My very first PP 303-25 Boolit! Whoo Hoo!

[303Guy]

Well, I've done it! And here it is.

http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-205F.jpg
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-207F.jpg
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-209F.jpg
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-210F.jpg
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-211F.jpg

As can be seen, the patch came off at the muzzle! Whoo Hoo!

This was with a very small powder charge. The boolit came to rest nose first but a little bent!??? Well, it was un-hardened and is kinda long but not longer than a normal 100gr spitzer J-word. It weighed in at 111gr. The next one should be a little heavier at max length.

I used my old paper cup seating method as the case neck thickness does not allow for seating normally into an unsized neck. Well, the paper cup trick worked for the hornet with J-words so why not now?!

This boolit is actually a two-diameter with a one degree taper between the two diameters. The patched boolit fits the throat reliably and the rifling impressions indicate reasonable support near the nose. Now the nose is a bit of a problem - it's ugly!:mrgreen:

[303Guy]

I finally fired a single patched boolit out my 25. Can't say if it was good or bad but the turkey I shot at died soon after. It was close enough for differences in POI to not be an issue.

[1874Sharps]

303Guy.

Wahoo, cool project! Is the 25-303 a very common cartridge in your neck of the woods (NZ/AUS)? What kind of pressures does it operate at and what sort of velocity would one expect for a 100 or 110 grain bullet?

[runfiverun]

do the two part boolit heat thing that nose will be fine.
just don't go down too far.

[303Guy]

1874Sharps

The 25-303 sits right between the 250 Savage and the 257 Roberts. Operating pressure is theoretically the same as either of those. But being a rather flexi-action, it would likely be best to keep pressure to the 303 Brit SAAMI levels. Mine has a long barrel so with the slower powder I am using I think my 85 grainers are close to 3100fps. Maybe less as pressure indications are moderate to mild. Those Nosler ballistic tips knock 'em down like lightning! I've seldom seen a critter expire so suddenly! (No twitching and every time). And with my supressor I get zero felt recoil. It's a great caliber! (I might have mentioned that a few times. :mrgreen: )

Runfiverun

I hadn't considered softening the noses - great idea, thanks! I couldn't tell my 25 wound from the 22 LR wound that the turkey in question had (but I think it was the one with more blood and stuff and in a more critical spot). Most certainly not Nostler ballistic tip performance!

[barrabruce]

:redneck: There was 3x 303-25 's at the rannge today.All going cheap.
Mine as well. :)
I can only get around 1 1/2 inch groups at 100 yrds with it with 100 grns jacketed .. but I think its more the shooter.
I may keep it for a loner gun if some one needs a gun to shoot with.

I like that report. maybe I can cast a few up for mine one day.

DO you have to size your cases to get 'em back in again???

Mine seems too tight but I suppose new brass may help.

Cheers
barra

[303Guy]

No sizing needed. (Other than the neck to hold the bullet - enen the patched boolit). Are you firing your cases dry or lightly lubed? That little trick makes a big difference but should be any different to the 303. Those 303-25's going cheap - I'd be interested (I am a bit short of money right now though). Specially on a No.4 action.

Something I should mension about my 303-25. It is fitted with a small over-barrel suppressor (which adds 50mm to the length) which no doubt dampens barrel vibration, enhancing accuracy potential. (If illegal, the 'suppressor' could be left open ended as a muzzle blast deflector/muzzle weight).

Why would those other fellows be selling their 303-25's?

[sawbuck]

303guy,
what exactly is your paper cup seating method ? if you'd be so kind to explain

[303Guy]

Yes of course.

First I cut a strip of paper hand towel about an inch wide. That I cut into width-ways strips - and here I go metric - 4mm wide. These get placed in a 'paper cut seating tool' which is placed onto of a charged case in the case tray and the 'cup is seated with a rod. Whith the rod still inplace the tool is removed. The 'petals are then folded back and a bullet place in the mouth. The bullet is seated in a seating die I made that does no interfere with the 'petals'. The petals are then cut off by placing the mouth of an unsized 223 case over the bullet and twisting. The bullet is then dipped into molten 'waxy-lube' for the cound of nine. That gives the bullet time to heat up and for 'waxy-lube' to soak up into the cup without soaking around the bulet base. The bullet is then lifted above the lube pot and allowed to drip until the wax freezes. The exposed 'waxy-lube' is wiped off and returned to the pot and it's done! That bullet will not move under normal conditions. That means magazine good.

With all the right bits made up it is quite a simple procedure but the wax dipping takes a little time. But then, there is no case sorting, trimming or checking for insipient head separation, neck sizing nor even checking case length. there is also no time spent traveling to the local gunshop to buy new brass cause the brass lasts forever or until it gets lost in the long grass, whichever comes first!:mrgreen:

There is an upside and a downside to this seating method. The upside is that performance levels can be increased quite substantially if one uses Lil'Gun - the Holy Grail of hornet powders. The downside is that if one uses Lil'Gun a heavy bullet is needed to give the required 'back pressure' to burn it properly. Quite stiff loads are also required to get consistand combustion. I don't see a heavy bullet as being a downside since it's my preference anyway.

The paper towel strips ready to be inserted & done.
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-133F_edited.jpg

The seated bullet before the petals are cut off.
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-168F_edited.jpg

This one thows the tool over athe case neck in the tray.
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-796F.jpg

In my case, I use a compressed powder charge so the powder gets compressed to the correct depth befor seating the 'cup'. The cup is then pressed in hard onto the powder. The bullet seats down firmly onto the powder.

[sawbuck]

thanks , the pic's and the description were perfect
seems this will only work w a generous chamber cutting ?
I like this idea a lot and will check some of the chambers of my 45-70's and see if I have a likely candidate

[303Guy]

I'm not sure my hornet has a generous neck portion of the chamber. It has a .223 bore and I was seating .224 bullets. The paper hand towel can be separated into single ply for a tighter fitting boolit.


I know it work in my 303-25 which I assume has a SAAMI spec chamber (if there is such a thing for it) or at least a reasonably close fitting chamber.

Something else that does work if the clearance between boolit/bullet and neck is very small is simply seating the boolit in the unsized neck and dipping that into molten 'waxy-lube'. The 'waxy-lube' draws up into the clearance by capillary action and 'glues' the boolit/bullet in place. This should work well for oversize boolits with or without lube grooves. I would prefill the lube grooves then seat then hot dip. (I used to do this with the hornet and to stop the bullet from falling out and into the hot-pot, I made a wire clip thing to hold it in place). This trick would work just fine in a single shot. It worked for magazine feed with the zero recoil hornet. I didn't pursue that one because the bullet to neck gap was too large for good bullet alignment.

[sawbuck]

Thanks for your reply
I'm wondering about zero neck tension verses quite a few of my different calibers that respond so positively to substantial neck tension.
I like the idea of this method and can see that it would work wonderfully well in a one shooter and maybe 30 cal. repeater w/ light-moderate loads as long as they were nearing 100% pwdr capacity ( which is hard to achieve w/o filler )so the question is what accuracy are you able to achieve consistently ?

[303Guy]

With the hornet, accuracy was pretty good and velocity seemed pretty consistant. The problem is I didn't do much range testing once I got to working levels in the hornet. Field tests indicated MOA or better - consistantly. I wouldn't bet my life on it but at least it was as good as the best results on the range. I had a problem with range testing in that there was always some wind and I'm sure the wind caused the strange groupings I was getting. (Not very scientific I know but heaps of dead rabbits and hares and magpies!)

The 303 Brit did not show any accuracy benefits from paper cup seating but no fall off in accuracy either.

There is a possible benefit of the zero neck tension method and that is consistancy. Positive tension can vary somewhat but zero tension remains zero! Some folks have had to resort to crimping their hornet loads to get Lil'Gun to shoot accurately. I got mine to shoot accurately with heavy bullets and heavy charges.

Thinking of it, don't some bench rest shooters use zero neck tension? They hand press the bullet into the case and reload on the range - I think?

[sawbuck]

Well I was going to try it anyway but when you brought up the bench rest practices ..you're right , little or no neck tension. So I'll give it a try and might find out that it'll cure another issue I've got

[303Guy]

I have accidently made a new 120gr mold for the 25 (it started out as a 22 Hornet swage die and just happens to cast the 120gr cores to suit the 25). It needs a little lapping to take it to the optimum size but is pretty close already. The die/mold can be used as nose pour or base pour.

http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-311F.jpg

This is patched with printer paper.