7.7x63 die set

[Wayne Smith]

Ladies and Gentlemen

I have a 14 year old friend (he and his mom sing in the choir with us) who has his granddad's Arisaka 99 with mum that has had a 30-06 reamer run up it. I have e-mailed ch4d for the size die and possibly a Lyman M type die. I would eventually like to put together a die set for him.

Does anyone have an orphan 30-06 bullet seat die that needs a home??

I will be teaching him to reload. He's a good kid with a single mom and a couple of us in Church are working with him. Two of the guys are taking him hunting, turkey, squirrel, and eventually deer. I hope to get him shooting cast out of this and take it hunting with a boolit he's cast and reloaded.

[Echo]

I have a bunch of dies laying around - I'll see what I have.

Echo the ex-shrink

[Wayne Smith]

Thanks, Echo. I do to, and some of them orphans, but not that one. I'll leave this up for a while but if no one has one I'll get one off Midway or MidSouth.

[jonk]

I'm a bit confused. The only modification needed over standard 30-06 dies is to expand to take a .311" bullet, right? This brings up a few concerns:

1. Will the chamber accept a .311" bullet without brass reaming or neck turning? Brass reaming is a step for more than a beginner. Then too, that presupposes it even has a .311" bore.

2. Why not just swap the expander ball/rod in a standard 30-06 set with that from a 7.7 jap set, rather than order a pricey custom job? Or size in a standard 06 set and then run into a Lyman .31M die.

3. Which brings us to the seater. If I were going to order any part custom, this would be it, to prevent the bullet from binding. Even then my 30-06 dies will seat a .311 bullet without issue so I don't know as I'd do it without trying it first.

Sounds like an interesting project though.

[45 2.1]

I have a 14 year old friend (he and his mom sing in the choir with us) who has his granddad's Arisaka 99 with mum that has had a 30-06 reamer run up it. I have e-mailed ch4d for the size die and possibly a Lyman M type die. I would eventually like to put together a die set for him.


Best be carefull with that combination..........seriously. A modified Jap chamber will be quite large in the rear and my present several problems. Do not load anything past medium loads in it. It will work for cast, but the sight issue will be problemsome.

[3006guns]

There's another possiblity. If you can locate an unmodified Arisaka, compare the width of the barrel shoulders. If the barrel was set back the shoulder on your friend's rifle will be narrower and this was the proper way to rechamber. I have just such a rifle.

I have another that had the barrel set back exactly one thread, with the chamber face shortened the same amount and the extractor cut deepened. Result....it shoots 7.65 Mauser beautifully. No rechambering needed.

As far as bullet size, many of these will slug OVER .311 so you need to know the throat dimensions. A chamber cast might be in order here, although I suspect that j words for the .303 British would work just fine to get him started.

[Wayne Smith]

Thanks, I think I need to hold off and use my existing 30-06 set with a .311 expander, load some bullets with medium loads and fire form some cases. I'll also do a chamber cast to see just what the throat, if any, is. The bore seems to be between .314 and .315 from a .36 cal ball pushed through it, but almost impossible to measure. Seems to have odd rifling.

This appears to be a last ditch barrel, very rough turning externally to the extent it looks threaded, screwed into an earlier action because it has the mum still on it. My information is that the last ditch actions never had the mum to begin with.

Sights, it has a block screwed to the barrel with a V cut into it and the front sight is a normal military point. I doubt that it ever had the ladder sight with the wings.

[MtGun44]

I beleive that they used the English Metford form on the rifling, maybe an odd number
of grooves, too. Boy, .315 is a hog. It'll probably take a .317 or .318 boolit to make it
happy. The good news is that you can beagle a mold up to get that.

Bill

[6.5 mike]

Wayne, some one modifed the rear sight, mine & others iv'e seen are fixed peep type. Mine has the mum, lightly ground but there, & the barrel looks like what you said, threaded on the outside, lol.

[Wayne Smith]

Does the fixed peep have the ladder and wings or just a fixed peep way out on the barrel?