Good Lee Enfield 303 mold for hunting

[DeepSouth]

Looking for a good mold for a hunting boolit. In the 170 to 220 gr range. Something like the ranch dog shape but bigger dia .314-.316. Gas check mold

[curator]

If you can make a throat slug, send it to Veral Smith of LBT and have him cut a 2 cavity gas-checked mold that will cast slugs that fit your throat and bore. Look at his Long Flat nose design. Cast from ACWW and driven accurately to 1800-2200fps it will take just about any North American game with the exception of "real" bears. I never had any accuracy using cast boolits with my Lee Enfields until I got a mold that cast slugs that fit. Veral Smith's molds are easy to cast quality boolits with. Air cooled wheel weight alloy works great for hunting slugs. They give moderate expansion and deep penetration. Mostly they go right through most animals unless shot length -wise. Much better performance than expensive (and highly advertised) premium bullets.

[DeepSouth]

Thinks I will check into that.

[longbow]

You can also look at the Accurate mold site to see what Tom has. He will change designs to suit you or make a mould from your design too at no extra charge.

Here is a link to the "31" caliber boolits:

http://www.accuratemolds.com/catalog.php

You can specify what diameter you want for nose and driving bands.

LBT or Accurate should be able to fix you up with what you need.

It never hurts to have options!

Longbow

[BruceB]

The .303 with factory loads has cleanly killed moose, bear, and caribou for me.

If you have a cast-bullet load that works well in your rifle, check out my method of making softpoint bullets from ANY normal mould. Doing this means that no re-zeroing is necessary when switching from paper-target practice to hunting loads. Making the softpoints is not difficult, and although it takes a little time, keep in mind that the softpoints are ONLY required for actual shots on game animals, NOT for practice

Search for "BruceB cast softpoint", and look for "BruceB's Softpoints (as of May '09)" or words to that effect....it's about10 or 12 threads down the list that comes up on the search.

[nhrifle]

The Lyman 314299 works very well in mine

[JeffinNZ]

The Lyman 314299 works very well in mine

See, I was thinking this boolit and have Erik hollow point it.

[DeepSouth]

jeffinnz,that sounds like a good idea. Only thing,I thought I remember several threads where that mold had lots of quality control problems. I believe the diameters were incorrect alot. I could be wrong.

[nhrifle]

I have that mould and it casts fairly easily, boolits drop right from the cavities. The boolits are nice and round and shoot very accurately.

[Hamish]

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?131471-NOE-311-165Gr-RF-(RD)-Re-run

This buy just recently closed, Swede usually has an extra or two. I know it's a tad lighter than you specified, but it's the RD. Looking forward to trying both a PB and GC .316 in the wifes .303 myself.

[303Guy]

If you have a cast-bullet load that works well in your rifle, check out my method of making softpoint bullets from ANY normal mould.

Here's the direct link to BruceB's post (thought I might make it easier since I was there already).

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/archive/index.php/t-53234.html

I'm also 'developing' a hunting boolit for the 303. I'm currently playing around with copper alloys (after a long break) and the idea of a softer nose gets my interest. Best of both worlds maybe? Long and heavy with a softer nose should cover all bases.