TL 314 90g in .303Br?

[badge176]

Has anyone tried this light bullet as a "gallery" or small game load? Any success/ tradegy stories out there? If I've failed to spot an earlier post or sticky, then please point me in that direction...

Thank you

[Stoats]

Yes, 3.2gn of fast powder (Bullseye, N310, Ba10) does the job. Seating the bullet is difficult to do without damage though.

100 m is right on the limit, and the odd bullet will disappear occasionally. This problem does not occur at 50 m.

[1874Sharps]

I loaded up a gallery load with 7 grains of Unique and a 75 grain Lee LRN 32 ACP boolit. Sloats is right about the range. At 50 yards it was satisfactory and even at 100 it was so-so. The purpose of loading them was really for a CAS Wild Bunch match where there is a velocity cap on the rounds. To minimize difficulty with boolit seating I flared the mouth a bit. This cartridge is not going to win the long range shooting match, but it is fun and fine within the scope of its limits!

[Larry Gibson]

3 to 3.2 gr of Bullseye is indeed the load. Velocity will be 800 - 900 fps depending on barrel. I lightly lube them with LLA, let them dry and then run them base first through a .314 Lee sizer. This keeps the bases square to the bore. I use a bushing die so I get proper neck tension and do not have problems seating them. I also have found that cases fired with other light loads the neck will not expand fully. Many times there is enough neck tesnion so the TL90-314-SWC (the Hornady 90 gr swaged lead .32 bullet is identical and works as well) can be thumb seated. I also find the necks with this load do no normally expand and need no sizing for many, many, many firings. I simply wide the case off with a paper towel, deprime, reprime, charge with powder, thamb seat bullet and the cartridge is ready again. I use a Lee priming tool, Lee universal deprime die, Lee hand press and seating die (for those bullets that require a little more than thumb seating) when traveling. I also like to use those cases that show that little speckled ring of incipient case head seperation for these loads. With such low pressured loads i have never had a case then comletely seperate. thus i get continued use of such cases that are not good for other loads.

I regularly plink with my loads at the 200 yard berm and accuacy is holding fine to at least that range. From the two posts above I surmise the bullets are being sized down too much by the sized necks during seating. I had the same accuracy problem initially when I used NS'd cases that had tension for .311 bullets. Once I went to minimal or no sizing the accuracy greatly improved.

I usually cast mine from recovered range lead witha bit of tin added and they are of 8-10 BHN. I also shoot many of these through my other .31 cal rifles (7.65s, 7.62x39, 7.62x54R) and all of my .30 cals. I additional run the .314 sized bullets through a .311 sizer for the .30 cals. With a 6 hole Lee mould I cast thousands of these as I also use them in my .32 S&WL and my .32 H&R. It is a very good bullet for the "cat's sneeze" loads in the rifles and a good bullet in the revolvers.

Larry Gibson

[TAWILDCATT]

I have a winchester adapter to shoot 32 acp out of the 303.the patent date is 1898.I think the thing might date to early 1900s.I have them for 30/06 and 30/40 krag,and 8 mm.

[Intel6]

I used it for gallery loads in .308 and it worked fine. Then I got in on the original .30 soup can 6 cavity group buy and started using those instead since I could make more of them faster. 3.0 grains fo a fast pistol powder (I used AA#2) and they were good fun to shoot.

Neal in AZ

[1874Sharps]

Larry,

I will have to try just thumb seating in a fired, unsized case. The experiments I conducted were indeed in neck sized cases and it is very possible that was sizing the boolits down to the point that accuracy deteriorated. Wahoo, something else to try!