? Here was a bullet far more devastating than the original “dum dum”, but which was now acceptable because it didn’t actually expand - it just tumbled through like a buzz-saw! That’s politics for you. Are you surprised? No, I didn’t think you would be.
The .303 British
http://www.african-hunter.com/303_british.htm