303 British, Back to the drawing board.

[A pause for the COZ]

Fun stuff.... 1st time out with this puppy. Its a 1943 Long Branch MIV I think. 2 groove
Slugged the bore at .303 bore .317 grooves.





I dont have any thing that can be sized .318, So I guess some 314299's sized to .314 gas checked will have to do.
Tried a string of those ahead of 2400. Underwhelmed is a understatement. I went from 19.5 gr down to 18 gr in 1/2 gr increments.
Best was the 19 gr. but nothing I would shoot. At 18 gr they hit the target side ways at a 100 yards. No leading though.
I guess these are not going to be a 2400 bullet. Funny part is its the 1st time I havent got a bullet to fly ahead of 2400. Its been my magic powder for cast.
So I guess I will turn up the volume with some H4895 next.
Any ideas??

I suppose I could take some of those .314's and paper patch them up to .318......... I do have some onion skin paper. hmmmmm

arggg makes my head hurt... would .318 even chamber???

[I'll Make Mine]

Will the .318 patched boolit slip into the fired (not sized) cases? If so, it'll chamber and, assuming you can avoid sizing the necks too small (or just use them as-fired), should give a great improvement in accuracy. Of course, it'd probably be best if you sized the cores down to .304-.305 before patching them to .318 (and that might be better begun with a .309 boolit rather than a .314); the general rule for paper patch in smokeless seems to be cores at bore plus .001-.002, patched to groove plus .001-.002.

[JeffinNZ]

My .303 Pygmy 2 groove barrel is .317 in the groove and shoots very well with boolits as cast at .3165 from 3 CBE moulds. Unfortuately Jim is winding up the business in AU so not likely to take an order right now. How about a .32/8mm boolits sized to .318/.319 inch?

[Mk42gunner]

My first thought was to suggest an 8mm mold and size it down to .318". You might need two trips through the sizer-- one at .323" to fill the grooves then the next to size it down.

I think that would be a lot easier and faster than paperpatching, but it kind ofp depends on how much you plan to shoot this rifle.

Robert

[Larry Gibson]

My first thought was to suggest an 8mm mold and size it down to .318". You might need two trips through the sizer-- one at .323" to fill the grooves then the next to size it down.

I think that would be a lot easier and faster than paperpatching, but it kind ofp depends on how much you plan to shoot this rifle.

Robert

+1.

Might also mic the inside diameter of fired cases to see if a .321 bullet will fit. If so then there is a good selection of .32/8mm bullets available. I readily size .325 sized lubed and GC'd bullets down to .314, .316 and .318 in enlarged Lee push through sizers.

Larry Gibson

[A pause for the COZ]

Thats some thing to try. I have a stash on 32 winchester cast I could try plus a I have a LEE C324-175-1R mold for my Mauser I could tinker with.

[303Guy]

If the bore is very smooth then paper patching might be the way to go. I tried mine but firstly the bore is 'rust textured' but otherwise on spec. The rifling does not hold the boolit and cuts through the patch into the boolit. Worse still is that the throat swages the boolit down to bore (80% of the bore is bore diameter). This deforms the boolit trailing edge. However, not all boolits are like mine. For paper patching, ask Jeff for a picture of his boolits and find a 'normal' boolit mold like his and patch up to the size of his boolits.

Here the rifling cutting into the core is clearly visible.


Here the base distortion is evident.


Here the velocity was lower - very low. It looks like a plain cast - that would explain why the boolit material gets squeezed into the base so much.
It was a crinkled casting!

[A pause for the COZ]

I dont think thats going to work. I miced the inside of a fired case and it came to .3165
Dont think a .318 bullet will chamber.
Strange barrel I have no experience with these war expedient builds.

[walltube]

A......COZ,

Have a visit to Accurate Moulds, Tom has some offerings that may help solve your Enfield dillema. Drawing 32-220B is what brought to life my 1916 manufactured Eddystone P14. A good bit of experimentation was involved getting the boolit to fit the throat-rifling before I achieved any accuracy. This is a long projectile.

Mind you, early, satisfactory accuracy attempts were not shooting my neighboring shooter's target! Really! Good luck and enjoy. Getting there is half the fun.

Y.T.,
Wt.

[nhrifle]

Hello all. I have an unmodified version of the OP's rifle that I use in High Power matches. It came with the two position flip rear sight and it wasnt long before I replaced that with a micrometer adjustable unit from Sarco. I went through fits trying to get it to shoot. I have never slugged the bore, so I appologize but I can't comment on my barrel's specs, though the lands are bright and shiny and the grooves are a bit dark.

What I finally settled on was a Lyman 314299, gas checked and run through a .314 lube die, Barely touches the boolit at all but fills nicely with lube. I found I like Lyman's Super Moly Lube as it flows even when cold and I have yet to have any leading since I started using it.

I load that boolit over 7 grains of Red Dot and seat with the forward driving band to the case mouth. That load has the recoil of a 22 Hornet in my rifle.

Yes, it is a light load, but man does it shoot! If I do my part, I can clean a 200 yard target.

Hope this helps!

[Larry Gibson]

I dont think thats going to work. I miced the inside of a fired case and it came to .3165
Dont think a .318 bullet will chamber.
Strange barrel I have no experience with these war expedient builds.

There should have been some spring back t the case necks so my guess is a .317 will chamber and probably a .318 sized cast. I may be able to size some 8mms at .318 the next week or so and mails some to you if you want to try them? My stuff is still in storage but I should be able to find some, size them and get them off........

Larry Gibson

[Multigunner]

If the right alloy is used you may be able to get by with a bullet a hair smaller than diameter across the grooves.
Two groove barrels tend to extrude the bullet deeply into the grooves because of the broad land surfaces, at least the Savage two groove seems to, those having much more narrow grooves and broader lands than the British made two groove barrels.

With enough impulse inertia will work to bump up the center section of the bullet, whether the base bumps up or not. The engraving force is significant, so the bullet becomes compressed lengthwise, and that lead has to go somewhere.
A flexible over the charge card or wad would help, probably more than a gas check.
Any blowby would make consistent filling of the grooves more dificult.

[A pause for the COZ]

Hey guys thanks for the advice. I am still working at it with what i have.
I tried shooting some 125 gr .310 jacketed pulls I have on hand. These shot ok, plinking ok.

I tried a few more ahead of 2400. Some loads on castpics showed higher gr loads than what i was trying.
So I tried five at 22 gr. No thats not it. Unless you call a 32 inch group at 100 yards good.

I tried paper patching a few just to get a feel for it. Took some 314299's and patched them.
The technique seems fine but they still shot like poo. I need to get a .316 sizer.

[nhrifle]

Not sure why I didn't think of this before, but have you looked at the rifling at the muzzle? Previous owners of my rifle had apparently gotten fairly aggressive cleaning it with a steel rod, and not from the breech like they should have! When I first got the rifle it wouldn't shoot much better than the average Brown Bess.

I used my dremel with a round stone to grind the muzzle until I could see sharpish lands right to the end. Make sure to swab the bore after doing this! I used a bit of toothpaste thinned with water as a cutting lube since it is also a fine abrasive. After recrowning the barrel I touched up the finish with some cold blue and gave it a light lube.

My groups shrank dramatically after this, and it wasn't that hard to do. Might be worth giving it a try on your rifle, just go slow and take your time.

[wellfedirishman]

Have you considered beagling the mold with some HVAC tape? I have done this for a couple of my molds and can get a .312 mold to drop a .317 bullet which works great in Enflelds, even if it is slightly out of round (.312 x .317 approx). It is much faster than paper patching.

I have one Enfield Jungle Carbine with a very loose bore (greater than .318, as .318 just slides through it). I may have to try a sized-down 8mm in that one.

[leadman]

You might try a grain of poly-fil over the powder. I have done this with large bores, like my previous Mosin-Nagant and it shrunk the groups. Must work like a soft gas check.

[303Guy]

You might try the poly-fil with a little more density. I'd suggest using a fine fibre one like Dacron (I think). I shove in quite a bit more than usually suggested, using it as more than simply a powder positioner.