Ok, honeslty should I bother reloading for the .303?

[budman46]

sheepdog,
excessive chamber dimension/headspace can be overcome by expanding the case neck of your brass with an 8mm-9mm expander ball, then sizing with a .303 die until the bolt just closes, creating a "false shoulder" to establish proper headspace for your gun's chamber. lock the die, then fireform with an appropriate charge. subsequent loadings will fit the chamber properly, increasing the longevity of your brass.
budman

[Brithunter]

Oh boy I must be the luckest man on earth as despite having Five rifles in .303 at the moment, in the past i have had and passed on a further six .303 rifles and at one point was loading for Eigth .303 rifles I have yet to have a case failure on reloaded ammunition. I also don't muck about with cartidge positioning usually just feeding them from the magazine if it has one.

Most of the problems seem to stem from undersized cases. I buy new R.P brass to cut down and form into 6.5x53R brass as it's undersized in the web area and the 6.5mm case is 0.005" smaller at that point. Now if that 0.005" smaller case if fired in a normal .303 chamber it has that 0.005" to expand BEFORE IT REACHES NOMINAL CASE WEB DIAMETER let along expanding to fit the size of the chamber it's being fired it.

It's no wonder the cases fail and you get case head seperations. Now for my normal .303 handloads I use Greek surplus HXP which is boxer primed and seems to be the correct size at the web area to begin with.

In my BSA Model E sporting rifle I use a hot load with Hornady 150 grn SP jacketed bullets for deer hunting. I won't mention the powder charge here but it's one I would not feel comfortable firing through a No1 but the P-14 action handles it comfortably and it does a good number on the deer !

All my .303 rifles that I have now are sporting ones as I sold the last of the Military ones just before Christmas and that was an AC11 ME in .303 of course. The current crop are:-

P-H Supreme No4
BSA Model E
BSA Model C (the restoration project)
Muscat martini carbine
Century Arms P-14 sporter ( that's been re-chambered to .303 Imp).

Now I realise that others have reloadign more 303 cases than i have but my records (which sadly are not fully complete as I sometimes forge to write them down) have in excess of 1000 reloads listed so more than a handlful .

[koehn,jim]

I shoot a number 5 and after slugging the barell i went to the 314299 and have great results. I do full length size however as i have several and have great success with case life. The prvi partisan brass is the easiest to get and seems to work best. Good luck . If you want to trade some 314 bullets to try let me know. The bore on SMLE s can sometimes be a bit large. is yous a 2 groove or more .

[PAT303]

I've been loading sized down 324366 8x57 boolits and they shoot very well in my 5 groove enfield and look just like Mk7 military fodder to boot,my two groover is a bore rider only.Plenty of information is available and with the correct case fireforming and sizing you'll get years of shooting out of 100 new cases.Once my supply runs out I'm feeding my enfields Privi brass only,nothings better. Pat

[223tenx]

Springfield Sporters carries bolt heads for the enfield in different sizes to accomodate different headspace. You might be able to eliminate the excessive stretch.

[dukenukum]

MY favorite rifles to cast and load for are .303's these guns rock my favorite bullet is Lyman 308329 this boolit stacks em all in at 100 yards (longest range around me) .
the 303 does not reach its best performance with out hand loads.

[Sailman]

Case life for 303 Enfield

I have a No. 4 MK-1 Enfield

I have been shooting this rifle with 80 cases of 303 Enfield brass. The brass was purchased new and has been shot ONLY in this rifle.

I have a Lee Collet Neck Sizing Die. I have only neck sized the brass after shooting the brass in this rifle.

The following is the history of the eighty (80) 303 cases:

Number Of Times The Brass Was Shot Number Of Cases Replaced With New Brass

20 cases shot 62 times 2
20 cases shot 62 times 4
20 cases shot 62 times 5
20 cases shot 48 times 0

As you can see, it looks like you should be able to get around 50 shots with you brass before you start to get some failures.

Sailman

[zuke]

I had read somewhere to make sure your brass fill's out properly put a black rubber "o-ring" on the case,roll it down to the rim then chamber and fireform.
That make's sure it's tight up against the bolt face and cure's the headspace problem.