Not the best expirment

[DIRT Farmer]

I like black powder, trying learn PP, so last night I loaded 5 rds to the base of theneck in 303 with fffg, no leading no fouling no accery. 5 rds loaded with IMR 3031 30 grns basicly for a pressure test, no filler. no leading no accuary.
I think if you take this seriously you will go nuts. It is fun trying the variable variables

[303Guy]

I like the way you think!

Not sure why there would have been no accuracy. Surprized at the absence of fouling with BP. Good news though!

[DIRT Farmer]

Do not try 30 grns of IMR 3031 with corn meal filler!! Hard bolt lift although the primer looked normal. Loaded 5, shot 1 disasimbled 4.

The bore of the ole Enfield is getting brighter. It looks like it will go to white metal.

[DIRT Farmer]

I was disapointed with the B/P. I have a Martini Henery carbine in 303 that would look great with B/P smke coming out of it. It is down as the fireing pin is broken. I need to find or have made a new striker.

[303Guy]

I have a Martini Henery carbine in 303 that would look great with B/P smke coming out of it.

Hell yeah!

Were those 303 Martini's designed for BP or cordite? (Medford or Enfield rifling?) They are actually quite nice handling with open sights. The 450-577 was a paper patched round with whatever rifling that was rounded and therefore had no cutting edges so I see no reason why a PP BP 303 should not work! Shouldn't it? Hell that would be fun if did!

[rhbrink]

Do not try 30 grns of IMR 3031 with corn meal filler!! Hard bolt lift although the primer looked normal. Loaded 5, shot 1 disasimbled 4.

The bore of the ole Enfield is getting brighter. It looks like it will go to white metal.

I was waiting to see if someone would post about this, guess not. So here is my take for what it is worth. Am not a expert so actually know very little about it and never attempted any till lately.

Just which powders are suitable and which are not is the question in my mind? I would think that IMR 3031 is way too fast. But at what burn rate does this application start to work safely? The reason that I ask is because of the incident by DIRT Farmer and I cracked the shoulder of a new Winchester 7.62 X 54R using H4350 and mild charge I thought, with COW. I was also trying to fire lap the barrel at the same time which could have added unneccessary pressure. The shell extracted somewhat hard and the primer didn't look all that flat, I have certainly loaded and fired loads with more pressure using the same powder with jackets bullets in this rifle while staying well below max loads.

You say just change one little thing at a time which is so true.

The next time I tried a filler I dropped the charge down some more and used grits and no lapping compound. Worked OK shot the best group ever for me with paper patch, not great by other peoples standard but a great improvement over some of the stuff that I had shot before. Everything seemed to be OK pressure wise and extraction was good.

I wonder if anyone else has any thoughts or comments on this subject?

Thanks Richard

[303Guy]

Mmmm.... yes!

I was developing a PP load using shotgun powder. Primer indecations were fine and the patch was beginning to 'confetti' but I had stiff bolt lift! In a Lee Enfield! I gave up on that powder pronto. So yes, I too have made that observation. I suspect that the pressure is not all that high but higher than the primer would indicate but that the pressure develops so quickly that it's like a shock load application which expands the pbrass somewhat like a hammer blow. It probably stresses the bolt lugs in the same way - way too much! (That was with Dacron to hold the powder against the primer, not with a filler as such).

With using 4350, I have tried a 61% load density with wheat bran filler (slightly compressed). The pressure indication says there is enough pressure to actually burn all the powder under a 208gr boolit but not under a 125gr boolit and maybe under a 147gr boolit. The 125gr boolit load left scorch marks on the catch cloth and a few unburned kernals. Those scourch marks were from smoldering kernals.

So, faster powders with bulk fillers are questionable, are they? Mmmm....

[DIRT Farmer]

303 Guy, I hate to confess I don't know my history on the M-H 303. Somewhere in the fog of the past I rember being told the guns were built from 450-500s. I do not know i this is true.

The rifling appears to be square, hard to tell in a rifle that shows a lot of use so I would think it isc standard. The chamber will not accept the paper patch load I am using in the Mk4 2 grove. Kinda funny, older rifle tighter chamber.

RHBrink, I will admidt I am using info I have gleaned. It would be great if I had an idea of where to play in the powders. The load was 15% under a load I have used in the past with a GC load. To tell you the trouth it spooked me. The only time in the pastwhere I have used any filler was the old 1/4 square of tolite paper in the 30-06 with the 12 gn of Red Dot and a 170 grn GC design with out the GC. In that rifle it was not as Accuruate as no filler and when I went back to the standard load, it took about 10 shots to get to good groups just like it did after a good cleaning. I'm not sure if the barrel on that gun has been cleaned in the last 20 years. In that gun the only thing cleaning the bore ever seemed to do was require enough foulers to re season the barrel. !! In That Gun!!!

[303Guy]

Kinda funny, older rifle tighter chamber.

Actually the older chambers were smaller. I have to tailor my loads for those older barrels with tighter necks. It becomes a problem when the throat is so cordite eroded that a larger boolit is needed and it won't fit the chamber. Not that it seemed to matter, it worked but I had to be careful not to 'clamp' the boolit in the neck on chambering. Thinner brass sorts that out.

I have been playing around with my two-groove (which has a generous throat) and I have found a few tricks that seem to work. I'm doing a thread on it. http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=85250

[rhbrink]

This whole filler thing is a little "spooky" to me I have been reading on some other threads where some have been using shot buffer for a filler with great success. I think that a proper filler with the proper powder could be beneficial to cast boolits and maybe even moreso to paperpatch just wish there was more info for it. I was using a load of 65% of H4350 plus enough grits to come up to the base of the boolit. I think that I will drop that to a 60% load as 303Guy is doing. My load seemed safe in my rifle but noticed that it had a fair amount of recoil and slammed the 100 yard bunker plenty hard, didn't have my chorny with me so don't know what the velocity was.

Good luck and enjoy the journey it's quite a ride!

[DIRT Farmer]

Had a new experince this AM, I loaded 5 rds with a smaller load ofIMR30-31 ( - 15% ) I fired 3 with no sign of pressure, used a mike to check the head and looked at the primer, edges were round firing pin indent was large, as a low pressure load. #4 the neck of the case was missing. the primer was lightly flatened, but the primer had a small ridge that had flowed back in the firing pin hole. There is no sign of the case neck in the chamber or barrel. I would guess it went out the barrel. The brass has been fired several times but only sized once, it wasonce fired new R-P brass that was fireformed in the chamber of the rifle (1917 ) Fireforming was lightly oiled with a light loaded cast bullet. Never neck sized , just loaded slip fit.

I know that plants that grind flour and meal explode from grain dust but I don't know what is happening here. I was using two dippers, one for powder, one for corn meal so I would think an over load would be small chance.

No more 3031 for me in 30-06 or 303, when I get some IMR 4350 it will take a lot of loads at at no more than 60% for me to get comfortable, I was wondering about a slower powder.

[rhbrink]

Know the feeling I'm not very comfortable with the filler thing myself. Just a suggestion but might want to try some other kind of filler? There is something called Puff-on? or maybe shotbuffer, I did see in a post somewhere can't remember where been looking but can't find it where someone used corncob tumbling media and worked great. Just throwing out some ideas maybe someone will jion in that has more knowledge, hopefully!

Be carefull
Richard

[DIRT Farmer]

A long time ago I tried some different fillers, Milk weed down, dryier lint , toliot paper seems like some others. I do know that with shotgun powder in the 03-A3 the tighest groups came from raising the muzzle to 45 degrees before the shot.

What I would like to find is a load to work from that does not require any filler. I am trying to rember the mil-sup 50 cal powder so I can do a search. If it looks like it would work, I will stop past Bartlets and pick up a small amount to try. It's only a few miles across the big creek.

[Brithunter]

This might help you with you broken firing pin in your Martins 303. I acquired one that had been de-activated by having the pin snapped off so I took it to work and dressed the pin off flat where it was broken and drilled the main pin body suitable to hold a Primer decapping pin and fitted the pin in with engineering loctite. Never had a problem with it.

This was on a Martin Enfield AC11 .303 that was converted to .303 config by the Henry Rifle Barrel Company in 1898 (HRB Co).

[Argus]

I shoot an 1873 Martini Henry MkII 577/450 quite regularly using fillers in the case. Load is 85gn Wano FFg drop tubed down a 3ft carbon fibre arrow shaft and the case filled with bird seed (the small millet grain type) to 5mm from the top.

I put a milk carton wad over that seed, and then using a lubed cloth patch from my 54cal muzzleloader, press a 405gn 45cal cast boolit (as used in my 45-70) into the case mouth, compressing everything down to the crimp groove on the boolit. Trim off the excess cloth patch with a sharp knife.

Works fine, and I get 4-5 inch groups at 100M.

I am going to try the same and produce a black powder load for my Martini Enfield 303, but without the filler.

[Dan Cash]

Had a new experince this AM, I loaded 5 rds with a smaller load ofIMR30-31 ( - 15% ) I fired 3 with no sign of pressure, used a mike to check the head and looked at the primer, edges were round firing pin indent was large, as a low pressure load. #4 the neck of the case was missing. the primer was lightly flatened, but the primer had a small ridge that had flowed back in the firing pin hole. There is no sign of the case neck in the chamber or barrel. I would guess it went out the barrel. The brass has been fired several times but only sized once, it wasonce fired new R-P brass that was fireformed in the chamber of the rifle (1917 ) Fireforming was lightly oiled with a light loaded cast bullet. Never neck sized , just loaded slip fit.

I know that plants that grind flour and meal explode from grain dust but I don't know what is happening here. I was using two dippers, one for powder, one for corn meal so I would think an over load would be small chance.

No more 3031 for me in 30-06 or 303, when I get some IMR 4350 it will take a lot of loads at at no more than 60% for me to get comfortable, I was wondering about a slower powder.

Mann in "The Bullet's Flight ...." swore off fillers after jerking a case in two as you have described. He theorized that upon firing, the filler compressed into a solid plug and griipped the soft brass case wall. Beware too, the use of very slow powders in an insufficient charge. Bad things happen for some reason.

[NSP64]

H-4895 is the only powder I reduce below minimum listed charge.