Hi, This is my first post in this forum, but I have been viewing for years and enjoying the knowledge and experience of other fellow shooters. I just wanted to share my recent experiences with my 1905 Ross Rifle. I have had it in pieces for probably about 15 years as I have been looking for a stock. I was finally able to get one from a very generous person in the Ross Rifle forums who just happened to have one and sent it to me for the cost of shipping! I was so excited that I would finally be able to use my long awaited Ross Rifle. When I got it out to the range, I was like a kid in a candy store! They say that all good things must come to an end.....and did it ever!
I loaded up some Lee 160 grain cast bullets with 22 grs of H322 as I did not want to run any full power loads through it since this gun had not been shot in more years than I have been alive. When I pulled the trigger the bullet went flying but landed no where near where I shot. I continued to shoot to see if it was just a sighting problem or a loading problem. It was both! At 25 yards my bullets were "grouping" around the 2 foot mark! Not an impressive way to start out with me "new" gun at all. Among my observations were that some of my brass had split and that all were highly yet consistently mis-shapen from where they had started out (full length sized).
This lead me to beleive that this rifle has a major excessive headspace problem and also that the bore was not in as good of shape as I had originally thought. For my next trip to the range, I made some reduced loads with 8 grs of 800-x.....my biggest problem with this was I had never had any experience with excessive headspace in any of my rifles throughout the years. So like a newbie I did a full length size on the brass before reloading. Low and behold the rounds were nicer to shoot.....more like a 6 inch group at 25 yards....better but not great, but the brass was still mis shaping and I had one split. Back to the drawing board.
I did some research on excessive headspace, and on one forum it was suggested that the cases NOT be full length sized at all but only neck sized. This creates a situation where the ammo can only be used in the one rifle, but does make it much safer and better to shoot. Since I have only the one .303 this is totally not an issue. Seemed to make so much sense, I do not know why I never thought of it. Next time to the range.....same loads with 800-x I was not getting the mis shapen cartridges nor did I have any splits and my grouping went to 3 inches! I am thinking I am onto something finally!
This brings me up to where I am now and I wanted to share my "Super Reduced Load" which I developed for the .303. I had just received my .311 Lee round ball mould and I had been reading about people using it in their rifles with reduced charges. Here is one that I settled on that I was amazed with the results.
.311 Lee round ball tumble lubed with liquid Alox, seated with a light mallet so that the ball is almost half in and half out of the neck making it look like a small ice cream cone. The sprue cut was to the top
2.5 grains 800-x with 1/4 of a square of toilet paper as wad to hold the powder to the primer
Winchester Large Rifle primer
The results were: Avg velocity 507 fps, rounds made little more than a pop and sounded more quiet than most air rifles! They were so much fun to shoot and at 30 feet I was consistently shooting every round through the same hole! Now if I could only get that kind of accuracy with a "real" load...will continue to update if I get my higher power loads finally working.