What the heck?

[Char-Gar]

My project for today was to make a chamber type cast bullet hand seating die for the 30-06. I went through my collection of trashed 30-06 barrels and found a 1917 Enfield barrel with very poor rifling. It was a Winchester bearing the ordance bomb and 3-18 date. The breech end of the barrel was covered with British proof marks, but was clearly marked "30-06".

After the die body was made, polished and readly to be called finished, I droped a 30-06 round into the chamber. Huh! A bunch of the case stuck out of the barrel. I check with a flashlight for any obstruction and there was none.

You guessed it...the chamber is .303 Brit.

Well, I guess I now have a 303 Brit cast bullet seating die, but I will need to ream the remaining portion of the barrel to about .316 instead of the .3125 it is now.

Someboy talk to me about the barrel. I guess it is a P14 barrel, but why was clearly stamped 30-06? It isn't stamped anything know. The section with the marks was turned down and knurled.

[pietro]

My WAG would be that someone reworked a .30-06 barrel to .303 British for expediency or experience, not bothering to mark it.

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[higgins]

I'll take a WAG. It could have been mismarked by an importer. These old rifles have changed hands so many times that there's no way of knowing who marked it, when, or why. I have read of a few U.S. M1917s that were in British service that were marked 30/06 or 30 cal. in paint on the stock (I think) for obvious reasons. It could have been mismarked by the Brits. "30/06" is not the nomenclature in the U.S. system; if mismarked by U.S. military, I think it would have been marked cal. 30 or some other official nomenclature. If you obtained it as a loose barrel it could have been mismarked by the parts supplier. If you frequent military rifle forums, you will note people frequently come up with a mark on a rifle that no one seems to be able to identify definitively.

[Char-Gar]

IIRC we sent a number of 1917s. to England as part of the "lend lease" program during WWII. These 1917s were British proofed and marked as to caliber (30-06) as a part of that proofing and to help our Limey friends knows they were not P14s.

That is what I thought this barrel was..but it contained a .303 Brit. chamber. As part of the conversion to a straight line seating die, I run a .3125 reamer down the remaining part of the barrel to for the bullet guide. In this seater, after reaming there was still visable pitting where the grooves were.

At first I thought these were really deep pits that remained after reamings from .308 to .3125, but now I think this is what is left of the .303 Brit grooves.

The barrel came to me as part of a group of a half dozen old barrels that a friend gave me as he was packing up and moving.

Kinda sorry now I used this barrel as a donor for the seater, but it is too late to do anything about that, other than make a .303 Brit seater.

[jonk]

I'm a bit confused. How is an old barrel with an opened throat going to make a cast bullet seater? I could see how to do this- but it woudl require cutting off the barrel just ahead of the reamed out portion and milling a punch to fit, much like a lee loader.

[Char-Gar]

If you are familiar with the Wilson chamber seating die it is just like that. You cut off the barrel and use four inches of the breech end with the chamber. You turn and knurl it, ream out the rifling of what is left of the bore to one or two thou over the size of the bullet you want to use, and fit an end piece with a plunger turned to fit the reamed out portion of the bore. You turn a base for it all to sit on and there you have it.

In use, you place your charged case with bullet atop in the chamber. Sit the chamber/die on top of the base and push down the plunger to seat the bullet. You can use an arbor press or a mallet of some sort. If you have done everything correct you have straight line bullet seating as the bullet's cannot be seated crooked.

I ream the bore (with a chucking reamer in the lathe) for cast bullets usually 3 to 4 thousands larger than jacketed and this takes care of any throat there may be in the barrel. As least, it has thus far. I ream 30 caliber barrels to .3125 and get a uniform size from the end of the die to the beginning of the chamber. I have made them in 30-30 (Winchester barrel), 30-40 (Krag military barrel) 30-06 ( 03 Barrel) and now this .303 Brit. Next up is an 8X57 Mauser. The 303 Brit will be reamed .317 and the 8 Mauser .327. This will give me 2 thousands over the bullet size I use (.315 and .325).

Like I said, just like a Wilson and other chamber type seating dies. Wilson starts with 1" stock and their dies are 1 inch straight from top to bottom. Mine end up with three diamters. I turn on the threads and that is one section. I then turn the large portion just ahead of the receiver straight and knurl it. I then turn the rest of the barrel straight down to when it meets the knurled portion. It takes a little math to figure out the length of the seating stem which I turn from a 3/8 NF machine bolt. I center drill the end to provide a recess for the bullet tip. If I want to use a flat nose bullet I turn another but don't center drill it.

I am a slow worker and it takes about a day to make the entire four pieces that make up the die. base, body, stem/plunger and top cap. Other than the labor, I have less than a dollar in each die.

[jonk]

Makes sense. It sounds just like a Lee loader except the bullet is seated first rather than through the top of the die. It would improve on that system in that you wouldn't distort the bullet or size it down going through the Lee seater.

I've heard of people using chamber reamers to make them up out of steel rods, same idea I suppose. Very cool. Learned a new one today.