6 mm Lee Navy Round Nose Bullets

[ejh69]

At a recent gun show, military arms table, I was able to pick up 5 boxes of Speer 6mm , 105 gr. round nose bullets that I plan using in my Lee Navy. They were a little expensive at $35.00/ box but I have never seen any before. I will sell off two boxes at my cost if any one would like them for their Lee Navy. PM me if interested.

[madsenshooter]

I don't know if you've shot it or not, if you haven't, the first few trials ought to be fired with a lanyard.

[.22-10-45]

Curious to know why lanyard is needed for first firing 0f Lee-Navy rifle? This was a smokeless powder high pressure design. Winchester even built a threaded "pusher" that demonstrated the imposibility of breech opening under pressure. a heavy lug on bottom of bolt drops straight down against vertical face machined in action...this being below the center of bore..the greater the pressure..the tighter the bolt is locked..the only way to open bolt is by lifting it with the bolt operated cam. I use only cast in mine..but not because of any doubt of action strength. The very early ones had no safety block to prevent firing pin from blowing back..but this was rectified quite early in it's production.

[Multigunner]

If you are certain of the bore condition there may be nothing to worry about.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?259034-Blown-up-Winchester-Lee-1895-possible-cause

The powder used for the early 6mm Lee Navy cartridge was very erosive.
Be sure of the diameter of the throat and bore for the first few inches of bullet travel.
Cast boolits don't usually seize up and do bump up to give a good seal, so having had no problems with cast isn't a garantee that you'd have no problems with jacketed bullets.

If I had a Lee Navy with excellent bore, or even a bore worn evenly by less erosive ammunition, I'd have no qualms about shooting it.
These rifles never had any blow up problems while in service, but rapid bore erosion was always a problem and one reason the rifle fell out of favor despite its many good qualities. I suspect these rifles were routinely rebarreled when accuracy fell off, avoiding worse problems.
The tendency of extreme high temperature thermal erosion to erode the bottoms of the grooves faster than the lands makes recognizing thermal erosion less easy to do without star guage and bore scope. The bore can look fine to the naked eye but not be fine at all.
This goes for any rifle subjected to that sort of extreme high temperature propellants, and more so for small bore barrels..

[WineMan]

IIRC the speer 105 RN's were for the 244 Remington with the slower twist (1:12) than the competing 243 Winchester at 1:10. Remington was said to have thought "Varmint" rifle and Winchester thought "Deer" rifle. The 100-105 spitzer would not stabilize in the 244 but the RN would. The fix by Remington was to rename it the 6 mm Rem and give it a 1:9 twist. Too little too late. Given the popularity of the 308 Winchester based siblings (and tons of military brass), the 244 with a faster twist may have ended up in the same place. Like the 222 Rem Mag vs 223 Rem.

Dave

[EDG]

At least one person (Glenn DeRuiter) was killed by one of these rifles.
They may work ok until a case fails. If you have a case failure they appear to not handle the leaking gas.

With any unusual design keep in mind that sometimes people are so smart they can make a bad idea work.



Curious to know why lanyard is needed for first firing 0f Lee-Navy rifle? This was a smokeless powder high pressure design. Winchester even built a threaded "pusher" that demonstrated the imposibility of breech opening under pressure. a heavy lug on bottom of bolt drops straight down against vertical face machined in action...this being below the center of bore..the greater the pressure..the tighter the bolt is locked..the only way to open bolt is by lifting it with the bolt operated cam. I use only cast in mine..but not because of any doubt of action strength. The very early ones had no safety block to prevent firing pin from blowing back..but this was rectified quite early in it's production.

[madsenshooter]

Just to keep you safe, there's been a couple blow ups, and member Bob S. had a high pressure excursion with a load that all references say should have been just fine. Bob is smarter than the average bear and was using a lanyard. He has acquired an action with a smoother throat for future experiments.