03A3 Mold Choice

[Angus]

I got a bubba'd Remington 03A3 a couple weeks ago, and have played a bit with some M2 ball, but nothing to write home about. I bought the gun to be a cast-only shooter, and am getting ready to order a mold to run for it. I like my Lee 9mm mold, and would like to go with a Lee mold for the 03A3 as well. Do any molds in particular do well in the gun? Do any do just plain awful?

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff264/DeathPenalty23/P4040169.jpg

[No_1]

I know this is not the answer you are looking for but I have to comment that from the looks of the picture it does not appear to bubba'd. Nice buy there.

Robert

[Le Loup Solitaire]

Certain cast boolit designs work better in the A3 especially if the barrel has two (lands) and grooves. A study done a few decades ago by Col. Harrison and published by the NRA established that 2 groove rifling required a boolit that had a relatively short boolit "body" and a long nose. The nose section is supported by the extremely wide lands and is guided down the length of the barrel. It is assumed that the groove or bore diameter is .308 and the land diameter is .300. The original boolit that did well in this respect was the Lyman #311334, but it has not been in production for a long time so if you see one on E Bay the bidding becomes a giant urination contest. Lyman #311332 is similar and still around, but good old Lyman is producing them with oversize boolit bodies...around .311+ and undersize noses....around .297-.299 so they slump in the barrel and don't shoot very accurately. Sizing the body part is no problem, but the nose has to be "bumped up" to .300-.301 to make it work well. This can be done in a lubrisizer or else the nose part of the mold can be lapped out to get it up to .300-.302. Some of the other Lyman molds..numbers 311291, 311041,311299 will also work fine as long as they are of the right dimensions and not suffering from an undersized nose diameter. They will also work well in an A3 that has four groove rifling and 311284 is also very good and quite popular. In the RCBS offerings, the 150 grain and 180 grain slugs with the shorter bodies and longer noses (actually they're around half and half) will do well. The Lee collection of .30 caliber molds all seem to meet the body-nose design proportions that would work well in the A-3 two or four groove barrels. All are gas check boolits and it would remain for you to decide what or which weight boolit mold to choose/use. The same design criteria would also apply to SAECO molds. In any case there is a wide number of molds to choose from as long as the basic design principle is followed. Good shooting. LLS

[RU shooter]

Well since you like Lee moulds The 3 that I have and use work perfect in my 03A3 .They are the Lee 155-312 for the SKS ,160-309RN and the best shooter in mine for 100-200 yd work is the 185-312 .All are sized to .311 There may be better more traditional moulds for the grand old 30-06 ,but for the money those 3 shoot just fine for me :-D

Tim

[Bob S]

I said my piece about Lee moulds in US cal. 30 rifles above:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=29925

In a word: "don't".

Resp'y,
Bob S.

[sundog]

Angus, appears to be nicely "bubba'd".

Bob S, nice pics in the other thread. I do the same thing. Also your comments about the Lee rifle boolit moulds are pretty much right on. However, for the ecomony minded shooter, that may be the only attainable due to resources. I've seen some Lee 200s shoot okay, not stellar, but okay. I mentioned in that thread, also, that I have good results with the 314299 sized to .312. That would certainly be preferrable to the Lee 200, but certainly a difference is resouce depletion, too.

Angus, why not tell us what you want to do with that gun, and maybe a few of us could send you some samples which would be appropriate. You try, then decide which suites your needs. Do you have a lubrisizer and gas checks?

My opinion is that a gun this nice deserves a good boolit and mould that fits it, even if it requires a few extra bucks. Is the bore in good condition?

[Angus]

I don't have a lubrisizer or gas checks. The only cast boolits I've used have been through my Hi-Point 995, and they drop just fine from the mold. As for the A3, the bores is just gorgeous once I mucked all the copper fouling out. I'm looking at the A3 as a Swiss Army Rifle, able to do just about everything from woodchucks on up to deer and maybe black bear. If anyone could send me samples of any of Lee's 312s it would be appreciated. I like the looks of the 155/160, but the heavier weight of the 185 is always appreciated when moving at cast boolit speeds.

[Four Fingers of Death]

There are bubba's and there are nice bubba's, yours is a nice bubba.

[bobk]

This is one of those things I don't understand: why is this mold popular? I just got one, and the nose is small, .297. I bumped it up some, and also got a nice meplat in the process, but the bullets from the 311466 I got at the same time basically fall from the mold ready to be sized, lubed, checked, and used. The front band goes .3035-.304. I may soft-nose both of them for hunting, but that 311291 is going to have to be amazingly accurate for me to go to the extra work to make it usable. Testing will tell, as always.
Bob K

[Bob S]

Bob K:

When was your mould produced? That makes a difference.

Resp'y,
Bob S.

[bobk]

Bob S,
No idea. How would I tell?
Bob K

[Bob S]

Bob K:

Well, if you purchased it "new", you would know.:mrgreen: The reason that I ask is that for time the Lyman moulds came with the driving bands way too big and the noses way too small. I know this was so in the 50's and early 60's. Their recent moulds seem to have "fixed" this for the most part.

Even if the nose on your mould is small, all may not be lost. Because the driving bands make up about 60% of the length of the bullet, it will usually shoot fairly well even if the nose is not full bore diameter. That's part of the reason that this mould design has been so popular for over 100 years. It would help if you can seat them out so that the first driving band engages in the throat.

I had a similar experience with the little Lee C309160R. Even cast out of lino, the nose is only .299, and it will drop into the muzzle of my Model 70 International. But with 23 grains of ReLoader No. 7, it will punch the Xring out of the MR 31 target quite regularly ... that's ten shots into less than an inch @100 yards prone. So it never hurts to try.


I thought that little Lee bullet and the powder charge would do well in the K31, but it was abysmal in that rifle. (Note: the Model 70 International only came in 7.62 x 51 ... .308. The K31 that I used the load in was a military 7.5x55, not my K31 7.62x51 CISM rifle.).

Resp'y,
Bob S.