ohland
08-27-2014, 03:24 PM
Recreation, XVIII, No 2, Feb 1903, pages 130-131, G.O Shields (Coquina) Editor.
Accessed through Google, 27 Aug 2014
Note: Out of self-preservation, I used OCR to pull most of this out. Poor formatting, or typos are probable outcomes. If you want to get every nuance correct, please go to Google and get the original article. Noticing that the forum has altered some formatting, I will have to beat the Lūb Monkey and make him fix it.... Also, the boolit seems to either have been cast with a different alloy (Armstrong mentions 10:1) or the boolit was slightly changed in later years. Still, a difference of four grains total is not too much.
A NEW 30 CALIBER BULLET.
(PB, FN, 72, 93, 113, 136 - TP is ?)
114666
The past 6 years I have been experimenting, as leisure would permit, with 30 rifles. Neither the Keptheart nor the Hudson bullet meets the requirements. Their inventors, however, have demonstrated 2 important points; namely, the advantage of a square fronted first band to scrape out fouling, and the necessity of having a bullet fit tightly to prevent upsetting with smokeless powder.
Some bullets I tried had lead points as long as ordinary jacketed points. When fed into the barrel from the magazine, coming up an incline as they do, the long point either bent or else the bullet was loosened in the shell. In consequence, they failed to group as well as bullets from the same shells when slipped into the barrel by hand. Some of these bullets when factory loaded in new shells did fairly well, and the shell had a tight grip on the ball; but when loaded by hand in old shells, I could never get them to group satisfactorily.
Finally I devised a new bullet. Mr. Barlow, of the Ideal Manufacturing Company, made a mold after my design, and I believe I am now using the first really all around ball. Its weight, when cast full length and greased, is 132 grains. It has 5 full bands, 5 full groves and a narrow band in front, sharp and square on the forward edge, to scrape out what little fouling there may be. As a perfect heel is of more importance than a perfect point, this bullet is cast heel down in the mold. If there is a defect on one side of the heel, gas will rush out of the gun muzzle first at that side and deflect the ball. There is a sharp, square corner all around the heel, so grease can not get under it while being applied. This bullet has a sharp point, projecting but little from the shell when crimped in, thus lessening the chance of injury -while being carried in the pocket or fed from the magazine. I do not use shells creased or indented to prevent too deep seating of the ball. Instead, I use plain, smooth mouth shells, first firing one full load in each. This expands them so they fit the gun perfectly, and swells the muzzle so my .311 bullet will enter a .303 shell. I seat the bullet so the crimp will come just behind the narrow band. This prevents the ball from pushing back on the powder, and enables me to use one length of shell for all loads. The bullet, if cast 10 to 1 and greased with Ideal lubricant, will not lead a gun.
Use a clean, low pressure smokeless, one giving little, if any, more velocity than black powder. The ball is so divided in bands and grooves that almost its entire length is in contact with the barrel. The narrow band in front gets all the grease it can handle at the first shot after the gun has been cleaned and oiled. Thereafter the band never touches the barrel, and what little fouling there is rolls up in front of it, gets under the band and is removed by the bands following. My bullet makes the loaded cartridge about 3/8 inch shorter than the standard load. It is, therefore, possible that some 30 caliber magazine guns will not handle it. In my gun, a Savage, the shortage makes no difference.
Rifle makers say a different adjustment of sights is needed for different loads. I am not going to dispute that as a general statement, but I have 2 loads that follow the same sighting. Some guns, at least, give a different drift to one load from what they do to another. I had supposed that varying loads of powder would make a gun shoot high or low, as the case might be, without causing lateral variation; but I find that is not so. One gun I tried would, with a light load of high pressure powder and a soft point ball, shoot below and to the left; when the load was increased it shot high and to the right. Another gun would make close groups with soft points and 22 1/2 grains Savage No. 1; increasing the load resulted in high and wild shooting. The gun I have at present will make good groups not only with that load, but with as much more powder as I can get into the shell. Each load will make good groups, but at different places on the target. I chose as a full load for my .303 Savage, 26 1/2 grains Savage No. 1, 1901 brand, smokeless powder, a U. M. C. No. 8 1/2 primer and a U. M. C. 195 grain soft pointed bullet. With the gun sighted to group in the center at 200 yards, it will group 3/4 inch high at 50.
For a light load I use my new bullet, full length and sized .311, a U. M. C. 8 1/2 primer and 11 grains DuPont No. 2 smokeless rifle. With the same sighting as for the full load, this load will group on the center at 50 yards and about 2 inches low at 200. The new bullet in the 3 band, 88 grain size [ed. 93 grain size?], with the same powder load, will group nicely at 50 yards, though a trifle high. I have tried many kinds of smokeless and for this load DuPont No. 2 suits me best. It is fine grain and will measure in a charger with more uniformity than a coarser powder.
This powder retails' at $1 a can of one pound bulk, which contains 275 loads of 11 grains each. A pound of lead makes 50 full length bullets. By buying powder, lead and primers right, I get my light loads for about 50 cents a hundred. I use an Ideal dipper, pot and cover; an Ideal Perfection mold, chambered to make my bullet; and an Ideal lubricator and sizer, with .311 sizing die. I also use expanded shells and an Ideal No. 3 special tool having one chamber to crimp the standard soft point bullet, and an adjustable double chamber to seat and crimp my new bullet. The latter is designated in the Ideal Hand Book as bullet No. 308,234.
I believe my new bullet has more advantages than any other. It is simple, easy to mold, grease and load, accurate and serviceable, and much cleaner than others. I used to think high power guns not so accurate as black powder weapons, but find it was because I did not know how to load smokeless. Some guns need just so much of a charge and no more. Others will shoot a variety of loads and bunch any of them well, though the drift of each will be different and the gun can be sighted to suit only one load. After adopting a full load, experiment until a light load is found that will follow the same sighting.
For accurate rest shooting the telescope sight is the thing. I have a No. 3, 20 power Sidle, mounted on the side so as not to interfere with the Lymans. It has fine wind gauge and elevation adjustment. With it I can see .303 bullet holes plainly at 150 yards. I am a poor off hand shot, and all my test shooting has been done at a rest. I built a frame of 6x6 inch stuff so the gun muzzle could rest on one end and my chest and arms on the other. Then I rigged a piece of board to rest the receiver of the rifle on, and filled 2 shot sacks with sand to steady each end of the gun. There was no guess work then; I could hold the cross hairs of the telescope on a tack head at 100 yards.
I always clean guns with a field wiper, a woolen flannel rag and any good machine oil. I never wet a gun. I keep a filler in my guns at all times when not in use, a wooden rod wound with greased Wool flannel. Cotton is not good for a rifle wiper; it is not springy enough to enter the groves as wool does.
E. P. Armstrong, Dewdrop, Pa.
Accessed through Google, 27 Aug 2014
Note: Out of self-preservation, I used OCR to pull most of this out. Poor formatting, or typos are probable outcomes. If you want to get every nuance correct, please go to Google and get the original article. Noticing that the forum has altered some formatting, I will have to beat the Lūb Monkey and make him fix it.... Also, the boolit seems to either have been cast with a different alloy (Armstrong mentions 10:1) or the boolit was slightly changed in later years. Still, a difference of four grains total is not too much.
A NEW 30 CALIBER BULLET.
(PB, FN, 72, 93, 113, 136 - TP is ?)
114666
The past 6 years I have been experimenting, as leisure would permit, with 30 rifles. Neither the Keptheart nor the Hudson bullet meets the requirements. Their inventors, however, have demonstrated 2 important points; namely, the advantage of a square fronted first band to scrape out fouling, and the necessity of having a bullet fit tightly to prevent upsetting with smokeless powder.
Some bullets I tried had lead points as long as ordinary jacketed points. When fed into the barrel from the magazine, coming up an incline as they do, the long point either bent or else the bullet was loosened in the shell. In consequence, they failed to group as well as bullets from the same shells when slipped into the barrel by hand. Some of these bullets when factory loaded in new shells did fairly well, and the shell had a tight grip on the ball; but when loaded by hand in old shells, I could never get them to group satisfactorily.
Finally I devised a new bullet. Mr. Barlow, of the Ideal Manufacturing Company, made a mold after my design, and I believe I am now using the first really all around ball. Its weight, when cast full length and greased, is 132 grains. It has 5 full bands, 5 full groves and a narrow band in front, sharp and square on the forward edge, to scrape out what little fouling there may be. As a perfect heel is of more importance than a perfect point, this bullet is cast heel down in the mold. If there is a defect on one side of the heel, gas will rush out of the gun muzzle first at that side and deflect the ball. There is a sharp, square corner all around the heel, so grease can not get under it while being applied. This bullet has a sharp point, projecting but little from the shell when crimped in, thus lessening the chance of injury -while being carried in the pocket or fed from the magazine. I do not use shells creased or indented to prevent too deep seating of the ball. Instead, I use plain, smooth mouth shells, first firing one full load in each. This expands them so they fit the gun perfectly, and swells the muzzle so my .311 bullet will enter a .303 shell. I seat the bullet so the crimp will come just behind the narrow band. This prevents the ball from pushing back on the powder, and enables me to use one length of shell for all loads. The bullet, if cast 10 to 1 and greased with Ideal lubricant, will not lead a gun.
Use a clean, low pressure smokeless, one giving little, if any, more velocity than black powder. The ball is so divided in bands and grooves that almost its entire length is in contact with the barrel. The narrow band in front gets all the grease it can handle at the first shot after the gun has been cleaned and oiled. Thereafter the band never touches the barrel, and what little fouling there is rolls up in front of it, gets under the band and is removed by the bands following. My bullet makes the loaded cartridge about 3/8 inch shorter than the standard load. It is, therefore, possible that some 30 caliber magazine guns will not handle it. In my gun, a Savage, the shortage makes no difference.
Rifle makers say a different adjustment of sights is needed for different loads. I am not going to dispute that as a general statement, but I have 2 loads that follow the same sighting. Some guns, at least, give a different drift to one load from what they do to another. I had supposed that varying loads of powder would make a gun shoot high or low, as the case might be, without causing lateral variation; but I find that is not so. One gun I tried would, with a light load of high pressure powder and a soft point ball, shoot below and to the left; when the load was increased it shot high and to the right. Another gun would make close groups with soft points and 22 1/2 grains Savage No. 1; increasing the load resulted in high and wild shooting. The gun I have at present will make good groups not only with that load, but with as much more powder as I can get into the shell. Each load will make good groups, but at different places on the target. I chose as a full load for my .303 Savage, 26 1/2 grains Savage No. 1, 1901 brand, smokeless powder, a U. M. C. No. 8 1/2 primer and a U. M. C. 195 grain soft pointed bullet. With the gun sighted to group in the center at 200 yards, it will group 3/4 inch high at 50.
For a light load I use my new bullet, full length and sized .311, a U. M. C. 8 1/2 primer and 11 grains DuPont No. 2 smokeless rifle. With the same sighting as for the full load, this load will group on the center at 50 yards and about 2 inches low at 200. The new bullet in the 3 band, 88 grain size [ed. 93 grain size?], with the same powder load, will group nicely at 50 yards, though a trifle high. I have tried many kinds of smokeless and for this load DuPont No. 2 suits me best. It is fine grain and will measure in a charger with more uniformity than a coarser powder.
This powder retails' at $1 a can of one pound bulk, which contains 275 loads of 11 grains each. A pound of lead makes 50 full length bullets. By buying powder, lead and primers right, I get my light loads for about 50 cents a hundred. I use an Ideal dipper, pot and cover; an Ideal Perfection mold, chambered to make my bullet; and an Ideal lubricator and sizer, with .311 sizing die. I also use expanded shells and an Ideal No. 3 special tool having one chamber to crimp the standard soft point bullet, and an adjustable double chamber to seat and crimp my new bullet. The latter is designated in the Ideal Hand Book as bullet No. 308,234.
I believe my new bullet has more advantages than any other. It is simple, easy to mold, grease and load, accurate and serviceable, and much cleaner than others. I used to think high power guns not so accurate as black powder weapons, but find it was because I did not know how to load smokeless. Some guns need just so much of a charge and no more. Others will shoot a variety of loads and bunch any of them well, though the drift of each will be different and the gun can be sighted to suit only one load. After adopting a full load, experiment until a light load is found that will follow the same sighting.
For accurate rest shooting the telescope sight is the thing. I have a No. 3, 20 power Sidle, mounted on the side so as not to interfere with the Lymans. It has fine wind gauge and elevation adjustment. With it I can see .303 bullet holes plainly at 150 yards. I am a poor off hand shot, and all my test shooting has been done at a rest. I built a frame of 6x6 inch stuff so the gun muzzle could rest on one end and my chest and arms on the other. Then I rigged a piece of board to rest the receiver of the rifle on, and filled 2 shot sacks with sand to steady each end of the gun. There was no guess work then; I could hold the cross hairs of the telescope on a tack head at 100 yards.
I always clean guns with a field wiper, a woolen flannel rag and any good machine oil. I never wet a gun. I keep a filler in my guns at all times when not in use, a wooden rod wound with greased Wool flannel. Cotton is not good for a rifle wiper; it is not springy enough to enter the groves as wool does.
E. P. Armstrong, Dewdrop, Pa.