Enfield with fat grooves & cast boolits?

[GrizzLeeBear]

I picked up a 1943 Long Branch No4Mk1* this week and did some slugging tonight. It has a 2 groove barrel that is shiney with wide lands and narrow grooves. The throat slugged at .314 - .315, the bore slugged .302 and the grooves slugged a whopping .319 - .320. Assuming I am measuring correctly, is there any hope for cast boolits in this? Would a Lee C312-185-1R work if I beagled it? I have read the thread started by 4570guy and I am wondering if anyone has had any good luck with this bullet.

[wiljen]

with the bore diameter of .320 it sounds like an 8mm bullet might be a better starting point. I have to wonder about the throat squeezing it to .315 and then throwing it into a .320 barrel though. I'd bet your best chance of getting it to shoot casts involves opening the throat to .320 and then using .323 bullets.

[mag_01]

303 --- .320 bore --- you have your work cut out for you ---- you want to use the largest boolit you can chamber ---- Then I would try 2400 with a filler ---- beagle that mould to give you about a .315or so boolit ---- Be careful with filler as it raises pressure --- A good start would be about 12grs. and work up looking for signs of pressure. ---- If your throat is small .315 and bore .320 (filler) will rush to fill that space. -- even try to pass the boolit -- PBS is the best filler but I have no source for it so I use ground walnut. Be glad to help you any way I can ---- Mag_01


PBS a shotgun buffer --- Precision shot buffer --- will Improve performance

[GrizzLeeBear]

Thanks for the replies, guys. The bore is actually .302, which is about 75% of the circumference. With only 2 grooves, only about 25% of the circumference is .320 in diameter. If I run a .315 dia. bullets it seems to me that the extra lead will try to flow into the grooves when it gets squeezed into the .302 bore, hopefully, filling them up. Sounds good in theory, but I don't know. Guess I'll just have to get the mold and some aluminum tape and give it a go!
I have also read about guys using slow powders that fill up the case to give boolits in these kind of barrels a more "gentle" start that can help. I'm not after top velocity in this gun, but maybe 1600 - 1700 fps and good accuracy. Anyone use powders like 4350 or slower with a full case in guns like these?

[Ricochet]

Think maybe you ought to go back and remeasure that? Unusual to see that much reverse taper from the throat to the muzzle, UNLESS: (1) You're measuring right at the muzzle where it's belled by cleaning rod wear, or (2) You have a "carbon ring" of fouling built up in the throat end of the bore. (Probably in onion-like layers alternating rock-hard carbonaceous material with jacket metal.)

If the muzzle's worn, the fix is to counterbore it back with a drill bit big enough to clean out all traces of the lands and make a straight cylindrical smoothbore back to a point an inch or two down where the rifling's OK.

If it's a ring of fouling choking the throat, buckle down for a lot of intense cleaning. It can be really hard to get that really hard stuff out.

I suppose you could have problems at both ends. You can have both lice and fleas, you know.

[GrizzLeeBear]

Ricochet, I made 2 slugs, one at the chamber end for the throat and the other I drove the slug from the muzzle all the way through the barrel. So, come to think of it, there has to be something wrong with the slug from the chamber end. If it was .315 there is no way the bore slug would have come out at .320 on the grooves, it would have been squeezed down to .315 when it went through the throat. Hmmm, back to square one.

[mag_01]

Dont give up ------ Fun Fun Fun

[GrizzLeeBear]

Well made another slug at the throat. The relatively short throat tapers from .302 - .315 except where the groove pass through at .320. So I guess I will have to go for the fattest bullet that will chamber and hope for the best. But this may end up being a j-word bullet gun. I only plan to shoot this for the occasional "vintage" match and with mild loads anyway. Other than these deep grooves the gun is in good mechanical shape and will make a good "project" once I get it all apart and get all the dried cosmoline out of it.
Ricochet, you still might be right about fouling in the throat, too. Hopefully things might improve when I do some alternate cleaning with bore cleaner and Sweets 7.62 to get all the fouling and copper out.

[Ricochet]

There's a thread somewhere around here about boolits for .318" J-bore 8mm rifles. Might check that out. There have been several really fat "Fat .30" group buy moulds. My "NuJudge" mould casts about .317" on the bands and about .308" on the bore rider. Works great in my Mosin M91/30 with a fairly long throat and then .303" bore and .314" groove diameters near the throat. I size them to .314" to seat the checks since .314" is the largest standard .30 caliber Lee sizing kit; it works fine to do them that way. Those dies can of course be lapped out, and they sell custom sets for $25, but I haven't needed anything else yet. Keep an eye on the Group Buy forum, Fat Thirties seem to be the most popular thing going there.

[Ricochet]

Oh yeah: Might think about paper patching a standard .30 up to your groove diameter. Good bit of work, but it's an interesting technique.

[curator]

GrizLeeBear,

These Lee Enfield 2-groovers are a rule onto themselves. Shooting cast boolits through them with accuracy often requires the use of a filler. I have found that Plastic Spherical Shot Buffer works very well in my '43 Longbranch. I use a load of 16 grains of Alliant 2400, and fill the case with PSSB to "lightly" compress when the boolit is seated. My rifle's groove diameter is .318, and I'm shooting wheel weight alloy boolits of .314 with excellent accuracy.

Recovered slugs appear to obdurate to completely fill the grooves. The buffer prevents hot gas from eroding lead from the sides of the boolit before obduration is complete. Be careful working up fillered loads. Check out Steve Regwell's website: www.303british.com. He has an article on his site entitled "Cast bullets in the Lee Enfield" that has a lot of good information about shooting these 2-groove rifles with lead.

[GrizzLeeBear]

Curator, you mean something like this?

http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/showproduct?saleitemid=695248&t=11082005

I've also seen Cream of Wheat mentioned a lot as filler. Would that work aslo?

[mag_01]

Corn meal and cream of wheat will work --- Personaly I dont like it --- smells like burnt toast --- Mag_01


PSB is the best as I and curator have posted and the 303 site has good info on 303s with fillers


:castmine:

[GrizzLeeBear]

Curator, just found Precision Reloadings site with their "Precision Shot Buffer".

http://www.precisionreloading.com/buffer.htm

Probably what your talking about, right? Better price per pound, too. Oh, BTW how many grains of PSB does it take to fill up a .303 with that 16 gr. of 2400?

[curator]

I don't try to weigh the plastic shot buffer. Instead I set up one of my RCBS powder measures to dump just the right amount. I have also used Lee dippers, and black powder revolver flasks to meter out the exact amount. The powder measure is a lot faster. It is important to get just the right amount--less than 1/8 inch of compression. Too much filler and you won't be able to seat the bullet. PSB doesn't compress very much. Too little and power and filler will mix and accuracy will suffer. Not to mention that great smell of burning plastic!

I too have used cream of wheat, and it does work but prefer shot buffer. Judging from primer appearance alone pressures are higher with cream of wheat, particularly in bottleneck cases like the .303 British. Perhaps the shot buffer "flows" better or doesn't compress to near solid like the cream of wheat. Cream of wheat will also sand-blast a chronograph, don't ask me how I know this.