The British caught hell for using expanding "Dum-Dum" bullets on the Boers:
"The Anglo-Boer War offered the first opportunity for the large-scale use of modern small arms. The large, soft, leaden bullet of previous wars was replaced by the small calibre, ogival-shaped, nickel-jacketed projectile. Because the cartridges were smaller and lighter, more of them could be fired per unit time, which increased the number of wounded.
The 7mm Model 96 Mauser - generally used by the Boers - and the British army service rifle, the .303-inch Lee-Enfield, fired bullets similar in shape; the latter having a slightly greater mass, the former having a higher velocity. As wounding results from the release of kinetic energy, it is obvious that both these bullets had more or less the same effect.
Professor JC de Villiers - The modern rifle bullet" - says the destructive effect of a bullet on tissue is related to the resistance which it offers to the bullet`s flight. Any irregularity of the bullet would cause more energy to be expended in the tissues thereby resulting in greater damage. The new, non-expanding bullets, sometimes caused little tissue damage. At an average velocity - when fired from a fairly long distance - these bullets were found to produce clear-cut entrance and exit wounds of almost equal size.
At short range, however, when their velocity was still very high and their effect - particularly on a closed cavity such as the skull or a solid organ - could be explosive. Increasing experience showed that the distance from which the bullet was fired was extremely important.
There were instances of lung and abdomen wounds, where the patient had hardly any reaction; He concludes that: Many of the stories on expanding bullets might have been unfounded as ricochet bullets or the effect of bone being struck and shattering could cause massive wounds."
The dum-dum bullet was developed by the British military and patented in 1897 by Captain Bertie-Clay of the Indian ammunition works at the town of Dum Dum in India.
General Sir Henry Backenbury describes its origins: "Owing to the experience of the Chitral campaign in 1895, it was considered desirable that we should have a more deadly bullet than the ordinary Mark II. It had insufficient stopping power over the rush of Ghazis and accordingly in this country, as well as in India, an effort was made to find a satisfactory bullet, which would have a more deadly effect.
In India, they produced the Dum-Dum ammunition, in which the head of the bullet is not covered by the nickel envelope. In England, the bullet had a small cylindrical hole in the lead at the top, which was not covered over with nickel. This was the Mark IV, an expanding bullet."
In 1899 Britain had a stock of 172 000 000 expanding bullets, of which 66 000 000 had been delivered to British bases worldwide."
The Mark IV soft expanding bullet disintegrated when it entered a man's body. It mushroomed on impact causing terrible wounds and was thought to be too vicious to inflict upon one another. Boer War expert Thomas Pakenham says Britain accepted that, for a white man's war", it had certain moral force" (251). It had previously been used on India's North West Frontier and in the Sudan in 1897.
The Laws of war at the Hague Convention of 29th July 1899 is contained in the Declaration on the use of bullets. The Contracting parties agree to abstain from the use of bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body, such as bullets with a hard envelope which does not entirely cover the core, or is pierced with incisions." However, since neither the Boers nor the British had not been signatories, they were not bound by the convention. "
