Les Jones

Guns > Things I Didn't Know: Cordite

I knew that when most people talked about "the smell of cordite" they were slightly mistaken, in that cordite isn't just a generic term for gunpowder. What I didn't know is that cordite was literally produced in the form of cords, or sticks, stuffed into the cartridge.

Using acetone as a solvent, it was extruded as spaghetti-like rods initially called "cord powder" or "the Committee's modification of Ballistite" but this was swiftly abbreviated to "Cordite". It was quickly discovered that the rate of burning could be varied by altering the surface area of the cordite. Narrow rods were used in small-arms and gave relatively fast burning, while thicker rods would burn more slowly and were used for longer barrels such as those used in artillery and naval guns.

Box O'Truth took apart some .303 British cartridges and has pictures. The picture above is from the Wikipedia entry and shows a four inch shell.