Paper Patching for a good bore 303 Brit

[303Guy]

Some time ago I tried some patching for my near mint bore Lee Enfield but didn't get stellar results. At that time I made a core sizer die that would produce a throat fitting heavy patched boolit. I got that part right but it didn't work too well. The problem is that the nose section of the core is under bore diameter. There just isn't anything I can do about it and still have a heavy boolit unless I can seat it deeper in the case.

Boolit weight is not really the end of the world because I have other rifles that can handle the heavies, so I was thinking of a much lighter boolit or seating deep.

So a few questions;
Can the nose section core be under bore diameter?
Can the boolit base be seated below the neck?
If the boolit cannot be seated deep and the core must be above bore diameter, can softer alloy be used so as to fit the throat/bore start but upset on launch so as to achieve the nose section fit?

[Dan Cash]

So a few questions;
Can the nose section core be under bore diameter? Yes. A couple years ago I ordered a custom mould for my .30-40 and made an error on the requested nose diameter. The nose came in a .2985. The bullet is unworkable in my bore (bore is new). I was just getting in to paper patching and found that by patching, the bore riding section filled out enough to get firm contact with the rifling. The bullet shoots like a house afire in my rifle.
Can the boolit base be seated below the neck? Last winter, I was trying to get a .300 savage (extremely short neck) to shoot PP cast with no luck. The lightest bullet I have a mould for in .30 is a 175 grain Lyman 31141. To get it into the magazine, it had to be seated below the shoulder of the case. Results were dismal. Recovered bullets were heafily peened on sides and bottom (no gas check) and the peened area was significantly smaller than the non peened area. Deep seating did not work for me.
If the boolit cannot be seated deep and the core must be above bore diameter, can softer alloy be used so as to fit the throat/bore start but upset on launch so as to achieve the nose section fit? All my PP bullets are cast of relatively soft material in the 20:1 range. They perform well for me but I have not tried to use them in a bore you describe. We can both experiment on this one as I am going to try making an 8mm shoot. It has a fine bore and chamber but cavernous throat.

Hope this helps,
Dan

[UBER7MM]

303Guy,

Assuming you haven't a compressed load, a Dacron tuft as filler should alleviate the issue of the peened boolit due to the base being seated below the neck.

I hope this helps,

[303Guy]

Thanks guys.

I do have a new powder to try - two new powders actually, those being W748 and W780. The W780 fills the case.

The load I tested was 40gr H4350 under a 192gr PPCB which chrono'd at 2250 fps. That's an 87% load density but that free space was filled with wheat bran. Wheat bran filler tends to cup the boolit base with softer alloys. That in itself could be the problem.


It's possible I should try a boolit with a patched base section just over groove diameter (groove .313 , bore .303) and size the necks to suite. I did try softer cores and got unreliable results which could point to something else. That same soft alloy worked great in the worn/rusted oversize bores but at lower velocity.


I haven't used my lathe in a while but maybe I should make up a new mold or two with different core forms - or different sizer dies and use my existing molds.

[Canuck Bob]

May I ask what you mean by peened bullet?

[Dan Cash]

May I ask what you mean by peened bullet?

The bullet, where peened, looks like some one beat heck out of it with the ball end of a ball peen hammer. It is seriously dented-little bitty dents.

[303Guy]

They get little indentations just the size of the powder kernels. With H4350 that's pretty serious. I did some work on that issue and did manage to alleviate the problem with H4227 by using a somewhat denser Dacron fill. Now the load density was around 30% so there was about 2gr of Dacron in there. With slower powders and a greater load density there is going to be a lot less Dacron. I have photo's on photobucket but I can't easily find them as my PC no longer shows the photo's on photobucket (yet I can view other photobucket accounts!).