CMP 1903-A3 needs feed.

[motorcycle_dan]

So while up at Camp Perry I went to the CMP north store getting feed for my Garand rifle. I'm waiting for them to get to my paperwork when I spy what looks to be an '03 in the rack. Sure enough a whole rack of them..... I grab my paperwork out of the stack and start looking over the old bolt guns. Bunch of nice Remingtons and even a few Smith Corona offerings. Found one gauged 1 at muzzle and 3 at the throat. Bore is darkish looks to have many blank round fired through it as parade and funeral duty. So my savings account took another beating. Gave it a good cleaning and that helped but it is not a new barrel. Lots of JB bore paste helped but still not shiney smooth. Having owned one in the past I know they give me a fat lip when shooting standard M2 Ball ammo. I'm looking for a nice 100~150 yard accurate load with a cast bullet. I have a couple of .308 molds but can't tell you the size right now. I have 2 Lee molds and one steel "lyman" ,I think, mold. So help me out with a good starting point for power charge and bullet weight for the '03. I have a good selection of pistol powders but precious little experience loading rifle with Cast bullets. What little I have done with 303 Brit and 30-40 Krag would often key hole and could not hold paper at 100yd. My thought is to go with lighter bullets to get the speed back up. Share your experience and good bolt gun loads. Thanks in advance.

[junkbug]

Ed Harris has a very famous "The Load" which works well in many full power rifle cartridges, but was originally developed for the 30-06. Any normal weight bullet, cast or jacketed, (130-220 gr) and either 16 grains of 2400, or 13 grains of Red Dot. It is a light, pleasant load, and a great place to start with cast bullets, because it is known to be reasonably accurate. This will allow you to focus on other issues if the reloads don't give you the accuracy you think you should get,

Good luck.

PS Key-holing is often the result of undersized cast bullets, a known problem with both the 30-40 Krag and the .303 British. You should have less problems with a surplus Springfield regarding this specific issue (undersize bullets).

[Outpost75]

If the bore in your 03A3 is salt & peppery, I would suggest using bullets as large as will chamber without effort, cast of wheelweights, and keep velocities below 1300 fps, thus saving money by not having to use gaschecks. #311299 works well with 7-8 grains of Red Dot, 700X or Bullseye and is very pleasantand accurate. Most GI Chambers are sloppy enough to accept a .313" bullet unsized. Tumble in Lee Liquid Alox.

[Mk42gunner]

My M1917 likes the Lee 312185 (advertised by Lee as being for the .303 British) sized to .311" in front of 16 grains of Hercules 2400. I will have to buy some Alliant 2400 once I empty this last bottle.

Robert

[leadman]

Dan, all 3 of my 03a3s like 19grs of SR4759 or 12 grs of Unique with the Lyman 311041, 314299, or the Lee 200gr RN. I do use gas checks and you may have to with a compromised bore.
Powder like Red Dot, Green Dot, Blue Dot, SR7625, and others can be used with similar charges as the Unique. 2400, AA5744, Alliant 300 MP, and others can be used with similar charges as the SR4759.

Post the powders you have so more accurate load suggestions can be made.
A softer alloy like 11BHN can be difficult to get to shoot well with a bore like yours so step up to at least 16BHN and you may save some work. Water Quenched clip on wheel weight alloy works good most of the time.
Make sure you slug the bore. If abnormally large, say over .311", fire a full power load and measure the inside of the case. This will give you the maximum size boolit that will safely fire and release in your chamber. Size .001" over the bore diameter.
I have very good results with the boolits 170grs and up.

[motorcycle_dan]

Powder like Red Dot, Green Dot, Blue Dot, SR7625, and others can be used with similar charges as the Unique. 2400, AA5744, Alliant 300 MP, and others can be used with similar charges as the SR4759.
Post the powders you have so more accurate load suggestions can be made.

I have: bullseye, 2400, Unique, Hodgdon Titegroup, H110, Green Dot, WST, 231, and some more I can't remember. Started to fire up the casting pot yesterday then saw a box of .32 DEWC that I had laying around. They are too small to shoot accurate in my revolver or the semi-auto (I no longer own) They were only .311~.312 and I needed slightly larger.
So I took 50 of them and pushed them through a .310 sizer. They have one lube groove filled with a softer waxy type lube brownish so I'm thinking Lyman. After sizing to .310 they were noticably shiney indicating they are more uniform. I gave them a roll in some LLA and set them up to dry.

Speak up now if there is some reason I should not try these flat nose flat base 98gr Wad Cutter bullets in my rifle.

And yes the 70 year old barrel is a bit salt and peppery. I think I'm going to bug out and bring my hand press and chrono to the range with some green dot powder. If you don't hear back by Monday, it didn't work and I'm healing :-P

[cwheel]

One of the nice things about 03A3 is you can still find new in the wrap barrels very easy and they aren't to expensive. Ebay often has quite a few listed. If the condition of the barrel is the only issue, I'd consider getting one of the NOS barrels still in the wrap, letting a smith change it out and finish reaming the chamber. Shouldn't cost to much and it's about as fresh of a bore you could ever get with one of these.
Chris

[Mk42gunner]

This link has some good info about loading cast to various levels in rifles: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?13425-Cast-Bullet-Loads-for-Military-Rifles-Article

I would have tried the .32 DEWC without sizing them down any farther.

Robert

[ELFEGO BACA]

Twenty grains of SR4759 behind a 150 grain cast gas checked bullet gives me excellent accuracy at 100 yards.
Elfego

[FredBuddy]

I've been using a lyman 311008 (115 gr) cast from wheel weights, either as dropped or sized to .311 in 30-30 and 300 Savage. Using Unique anywhere from 6 to 7.5 gr. works great at 50 yds, haven't tried in at 100 yds yet, nor in 30-06.

Cast a couple hundred this week, so more work to be done.

What a hoot !

[motorcycle_dan]

Haven't made it to the range yet. Pistol match took priority over the weekend. I'll post results of the DEWC accuracy.

[gwpercle]

My 03-A3, it has a like new 2 groove barrel, likes the Lee 170 gr. FPGC boolit , with gas check installed, cast of wheel weights and range scrap (50/50) sized .309 over 13 grains of Red Dot. " The Load " as per Ed Harris. I'm sure any cast boolit in the 150 to 200 grain weight would work just as well, maybe better. Sweet shooting and will not pound you.
Gary

[motorcycle_dan]

Little update on the '03. No cast bullets yet, seems summer has me too busy to trim brass. I did manage to put some surplus Greek Ammo through it. Pretty accurate at 100 yards. About 4" groups with my eyes. I think the bore still needs work. Lots of dark blue patches brought out after cleaning. I'm suspecting many years of not proper copper cleaning the bore after shooting. Have it on the outters fould out as I type. That will draw out the bad stuff.

My reason for posting. The rifle was put away with a LOT of grease in the magazine. I intended to remove the floor plate and clean. The front screw I can not get to release. I have proper fitter screw driver bits and put more torque on it than I thought was required. Nothing budged. Rear screw came loose no problem. Front screw not at all. Suggestions? Does it help if I loosen something else first?

[skeet1]

Mk42gunner (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/member.php?734-Mk42gunner) shoots the exact load I use in my 03-A3. Lee 312-185 bullet sized .311 with 16 gr. of 2400. This loads shoots better than I can and are are great for 100 to 200 yards.

Ken