6mm Lee Navy loads

[Spadegrip]

I recently picked up a military issue 6mm Lee Navy in very good condition. I have 220 swift cases that have been altered and an NOE GC mould that weighs 105grs. I have 4227 and 3031 powder and was looking for a load using those powders. Thanks for your help.

[303Guy]

I don't have any answers for you but I am very interested in your rifle. Would you by any chance have photo's? Lot's of photo's? [smilie=1:

[.22-10-45]

I have an Winchester-Lee straight-pull sporting rifle. Left Winchester Jan. 1898, near mint bore. Due to it's age, I decided to shoot only cast. It likes the Ideal 245495 100gr. g.c. I use cases from Buffalo Arms made from .25-06..these are the correct length, as the .220 Swift was altered including slightly shortening case. Biggest problem I encountered was the extreemly tight throat...chamber pound cast reveals it's .0005" UNDER groove dia! I had to finally size 1st. driving band from nose .0005" under groove dia., rest of bullet sized right to groove dia. Annealed Horn. G.C. still had spring enough to spring back .001" over groove dia. for good seal. I tried H4227 but cases came out soot covered & noticible muzzle blast. Tried TrailBoss & cases are now clean and no blast from muzzle. With its open iron buckhorn rear and German silver blade front, p.o.i. is right on top of sight at 50yds. with 3/4" groups. I made up some hard Lino, thinking of that fast 71/2" twist..but ended up using plain old range scrap-WW with a bit of tin to sweeten up & no leading whatsoever. Recoil about like a heavy bullet .222 Rem. load. Definatly fun gun catagory! Best of luck..and keep us posted.

[.22-10-45]

I re-read your post and are looking for loads..I my post I didn't give charge weight of H4227. The most accurate was 10.0gr. H4227. Interestingly..with the IMR TrailBoss..best accuracy was also with 10grs.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I have an Winchester-Lee straight-pull sporting rifle. Left Winchester Jan. 1898, near mint bore. Due to it's age, I decided to shoot only cast. It likes the Ideal 245495 100gr. g.c. I use cases from Buffalo Arms made from .25-06..these are the correct length, as the .220 Swift was altered including slightly shortening case. Biggest problem I encountered was the extreemly tight throat...chamber pound cast reveals it's .0005" UNDER groove dia! I had to finally size 1st. driving band from nose .0005" under groove dia., rest of bullet sized right to groove dia. Annealed Horn. G.C. still had spring enough to spring back .001" over groove dia. for good seal. I tried H4227 but cases came out soot covered & noticible muzzle blast. Tried TrailBoss & cases are now clean and no blast from muzzle. With its open iron buckhorn rear and German silver blade front, p.o.i. is right on top of sight at 50yds. with 3/4" groups. I made up some hard Lino, thinking of that fast 71/2" twist..but ended up using plain old range scrap-WW with a bit of tin to sweeten up & no leading whatsoever. Recoil about like a heavy bullet .222 Rem. load. Definatly fun gun catagory! Best of luck..and keep us posted.

I've got mine, but the bore is too bad to be worth trying to shoot, so I have never loaded for it. I haven't heard of anyone offering 6mm. bore liners, and they would be unlikely to have a 7½in. twist if they did, which is a great pity. It is an excellent rifle except for the difficulty of mounting a scope or even receiver sight.

RCBS probably still offer a rather expensive die set to make the cases from .270 Winchester, which should be marginally easier than .30-06, but it may be that reduction of the base requires an engineering press. Cases made from .220 Swift should be fine for light loads, but I believe that if I wanted to use the rifle I would experiment with .30-40 Krag. (.240 Weatherby and Bertram .242 Holland and Holland are probably too thin in the neck.) I think .30-40 would be within the capacity of a powerful reloading press, although it would need to be formed to the beginning of the solid head, and then have its rim and .007in. of the head turned down on a lathe. You ought to section a case or two, after being so treated, to make sure there is no internal thinning near the head, and you would probably be best with a special "shellholder" with a stud to keep the primer pocket from contracting. As that couldn't withdraw the case, you would then have to form it with the top of the die open, and expel the case with a brass rod.

[Rich/WIS]

The 6mm Lee is the basis for the 220 Swift, case capacity should be similar. Closest other round in case capacity with data for bullets in the 6mm weight range is the 250 SAV. You might start there for load data. Did find one reference listing 5 grs of Unique with a 95 gr cast for 1200fps. Hope this helps.

[Lostinidaho]

I inherited a Lee Navy from my father. It is in good conditions. New to reloading and never have cast a bullet. As I have been doing research for reloading I have gotten confuse. Is the bullet a .236 or a .245? At this point I am looking for a source of round nose bullets. Any help appreciated

[Ballistics in Scotland]

You raise a good point, since even the Wikipedia article says it had a .236in. bullet diameter, i.e. a true 6mm. In fact that is the land diameter of the barrel, and the bullet diameter usually quoted is .244in. Ordinary .243 and 6mm. bullets nowadays are usually .243in., but I think there is a good chance thin-jacketed ones would expand to seal the bore, and cast ones surely would. If your throat is half a thousandth tighter than the grooves, as 22-10-45 reports, it goes half-way to making up that rather tiny gap.

You will have trouble finding bullets of the 112gr. which the military load used. But the .244 Remington isn't dead yet, and with its faster twist than the ,243 Winchester, there is a good chance that you can find the 100 or 105gr. bullets it can use. If a lighter bullet has to be seated so that it has to travel some way before engaging the rifling, it will probably prevent you getting the ultimate in rifle accuracy, but is nowhere near as bad as some people imagine.

Round nose or spitzer bullet isn't always much of an issue either. I don't believe there ever was a military .303 made that wouldn't accommodate the round-nosed MkVI bullet which became obsolete in 1910. I've posted this picture before. It shows the Hornady 160gr. round-nose I used in my Mannlicher-Schoenauer, together with a commercial clone of the Swedish military bullet, set in a caliper adjusted to a land diameter of 6.5mm. They contact that imaginary rifling at just the same distance from the base.

167621

[Bent Ramrod]

I have a Winchester-Lee sporter with a rather corroded bore but it still shoots 4" or so at 100 yards.

My only trials with 3031 powder were with the Speer 105 gr and the Hornady 100 gr roundnoses. I got up to 32 gr with no obvious pressure signs but dropped back to 30 for regular shooting. That gave me 2200 ft/sec out of .220 Swift cases, with the bullet seated as far out as I could get it.

There's a news item somewhere on the Net of some guy in New Hampshire or somewhere who was killed when his Lee Navy blew up on him at the range. Load data and other important particulars were lacking, of course, but it underscores the idea that this isn't a high intensity gun.

The cavernous throat and the short necks of the cases indicate long bullets for best accuracy, but the bore of my rifle isn't good enough to register much change. Barnes sells 115 gr bullets, but these are rather expensive for casual shooting, and I didn't see any huge accuracy improvements with them. The 100 gr or so VLD bullets are pretty useless as the length is compromised by a long boattail which means they have to be seated even deeper.

Some lots of jacketed bullets come apart in my bore, due to the pitting and quick rifling twist, no doubt. A trail of gray smoke marks the bullet's path and a gray comet tail curls around the hole in the target. Other boxes of the same bullets shoot fine.

I got hold of some original empty shells and had high hopes for them, but accuracy with the 100 and 105 grs were about the same. The necks cracked quickly on these shells, too. Old Western Scrounger sells .236 Lee ammunition, with the shells made from .30-40 Krag shells. I haven't tried any because the box is so cool the ammo is an instant collector's item. I made some dies for a hydraulic press to swage down .240 Weatherby shells (belt turned off) to size but this effort is kind of on the back burner. Except for the short neck, the .220 Swift shells work fine, and are probably stronger at the head than any remanufactured or original shells. The semi-rim is no problem in loading as the rifle was designed to use either rimmed or rimless shells. I've only seen woodcut pictures of the .236 Rimmed; it looks like an anorexic .30-40 Krag.

Somebody sells a replica of the peculiar flip-the-wire loading clip for the Lee Navy, at collector's price, but I never had trouble loading the magazine one round at a time. The weakest link in the action is that extractor, which achieves its primary action on the fired shell by the 3/8" or so slack as you yank the bolt open. Many (including mine) are riveted together, another incentive to keep the loads mild.

I'm kind of leery of 3031 powder, because a friend of a friend blew up the friend's military 6mm Lee using it. (He brazed the receiver back together and the friend says it shoots as well as ever, but I wouldn't fire the thing except by a long wire with me in a bombproof. The FOAF survived in fine fettle and went on to damage other friend's collector's items as he tried out his recherché ideas. Last I heard he was looking to borrow a Trapdoor Springfield; had a great idea on how to shoot .30-06s in it)

I guess the basic problem is that I don't know what holds that bolt in; all I know is that it goes in and out with no problem in the absence of the S shaped spring that was missing and that I bought from S&S. So I generally prefer 4064, which is a little slower. 33 gr gives about 2400 ft/sec with the Speer and Hornady bullets. Anybody seeking to copy my loads should start about 5 grains low and sneak up, looking for sticky extraction, flattened primers; all the usual pressure signs. I claim no responsibility for others' interpretations of my loading data. There's always an excuse; the FOAF conjured up a lulu to explain that his loading procedures were perfect and the gun blew up because the rough throat interfered with the barescent skor motion of the projectile in flight, you see, etc., etc.

The only cast boolit work I've done with it was with Unique. 9 gr behind the 244206 was all right at 50 yards, as was 5 gr behind the 244203.

Be aware that there is a wildcat called the .240 Cobra that is also a .220 Swift necked up to 6mm. DO NOT use any load suggestions for that in your .236!

[Spadegrip]

Thanks for the reply. The guy in I think PA. was killed using unique powder and turned 30-40 cases. There was another person that blew up a Lee Navy using 30-40 cases. The case just doesn't have the material at the base to support the pressure after sizing and cutting the extraction groove. I was going to use 105 gr lead bullets and about 26-28grs of 3031. I was looking for around 1800fps. Is there an issue using to little 3031? I just want to enjoy shooting this again-not trying to break any velocity records. Thanks again.

[Lostinidaho]

Great day today. I fire formed about 25 brass cases from 220 swift. They turned out great. Next I need to work on loads. I am interested using trailboss.

[Spadegrip]

I was interested in trailboss myself, but yhe more I read about it the more I would look elsewhere. It seems the velocity is low for the pressure generated. Great for pistol cartridges but not so great for rifle rounds. There is a post where someone used 10gr of trailboss and had excellent accuracy at 50 yards with it. I know that 3031 works very well with my .303 long Lee and I was looking for a load using that powder. Do you have to fire form the swift cases? Can't just run them through a full length sizing die?

[Lostinidaho]

I don't have my dies yet. Maybe this week. Still putting the loading materials all together. This thread has the most information I have been able to find in one place. I just have been taking it slow and careful. The bullet itself has been hard to figure out. Due to the long overall cartridge length and the shorter neck of the 220 swift has taken some time. Still not sure exactly what to use. The original bullet seems to be long from the cartridge dimensions. I tried fire forming the brass for the experience and to see if the chamber dimensions really are the same as .220 swift brass. And except for the neck it was. When I get my dies I will have to see if fire-forming is necessary.

[.22-10-45]

The bolt is held in place by solid wall of steel in the bottom of reciever and a step milled in bottom of bolt. These are below the bore center line so the more pressure applied to bolt face, the tighter the bolt is held in place. That is why the rotating bolt is needed to cam the bolt up and out of locking cut in reciever. Winchester made a reciever with a heavy T handled screw bearing on bolt face..just to prove that bolt couldn't be forced out of lock.

[Bent Ramrod]

Spadegrip,

I started with 26 gr of 3031 behind the Speer 105 gr roundnosed jacketed bullet and had no pressure or other problems. I would not think that substitution of a cast boolit of similar weight would cause trouble, unless it was maybe leading the barrel. But the fact is that there is little loading data out for this cartridge, and most of what is there is useless. Sharpe has a few loads with Unique, 2400 and 4064, and Mattern has a couple Unique loads. All other loads are with Sharpshooter, #80 and other such obsolete powders. In Handloader #20, Harvey Donaldson has a letter on his use of the 244203 cast boolit in a Winchester-Lee sporter, and the success he had on it with woodchucks, but no powder charge is mentioned in a page of writing.

If you have other powders you have to try, you will just have to look at data for similar cartridges, make some educated guesses, start low and sneak up until you have satisfactory results. (And, of course, come back here and let us know what worked:wink:.)

22-10,

There is indeed a wall of steel in the receiver and a projection on the bottom of the bolt, but without that spring, the bolt goes back and forth like nothing is there. It's a cool action, and very fast to use, but I've not been really sanguine about finding out how far I can push it.

I find it easier, if going up in mouth diameter, to fireform cases rather than risk crushing them by running them over a larger expander plug. I had great hopes that eventually, with reloadings, the .220 Swift cases, expanded to 6mm, would start to lengthen and I could take advantage of this. But as far as I can see, none of them have lengthened a thousandth of an inch.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Thanks for the reply. The guy in I think PA. was killed using unique powder and turned 30-40 cases. There was another person that blew up a Lee Navy using 30-40 cases. The case just doesn't have the material at the base to support the pressure after sizing and cutting the extraction groove. I was going to use 105 gr lead bullets and about 26-28grs of 3031. I was looking for around 1800fps. Is there an issue using to little 3031? I just want to enjoy shooting this again-not trying to break any velocity records. Thanks again.

The accident you mention is quite well known, and happened to a Glenn deRuiter. Here is another website description of a similar though non-fatal accident.

https://www.forgottenweapons.com/winchester-lee-navy-safety/

It establishes that both accidents happened with reformed .30-40 brass, but there is a lot it doesn't account for. It says deRuiter was considered a careful reloader, but there is a possibility that excessive pressures were deliberately or accidentally involved. It is all too easy, though dangerous and in hunting etc. unnecessary, to try for the extra 200 to 300ft./sec. which turn it into a .243. The website, from a couple of years back, peters out at the point where its author says he has a badly sporterized Lee on its way for testing.

He claims the depth of the extractor cut and the relative flimsiness of .30-40 brass may be responsible. But in my Lee and his pictures, the cut is shallower than for many other rifles, and the database in my Load from a Disk computer programme says that .30-40 brass has a thickness of .033 near the head, as against .035 for the .30-06. (The smaller a cylindrical pressure vessel, the less thickness it takes to withstand a given pressure.) That leaves thinness, in a fore and aft direction, of the web in front of the primer pocket. But I don't know if the original 6mm. cases were any different.

It is very important, when reducing the diameter of a case that much, to carry the reduction right down to the solid head. It is a great temptation, when a reloading press is used, to stop a little short, and leave a slight widening of the powder space immediately before the brass becomes solid. The brass could have been over-annealed to facilitate the process, too.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Somebody sells a replica of the peculiar flip-the-wire loading clip for the Lee Navy, at collector's price, but I never had trouble loading the magazine one round at a time. The weakest link in the action is that extractor, which achieves its primary action on the fired shell by the 3/8" or so slack as you yank the bolt open. Many (including mine) are riveted together, another incentive to keep the loads mild.

I'm kind of leery of 3031 powder, because a friend of a friend blew up the friend's military 6mm Lee using it. (He brazed the receiver back together and the friend says it shoots as well as ever, but I wouldn't fire the thing except by a long wire with me in a bombproof. The FOAF survived in fine fettle and went on to damage other friend's collector's items as he tried out his recherché ideas. Last I heard he was looking to borrow a Trapdoor Springfield; had a great idea on how to shoot .30-06s in it)

The clips, like quite a few other parts, are available from S&S Firearms at $35. That is a lot of clip, and as you say, it isn't necessary.

http://www.ssfirearms.com/proddetail.asp?prod=LN14

Yes, brazing a blown-up action makes my blood run cold. As a matter of fact, so does brazing in manufacture, anywhere close to the load-bearing parts of a modern or nearly-modern action. What he did after the blowup surely cases some suspicion on what he may have done before it.

[Bent Ramrod]

Ballistics,

Wow, S&S does have a lot of stuff now for the Lee Navy. The spring I was talking about was Part LN19.

It really is a neat rifle. And of course it is historical. A bunch of them were salvaged from the Maine and sold by Bannerman's in New York, and it was carried by the US Marines as part of that international rescue mission to lift the siege on the Legation Quarter in Peking during the Boxer Rebellion. (They got there just in time; the Ambassador and his staff were running perilously low on Champagne.). But the Boxers did mean business; they were out to kill every "foreign devil" in the country.

I don't know if there were any other calibers it could have been made in, to make it more popular on the market. One in .250 Savage would really be cool, if the magazine could be rigged to feed it. Born twenty years too soon, as they say.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Yes, the race to Peking was a prime example of the more cartridges a man could carry, the better. I am pretty sure it was never made in any other caliber during its production years.

That lifting block, which arguably isn't a bolt-action at all, was much used in semi and fully automatic weapons - like the straight-pull Mannlicher with rotary bolt-head of the same year. George Madis in his books claims that a block of 4,000 serial numbers, from something over 21,000 if I remember rightly, which is sometimes a case of an undercover deal, possibly to someone the government didn't want to be seen supplying. I have seen the sporting Winchester-Lees quoted at 1400 to 1700 in number, and certainly a small proportion of the 6,400 or so not specifically know to have been the military musket. Both the stock and the barrel contour of the musket look like there is a sporter in there someplace, which was uncovered by a fairly slight amount of work. If my bore was better I would be looking long and hard at the S&S stock to see if it could be sporterized.

Ironically, with so many people complaining about the 5.56mm., it would be hard to devise a better modern assault rifle cartridge than the 6mm. Navy, with modern components and a lighter pointed bullet.

[Bent Ramrod]

Lots of Lee Navy Straight Pull pictures here:

https://www.shootersforum.com/ex-military-rifles-cartridges/93687-winchester-lee-model-1895-6mm-navy-rifle.html

The last post is particularly illuminating. "Used starting data for the .243 Winchester." He was asking for big trouble, and certainly got it.

It probably would be a great military round now, updated properly with modern components.

I've heard a lot of Sporters have Naval reject marks on the parts somewhere, but haven't ever seen anything I could identify as such.

Ballistics, you might scrounge a .220 Swift shell and some .243 raw castings and try some fire lapping on that barrel. Reloading one case over and over, and removing bolt and extractor and carefully pushing the abrasive coated bullet into the leade (and making sure the abrasive is cleaned out of everywhere else) makes for a rather tedious few mornings at the range, but my sewer pipe barrel was at least shootable after 50 or so shots of this treatment. Of the small coterie of Straight-Pull enthusiasts I was involved with, only one had a rifle with a pristine bore, the rest had bores that looked as bad as mine. Only one (another Sporter) was utterly hopeless, keyholing shots, but the other two or three shot pretty decently.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Lots of Lee Navy Straight Pull pictures here:

https://www.shootersforum.com/ex-military-rifles-cartridges/93687-winchester-lee-model-1895-6mm-navy-rifle.html

The last post is particularly illuminating. "Used starting data for the .243 Winchester." He was asking for big trouble, and certainly got it.

It probably would be a great military round now, updated properly with modern components.

I've heard a lot of Sporters have Naval reject marks on the parts somewhere, but haven't ever seen anything I could identify as such.

Ballistics, you might scrounge a .220 Swift shell and some .243 raw castings and try some fire lapping on that barrel. Reloading one case over and over, and removing bolt and extractor and carefully pushing the abrasive coated bullet into the leade (and making sure the abrasive is cleaned out of everywhere else) makes for a rather tedious few mornings at the range, but my sewer pipe barrel was at least shootable after 50 or so shots of this treatment. Of the small coterie of Straight-Pull enthusiasts I was involved with, only one had a rifle with a pristine bore, the rest had bores that looked as bad as mine. Only one (another Sporter) was utterly hopeless, keyholing shots, but the other two or three shot pretty decently.

I will bear that suggestion in mind. I sometimes think that for at least part of any Winchester-Lee's life there was no such thing as a 6mm. cleaning-rod, or people didn't know about it.

There is a tendency to pour scorn on French firearms design which must surely derive from something outside firearms design, since as in aviation, they were responsible for many of the great advances in the field. People who call the bore surface the soul can't be that bad, and they have a wonderful phrase, the tension of the trajectory. They liken it to a horizontally stretched rope, only upside down. It takes very little tension to flatten out the curve quite a bit. But you can apply great force, until the rope breaks, in trying to make it totally flat and horizontal that way. It takes a lot of extra pressure to get an extra two or three hundred ft./sec.

It sounds like the last poster in that thread was talking about the deRuiter case. The bore confusion may have arisen in the listener's mind rather than the shooter's. But trying for .243 performance in this rifle is extremely unwise. and while "starting loads" in developing something for the .243 might be all right at about 10% under what you expect to be safe, I would start lower in the Winchester-Lee.

It is so unnecessary. The 6mm. round as originally loaded, or less, was accurate and would be a more effective deer cartridge than the .30-30. I am a great believer in the 6.5x54 Mannlicher-Schoenauer, which with due precaution has been used effectively against just about anything that walks the earth, and that doesn't equal the .243 either.

It is actually a very ergonomic design. The hand is much closer to pivoting around the elbow than it would be with a horizontally sliding bolt.

Here is the parts drawing from the 1899 Winchester catalogue. It would enable someone to make that sear spring, for example, without an old one to copy. You just heat and quench it glass-hard once shaped, then ignite and burn off oil covering it in a shallow dish, which leaves a filthy but correctly tempered spring. None done that way have failed me yet.


167822

[Bent Ramrod]

Looking around the Net I found the posts from the guy who had blown up a Lee Straight Pull in 2014. He had been following loading data in an American Rifleman magazine. He had allegedly used a 30 gr load of 4895 in a reformed .30-40 case. He survived with a head wound (shallower than the poor guy in Pennsylvania twelve years earlier) and said he was following good and prudent loading practices.

Searching through my rather chaotic files, I found the article, in the November 2014 issue, by John Barsness, who found a Lee Navy Sporter on the Used rack in Helena MT.

His loadings were with the Speer 105 gr roundnose and spitzer bullets and the Nosler 100 gr Partition. Powders were IMR 4895, 30 and 32 gr, Varget at 33 gr and RL-15 at 33 gr. No cast boolit data, unfortunately. Most shooting was at 50 yards, although he got a pretty nice three shot group at 100, with a Nosler Partition, from a "rough" bore.

He used necked up .220 Swift cases, with no trouble, except he ordered a couple reproduction clips and bent the sides out to accommodate the Swift semi-rim. It didn't work when he tried to load the rifle with it. Thirty-five scoots down the drain, ouch!

It's odd that there are no contemporary reports of these rifles blowing up in service back then. The impression I get is that the powder used was probably not much slower than 4198, and with none of that powder's stability. They had names like Peyton and W. A. and Sharpe described them as "poisonous."

There's some references in Shooting and Fishing on the Lee Straight Pull. I'll look them over again when I get some free time.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Sharpe did have some tendency to be judgmental. There were actually rather good powders available, but they weren't very closely controllable in production. Large cartridge reloaders or government arsenals used to buy in large batches, and tailor the load to produce the right velocity and pressure. Civilian purchasers of canister powders, to be used in ways the manufacturers don't know in detail, pay more for testing and rejection. I know that in the early days of smokeless, Winchester advised the amateur against reloading with it.

When load adjustment wasn't possible, the powder was either relabeled as something else, or returned to process. Even in recent years a lot of ball powders were produced that way, and probably some new powders that appear on the market today.

[6mm win lee]

Finally! I am not alone in Win Lee land

Here is a copy of a commercial pamphlet. I own the original.

http://www.forgottenweapons.com/wp-content/uploads/manuals/leehandbook.pdf

[6mm win lee]

I want to remind everyone but mostly for those who come to this site who do not own Winchester-Lees that the rifling is polygonal Metford rifling and not like what is seen in most other guns of that time period or to the present day. So you think your rifling is worn out when you are really looking at something different from the norm. See Plate VI fig. 5.

http://www.forgottenweapons.com/wp-content/uploads/manuals/M1895-Navy-Lee-manual.pdf

[Bent Ramrod]

Wow, 6mm win lee, that stuff is a real treasure trove! Thanks for sharing.

I can see the rifling twist in mine but the dark bore and pitting obscures any other features. The one guy whose Straight Pull Sporter had a pristine bore didn't bring it out to shoot much; he was more of a collector, so I didn't get to examine his very closely.

[Lostinidaho]

First bullets ready to fire thru the chronograph.168021

[.22-10-45]

6mm Win Lee..The dealer gave me a discount on my rifle because he thought the rifling was worn! Near perfect bore on my sporter.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I want to remind everyone but mostly for those who come to this site who do not own Winchester-Lees that the rifling is polygonal Metford rifling and not like what is seen in most other guns of that time period or to the present day. So you think your rifling is worn out when you are really looking at something different from the norm. See Plate VI fig. 5.

http://www.forgottenweapons.com/wp-content/uploads/manuals/M1895-Navy-Lee-manual.pdf

The manual particularly is much appreciated. I wouldn't worry too much about the Metford rifling if I had one in good condition. When it eroded too fast in the Lee-Metford, it was with powder that had 58% by weight of nitroglycerin, and even the 36% to which it was modified in the Lee-Enfield era was a lot more than in modern smallarms double based powder. To find the like you would have to look to rocket propellants, where the nozzle is for one-time use. It is also unlikely that a modern hunter or target shooter will go for the rapid fire that was considered an important part of military musketry at the time.

Your links are very valuable, especially the Manual. Part of the Lee's problem was that it cost $32, when you could have a far more familiar lever-action for £18, with a similar difference in ammunition costs.

While the powders of the time made for erratic pressure and fast erosion, I don't go for the theory that they produced any extra corrosion. The manual tells us the primer was the same as the .45-70, and while its corrosive effect might have been swamped by more powder, especially black powder, that could hardly have produced so much effect. I think it was primarily a matter of the Lee being more difficult to clean properly, and if people did wash out the bore with water, its small diameter might have made remaining droplets less likely to evaporate.

[6mm win lee]

You guys are all very welcome but if you want to thank me could you share with me by PM your win lee serial numbers and whether they are in military form or bubba'd. I keep a running list of existing military win-lee rifles that I find on the internet and other places. Maybe I should include the non-military sporters, too. Of course no names or places are associated to any guns on the list.

Six

[Lostinidaho]

Went out today to the range today. Had a great time.
100gr FMJ bullet.
Trail Boss was the powder.
9.0gr avg 986 FPS,
9.5gr avg 1035 fps,
10gr 1162 fps,
10.5gr avg 1252 fps.

[6mm win lee]

How was the accuracy?

[Lostinidaho]

At 50 feet it was easy to hit the target. but that's not saying anything.

I was checking safety first. Then the fps of the loads.

The one death incident and the one injury incident with a Lee Navy makes you think things over a few times.

My plan now is to load up about 25 and go to the longer range. But it was fun

[Lostinidaho]

Got tired of just coming home and going back to work the next morning. The weather this weekend is not supposed to be great either.

12 shots about 60yards. Yes the last shot was the errant one. I guess I was having too much fun.
168396

[Bent Ramrod]

That's pretty good, considering the sights on those rifles.

Lyman made a No. 25 receiver sight for the Straight Pull, that rocked sideways out of the way when the bolt came up. Would probably help your group but I've never seen one outside of a catalog, even attached to a rifle.

[6mm win lee]

Got tired of just coming home and going back to work the next morning. The weather this weekend is not supposed to be great either. 12 shots about 60yards. Yes the last shot was the errant one. I guess I was having too much fun. 168396 I like it. I wonder what it will do at two hundred yards.

[HangFireW8]

Leaving a jacket in the barrel is a real possibility if shooting a .243" jacketed in a rough .236" bore.

Another possibility is a pinched case mouth if the converted 30/40 brass is too long.

[Lostinidaho]

I cant see the target at 200 yards. A friend says I need to get a bigger target and become more zen about it.

I want to work up a CB. Any mold recommendations for 100 grains?

[6mm win lee]

Leaving a jacket in the barrel is a real possibility if shooting a .243" jacketed in a rough .236" bore.

Another possibility is a pinched case mouth if the converted 30/40 brass is too long.


Theoretically that might happen but I think the greater possibility is jacket seperation after it clears the barrel.

WARNING, Will Robinson! Warning! Do not use .30-40 krag for use in a Winchester Lee.

[6mm win lee]

I cant see the target at 200 yards. A friend says I need to get a bigger target and become more zen about it.

I want to work up a CB. Any mold recommendations for 100 grains?

Not bigger. Just one in braille.

[Lostinidaho]

Ouch that hurts

[Lostinidaho]

Best 8 shot grouping 100 yards

168549

[6mm win lee]

Best 8 shot grouping 100 yards

168549

Is the photo supposed to be on its side or vertical? If vertical that is a pretty good group for a hundred and twenty year old gun. The windage is almost spot on. I can not wait to hear more.

I am still using the braille method to hit a target. Now if I can just get my seeing eye dog to take up the trigger before firing I might be on to something.

[Lostinidaho]

The photo should be rotated 90 degrees clockwise. I have noticed that the front sight is not brazed to the center of the barrel. After the fist 4 shots I could compensate by shifting my aim for the next 4 which are on the vertical line. I don't know what to do about the front sight.

[Spadegrip]

What load is that? Trail boss?

[Lostinidaho]

Trail Boss 10 gr 100gr bullet

[Pioneer2]

If one doesn't care about collectibility.......couldn't one just get a re-bore on a cooked bore to say anything between .25- .270 using the 6mm LN case and have the dies honed out as well? Harold

[Bent Ramrod]

I would think the bullet would have to stay on the small side because of the magazine. Reborers IME are leery of going up only one step (i.e., 6mm to .25 caliber; .30 to .32 caliber) because they want to be sure they've cleaned up all the pitting. A .25 with 117 gr roundnose bullets would be kind of neat, though; sort of an amped-up .25-35. I suppose that if you took an oath to your reboring service that the results are your responsibility, maybe somebody could be found to do it.

If it would work, a 7mm Lee Navy would excite the envy of all of us. Like that .700 Nitro Express they're making now that leaves the .600 owners in the shade. :-). I would think the ballistics would begin to be kind of ho-hum with the standard military bullet and a shorter one might have feeding problems. As a strictly cast boolit toy, though, it might be nice.

Unfortunately, my barrel is just short of too far gone to make the experiment, at least at this moment.

[6mm win lee]

If one doesn't care about collectibility.......couldn't one just get a re-bore on a cooked bore to say anything between .25- .270 using the 6mm LN case and have the dies honed out as well? Harold

You might as well have a new barrel turned and spun on to the receiver if you are going to go to all that trouble. I have a 1895 Win lever action musket that had a severely eroded chamber. Extraction was nearly impossible after the first and only round put through it. I decided to bite the bullet and have new barrel installed. Hooo. What a chunk of change but I figure fifteen hundred bucks is not too high of a price to get the gun back on the firing line.

[6mm win lee]

... I don't know what to do about the front sight.

I would seek out a premier gunsmith or high side gun builder and see what can be done if it was mine.

[Lostinidaho]

I would like to try cast bullets before I invest in a mold. Anyone with a mold that is willing to help pm me? I would like to try some in the 100gr range.

[Spadegrip]

I just fired a couple of rounds through my Lee Navy. 220 swift cases with turned rims and an extractor grove cut. 26 grs of 3031 and a 105gr cast bullet. No pressure signs, no extraction problems. Don't know about accuracy as I was shooting into a burm at 200 yards.

[Lostinidaho]

Cool. I didn't turn the rims or extractor groves on my .220 swift brass. I don't have that capability. They seemed to fit and extract well with unloaded brass. I bought a few resized from .25-06. They didn't fit well and didn't extract. I like the idea of the longer brass from the 25-06, but .220 swift is just easier for me. It is definitely a fun rifle to fire. What is the length of your cast bullets?

[6mm win lee]

I just fired a couple of rounds through my Lee Navy. 220 swift cases with turned rims and an extractor grove cut. 26 grs of 3031 and a 105gr cast bullet. No pressure signs, no extraction problems. Don't know about accuracy as I was shooting into a burm at 200 yards.

What is the design of the bullet? RN or Pointed? I have a bunch of Hornady 100 grain round nose bullets on hand that I will be using. They are the same that Buffalo Arms used in the past before hornady discontinued the stock number (#2455).

[Spadegrip]

I will measure and reply back. It's the NOE mould 105 gr .246 diameter sized to .244. You may be able to look it up on there web sight. NOE moulds.

[Pioneer2]

1895 musket........was it in 7.62x54R? A few guys here in Canada have had shot out/corroded 1895's in .303 British re-bored to .338-.303 British

[6mm win lee]

1895 musket........was it in 7.62x54R? A few guys here in Canada have had shot out/corroded 1895's in .303 British re-bored to .338-.303 British

Nope it is one of ours in .30-40 Krag. Full military dress, too. Just have to get the correct reproduction sling for it.

Turnbull Mfg works on the winchester levers. No need to rebore if you want to rebarrel in the original round. Just bring moola and be able to patiently wait for six months.

http://www.turnbullmfg.com/restoration-services/

[Bent Ramrod]

There was not a lot of coverage of the Straight Pull in Shooting and Fishing, and I could not for the life of me find the illustration of the rimmed and rimless cartridges. (I came across it again and again when I first read through the series, but no joy now.)

One hunter in India said his cousin had a Sporter said it got him two Ibex in two shots within ten seconds of each other and he hadn't lost an animal shot at even at ranges up to 400 yards.

A couple reviews of the military potential and use were somewhat less fulsome. The advantages of flat trajectory and high velocity were duly noted. Officers tended to see the advantages inherent in the gun, but the armorers thought it was faulty and not robust enough for service. They were constantly busy fixing or replacing extractors. Some of the friendlies given the rifle would forget to make sure the bolt stop was down, and when they yanked the bolt open, cartridge case, extractor, and, frequently, the bolt itself would go flying into the underbrush to get lost, whereupon the soldier would chuck the rest of the rifle in the same general direction and stomp off the battlefield in a snit.

Apparently Marines and Army officers trained up in the use of the arm could use it with good effect. An enemy combatant reportedly escaped a court martial for cowardice by saying that he could do nothing in the face of the American machine-gun fire coming in his direction. There were no machine guns in that area, just Lee-Navys. But the general consensus was that the gun was not robust enough for the rigors of military service. A correspondent saw one and sent in this brief report:

168811

Then, as now, it didn't take much in the way of negative press to doom a firearm in the marketplace, or even in the service.

Sorry I can't do scans; my scanner quit due to an "unknown error." Photos generally are too fuzzy to read if the article is so large I can't do a closeup.

[EDG]

Avoid fast burning powder in these rifles. I think that is what happened to Glen DeRuiter a Sarco employee years ago.

https://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119731


The 6mm Lee is the basis for the 220 Swift, case capacity should be similar. Closest other round in case capacity with data for bullets in the 6mm weight range is the 250 SAV. You might start there for load data. Did find one reference listing 5 grs of Unique with a 95 gr cast for 1200fps. Hope this helps.

[jrmartin1964]

As an interesting aside, the Model 1895 lever-action was originally advertised in .236 Navy. Supposedly there were actually at least two of them made...before Winchester figured out the Model 1895 wasn't quite up to the challenge.
168814

[6mm win lee]

Avoid fast burning powder in these rifles. I think that is what happened to Glen DeRuiter a Sarco employee years ago.

https://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119731

And do not use modified .30-40 brass.

[Lostinidaho]

Back to the range again.

At 100 yards, 10 shots all in a 6.
At 200 yards, 10 shots all in 12 inch ring. Everyone was a key hole

[Spadegrip]

Back to the range again.

At 100 yards, 10 shots all in a 6.
At 200 yards, 10 shots all in 12 inch ring. Everyone was a key hole

Try 26gr of 3031 with the 100gr bullet-should solve the key holeing depending on the bore of your rifle.

[Lostinidaho]

Just a big chicken when it comes to shooting a 118 year old rifle. Maybe I shouldn't have read the death incident. And its my first adventure into reloading.

[Spadegrip]

You were correct in going slow. I just gave a load I shot in my rifle. In my rifle it showed no pressure signs, and that was with 105 gr cast bullets. Some one here has the same mould for sale-$55-that is a good deal.

[Bent Ramrod]

Absolutely correct going slow and exercising prudence.

Keep an eye on your fired cases, watch your charge weights and look in every case with a flashlight to make sure the powder is at the same height before capping with a bullet. There's no indication in the old write ups that these rifles ever failed catastrophically, and they were as wary of the new smokeless propellants as they were of new rifle designs.

I would say that a velocity that slow, in a twist that fast might be causing your keyhole problem, especially as the range increases. You might also try the boolits unsized, with lubricant of course.

[Lostinidaho]

At this point I am using pre-made fmj bullets. I hope I haven't admitted to a unforgivable sin on this sight. One step at a time.

This may seem an odd question. I have had my rifle checked by a gunsmith. But there are no experts on this gun. When I pull the trigger, when the gun is cocked, when I pull the trigger there is a slight but noticeable downward wiggle or pull on the bolt. I have never seen this on another rifle. But this is a different mechanism. Does your rifle's action behave similarly

The first 10 shots though this rifle was tested using the tried and true tire with lanyard method. Since then I have put through about another 80 shots.

[HangFireW8]

Bolt movement on trigger pull is common with many old bolt actions.

[303Guy]

At this point I am using pre-made fmj bullets. I hope I haven't admitted to a unforgivable sin on this sight.
When you say (gulp) "pre-made fmj bu..(choke)..llets, would those be boat tails? And with a long pointy ogive?

Is it possible that the bullets are canting in the generous throat on firing?

You didn't say how straight the 100 yard impacts were. Canting of the bullets should be clearly visible at that range (uneven black ring around the bullet hole).

I recently fired a group with my two-groove 303 Lee Enfield that normally shoots pretty damn well and it shot a shotgun pattern (and spread). Different bullet and powder (with somewhat higher pressure signs). My point is, the bullet could be the problem.

[Lostinidaho]

I have to admit when I admitted to using pre-made, fmj bullets I felt I should stand before my computer and start with the line "My name is Lost and I have a problem..." Luckily the members of this forum are an understanding and forgiving crowd.

At 100 yards I don't see that bullets are beginning to tumble. The holes are round and no sign of an uneven ring around the hole. One thing I am using a pretty light load. I am going to try some hotter but still mild loads.

From my research, the original 6mm bullet was a long bullet (over 1.1 inches) and the case neck was longer on the original case then the 22 swift case that I use. My reloads end up being 2.85 inches, about .25 inches short of the original 3.11.

Bullet choice is a big part of performance/accuracy. I want to try cast bullets. But the molds I see would make my cartridges .35 to .40 inches shorter than original. So I want to try them before I by a mold. Its seems to me that to be a huge gap for the bullet to leap before reaching the rifling. I would think that distance would have a huge impact on accuracy.

[Spadegrip]

Just tried a new load of 25gr of 3031 and a 105gr bullet. Shoots to the sights and no pressure signs. Used 220 swift cases rims turned and extractor groove cut.

[6mm win lee]

Just tried a new load of 25gr of 3031 and a 105gr bullet. Shoots to the sights and no pressure signs. Used 220 swift cases rims turned and extractor groove cut.

Sounds good. I will have to work with my rifle after I get done dinking with the 1895 lever action. I have a few pieces of original USN brass I am wanting to load up. The target was how far away when you were shooting the Lee?

[Spadegrip]

185 yards. It was shooting about 10" high which would be correct with battle sights.

[6mm win lee]

185 yards. It was shooting about 10" high which would be correct with battle sights.

How different was it from your 26gr load from higher up in the thread? Is there a chance of reducing the load to a safe level to take out the ten inches?

I tore open one of my Buffalo Arms rounds from years ago and found the powder weighed 33 grains. Don't what they were using for powder though. I did shoot one of the Lees a few weeks ago. It was just to punch paper and make noise but mostly to make sure I did not gain any foreign metal in my skull.

[Spadegrip]

The difference between 25 and 26 grains was easier extraction. With 26 grains, extraction was hard due to a less than perfect chamber. Fun load to shoot with the Speer 105 grain bullet.

[Bent Ramrod]

I found an article on the Winchester-Lee in the February 1961 issue of Guns magazine, which is available on line and can be downloaded or printed out. Nothing startling in the way of new data, although it gives a load with 4350, with only an implied bullet weight, and the Editors have appended a list of the serial numbers of the ones that sunk with the Maine and were salvaged and sold through Bannermans.