Wednesay at the range with fatter 30's

[4060MAY]

Two beautiful Wed. last week and 9-06-06
the targets on the left were shot with a M/N 91/30 made in 1934, the barrel slugged .313.-314/.303-.304, the load for all targets was 15Grs WC820(same as AA#9)fast

The targets on the right were shot with a Finn Mod 28 not sure of the year but the action was made in 1898, Tikka barrel, .308-.309/.300-.301 tight barrel I thought
The freebore is .311-.312 the throat is .306-.308 about .5 long.

All loading was done with a modified LEE collet die allowing a bell mouth and the inside of the case was sized to .310, all the bullets were sized .313 and lubed with LAR 50-50.

Targets on the left are the second Group Buy Fatter 30, 194.1 gr. checked and lubed

Targets on the right are NUJUDGE Fat 314299 almost copy, 198.4gr checked and lubed

The Finn has always shot good with the 314299 and RCBS 180-sp-30
The Russian never shot this good.

Targets were shot at 100yds, front rest only (cross sticks) no rear bag.

I have some groups shot at 200yds and will post them later, I only had time to shoot the fatter 30 so there isn't any comparison.

Chuck

[BruceB]

A kind soul left me several hundred Fat Thirty boolits during the Nevada Shoot back in May. I finally fired some of them on Thursday morning.

I don't know the alloy, but they weighed-in at just over 190 grains. It almost seemed as if there were two different alloys, as one group seemed to average 191 +/-, and another bunch was right around 194 grains. Also, the two weight groups looked different in color as well. Whatever, they were good and hard.

I sized them in my .314 die (actual sized diameter was more like .3137") and they chambered freely in my new-condition #4, "Miz Liz". Seated at 2.900", they just kissed the rifling enough to leave burnished spots on the noses. This rifle has a Parker-Hale 5C match sight with iris aperture, and I was seeing the sights quite well...not always the case!

I loaded up fifty rounds with each of three powders: 2400, 5744, and IMR4227. Only the 4227 loads used dacron, and the 2400/5744s had the powder rattling around loose. Ten rounds were loaded at each charge level, so I had 150 rounds to fire.

At one-grain increments, the 2400 loads were 16.0 - 20.0 grains. The 5744 loads spanned 18.0 - 22.0 grains. and 4227 loads were 20.0 - 24.0 grains.

All these stair-stepped loads had starting speeds in the 1500 fps area, and finished with the top loads with each powder up in the 1700-plus zone.

I wasn't terribly impressed with the results. While the loads were all quite consistent in velocity, typically around 30-40 fps extreme spread, the grouping was pretty awful for many loads.....like four inches or more for ten rounds at 50 yards. The best target was fired with 17.0 2400, which gave me six rounds in less than an inch, but sprawled the other four out to span about 2.5" total, uncalled. I'm considering this to be baseline results, and now will re-shoot the whole bunch with dacron to see what might happen. 4227 WITH dacron was not very good on this outing.

I don't have the mould for this design, but might have to get one if I come up with some better results next time.

[Buckshot]

..............Bruce, I'm sure you've posted it before, but what kind of accuracy has this #4 produced before as a comparison?

..................Buckshot

[9.3X62AL]

I received one of NuJudge's Way Fat Thirty 6-bangers (hereinafter to be known as The NJWFT) on Friday last week, and now that the garage temps have cooled a bit--it's time to run some alloy through that critter!

I'm hoping to get more consistent results with a boolit closer to my rifle's throat and groove specs (.316" to .315") than has been the case with the Mountain Molds Fat Thirty (MMFT-190) sized with my widest 30 caliber sizer, .314"--which produces that diameter with 92/6/2 alloy. FWIW, my No. 1 Mk III (1918 BSA) will do the same trick with the .314" slugs that Bruce descibes for Miz Liz--6 or 7 into a respectable cluster at 50 yards, with 3-4 going galley-west out of a 10-shot attempt. I've shot enough of these 10-shotters to discern that the flyers aren't at the start or end of the string, they occur randomly during the sequence. My guess is the cause is either undersized boolits or bedding issues at this point.

[BruceB]

Rick;

You put your finger right on the question that's been bugging me. I've never truly identified the abilities (or lack of same) of this #4 Rifle.

So....I spent a large part of the night shift on the 'net, tracking down a lot of info about various bedding techniques etc. concerning the #4, and in my upcoming days off I intend to take her down and do some bedding work as per the methods I found. This rifle design is rather different from Mauser/M70/'03 and others, insofar as bedding techniques are concerned. It'll be interesting to see how it all works out. I'll shoot some "control" groups before starting in on the rifle, of course.

My intent is to do initial accuracy work with j-word bullets to get a baseline idea of what might be expected, and then proceed to the REAL boolits. With a brand-new barrel like this one, with less than 200 jacketed rounds fired, a bit more shooting with Hornadys or Sierras won't hurt a thing, and may help quite a bit. Peacetime- manufactured #4s are reputed to be much closer-toleranced than the wartime ones, and some writers suggest trying .308" bullets in such barrels. I have a bunch of .308 Matchkings on hand, as well as several boxes of Hornady .312" bullets.

Projects, projects...my FIRST project for the upcoming week is to catch a humungous king salmon on the Sacramento River, but after that, there'll be time for rifles....

[rvpilot76]

Say Bruce, would you mind posting some links to the information you found for bedding the #4's?

Best Regards,

Kevin

[PAT303]

There is a book called Accurizing and shooting Lee Enfields by Brian Labudda and Ian Skennerton that is worth every cent.I payed Aus$16.00 for it and it's a good read. pat