Mould for new 303 British barrel

[Brithunter]

The barrel in question is a 54 vintage BSA Five groove 303 barrel for their sporterised P-14's the Models D & E. Depsite being made and proofed in 1954 it's new and I believe as a bonus it's a "Ball Burnished" barrel :grin: so it's smooooooooooooooooooth.

This morning I pounded and rolled a soft lead 0.358" bullet down in diameter and then hammered it into the muzzle to get a form of the rifling to measure. As the base deformed so much I only got a 0.320" length of bright shiny slug but it was enough to measure. The bore size in 0.301" but the groove size in 0.315" so we have 0.007" deep grooves. Not uncommon as I have found.

I test fired it for function and to see what the chamber looks like using 10 old loads I had in the cabinet with a 205 grain Gas Checked cast 0.312" daimeter commercial cast bullet, these have a bore riding front portion that measures 0.302" and after firing the 10 rounds I had on hand with Reloader 7 in them on cleaning the bore some slivers of lead were evident.

So I need to sort out a suitable bullet for this 303 rifle with it's new barrel the question is what? It's obviously needs to be of at least 0.316" diameter and so far I have not seen a mould of that oen offered. So do I:-

1) Use 0.308" bullets and paper patch them?

2) Go for a custom mould with the costs involved?

3) Buy a 32-20 or 32-40 mould and size down the 0.005" required?

4) Give up and start shooting jacketed through it?

If we ignore #4 and stay with the intention of using cast bullets I am looking for a weight of 180- 210 grains and would like to get the velocity to 2000fps or even a smidging more as a real possibilty although it would not need to be that high all the time but I am assuming this will require the use of a gas check? or can this be done with a plain based bullet?

I have a Saeco and a Lyman 450 Lubesizer neither of which I have used and apart from casting the few 0.358" bullets that I paper patched to try in the 9.3x57 I am new to casting. So your ideas, suggestions and help would be appreciated :-D.

[sav300]

Hi,Brithunter,try cast bullet engineering here in Australia for a sizeable number of sizes and designs for the .303.

[Andy_P]

..So I need to sort out a suitable bullet for this 303 rifle with it's new barrel the question is what? It's obviously needs to be of at least 0.316" diameter and so far I have not seen a mould of that one offered. So do I:-

3) Buy a 32-20 or 32-40 mould and size down the 0.005" required?

I have a Saeco and a Lyman 450 Lubesizer neither of which I have used and apart from casting the few 0.358" bullets that I paper patched to try in the 9.3x57 I am new to casting. So your ideas, suggestions and help would be appreciated :-D.

I have sized down 32 Special and 8mm bullets to 0.316" and they worked "ok" in "fat" Lee Enfields and Mosin Nagants. I used a custom Lee style push-through sizer (thanks Buckshot!) to size them down, as I found that my RCBS Lubesizer could not deal with sizing down upwards of 0.007" (especially with an 8mm gascheck in place - though I tried them without gaschecks as well). I've done the same with jacketed - and used lots of Imperial sizing Wax. You know the bore size, and 0.316" should be fine, but be careful that your chamber neck will accomodate a 0.316" bullet and still leave at least 0.002" of clearance with the seated bullet. If not, you'll need to outside neck turn until it does.

I say "ok" because you end up with a bullet that needs to be seated very deep in the case, unless you have an extraordinarily long throat, and you have no bore-riding portion, and lots of contact area without lube grooves. Don't be discouraged, it's worth a try and you could use the custom lube-sizer anyways. I ended up with a CBE Mold and a Mountain Molds custom, and am presently in on the 311365 Group Buy (for a 0.316").

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=80372

[Maven]

What sav300 said!

[andrew375]

Got a person in my club with a 1908 SMLE which has .317" groove dia. He uses the Lee 8 m.m. mould and sizes to .318" with great success.

[longbow]

So I need to sort out a suitable bullet for this 303 rifle with it's new barrel the question is what? It's obviously needs to be of at least 0.316" diameter and so far I have not seen a mould of that oen offered. So do I:-

1) Use 0.308" bullets and paper patch them? That may work and does for many but so far I find I need a smaller boolit at about 0.304".

2) Go for a custom mould with the costs involved? What sav300 said about CBE. I have not used one but have heard good things and they make the size you need or NOE has a group buy on for a 311365 clone in diameters up to 0.316":

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=80372

3) Buy a 32-20 or 32-40 mould and size down the 0.005" required? Possible

4) Give up and start shooting jacketed through it? NOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Alternately you could lap a Lyman 314299 to suit. I lapped one from 0.313" to 0.316".

Longbow

[Artful]

I looked for a used fatter 30 for my 303 - watch the used sales & swap board http://castboolits.gunloads.com/forumdisplay.php?f=18

NOE has done some group buy molds in the past check see if they have anything available
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=80119

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=22290&stc=1&thumb=1&d=1273968508
NOE 316299

[Brithunter]

Thank you all for the ideas and suggestions.

Hmmmm I had not considered the throat issue so I had better get some cerrosafe and do a chamber cast methinks and find out exactly what we are dealing with in that respect before I jump ina nd buy a mould only to find that i cannot use it due to thorat dimension issues :cry:.

What I find amazing is the amount of variations in the shoulder area of the various 303 Chambers. In this photo the case on the left has been fired in this new barrel and re-sized, the middle case is just fired in the new barrel and the case on the right is a once fired case that was shot through another rifle:-

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v166/Brithunter/Project%20P-14/P5300139.jpg

It was so long ago that I don't know which one now. For the eagle eyed the cases on the left are S&B the one on the right is from some 150 grain Soft Point PMP. Meanwhile i will look into the other things and once again thank you.

[Fly]

Have you given paper jackets a thought Docone & .303 guy have really helped me with
my Isapore SMLE.Check out the paper jacket form here.
Fly

[GP100man]

How `bout the lee 8mm boolit mold ???

[Brithunter]

Have posted the question in the PP forum meanwhile I will try to order some cerosafe on Tuesday, it's a bank Holiday Monday so tey won't be working, I doubt any of the "local" gunshops would stock it. Cast is not a big thing here and it's a fair distance to the better shops like an 80 mile round trip.

Oh I also brouht some time ago a Lyman (M) neck expanding die in .31 long and a Lee Universal case expanding die so I can flare the necks to accept cast snd PP bullets.

[koehn,jim]

Have you tried the 314299 mold beagled it might come a lot closer to what you want. There is also a groupe buy for the 311365 and they are offering it in 316 diameter. They might go bigger.

[longbow]

Once you are up and running with the new mould I suggest you neck size only to increase brass life. Of course rounds have to be segregated then to suit each rifle.

I am lucky in that I have two No. 5 Lee Enfields and a No. 4 and fired rounds are interchangeable ~ slightly snug in the No. 4 so I just touch the shoulder.

Longbow

[Brithunter]

Once you are up and running with the new mould I suggest you neck size only to increase brass life. Of course rounds have to be segregated then to suit each rifle.

I am lucky in that I have two No. 5 Lee Enfields and a No. 4 and fired rounds are interchangeable ~ slightly snug in the No. 4 so I just touch the shoulder.

Longbow

I doubt I will be that lucky as my 303 rifles are very different in the main. I have an original BSA Model E which has a good barrel although it's slighly worn and is no longer mirror bright. The 0.3035" nose of a cast bullet will slip into the muzzle and the rifle has shot cordite which explains the less than mirror bright bore.

Then this newly re-barreled BSA model C.

Next up is a Parker-hale No4 Supreme (Sporterised No4) which has a mirror bore and nice tight lands too, a 0.3035" cast bullet nose refuses to enter the muzzle.

Then there is a Martini Muscat .303 bore and the cast bullet refuses to enter the muzzle the bore is dark with strange rifling. The carbine is of Belgian manufacture.

Next is the BSA sporting rifle built on a Metford carbine action with cape rib. tis had a brand new "39" dated barrel fitted just before I acquired it and sadly the bore will accept the cast bullet nose so the land diameter is about 0.305" but it's mirror bright having only had a few hundred rounds through it since the new barrel was fitted.

Lastly we have a Century Arms sporterised P-14 the barrel on this is shockingly loose for a new commercially produced barrel. Rifled with Six lands and grooves it measures 0.305" across the lands and 0.315" in the grooves using a digital caliper so not perfect but close enough. This barrel had the tightest chamber I have ever encountered and we had problems with it due to it so I had it reamed to .303 IMP

Those are the current 303's in the stable. Now I will be using either S&B or Winchester brass for the new barrel, I can use R.P brass for another the rest will us HXP 69 or HXP 83 and I have some FNM brass so it's possibly to keep five rifles brass segregated fairly easily. The 303 IMP will be for jacketed bullets so it's out of the equation which makes it doable.

As for sizing I have just e-mailed RCBS about my die as the other day i noticed it's working the brass way too much. A .308 bullet will not enter the sized case and the neck is reduced 0.010" in diameter which i feel is too much. We will see what they have to say but I mst admit I ahve been using it for years and not noticed a problem :confused: meanwhile I will probably buy a Lee Collet die. I already have a Lyman (M) neck expander in .31 long and a while ago picked up a Lee Universal Neck expander die neither of which have been used as yet.


How `bout the lee 8mm boolit mold ???

Sadly it seems that they have dropped the production of the old size mauser (0.318") mould and only list the std 0.323" one and sizing down 0.007" is a bit much don't you think? The price of Lees custom service makes it rather expensive as others do a custom service for less such as LBT.

[dromia]

I shoot a couple of new barreled .303"s, a No 4 MK1 and a No 1 MK111*.

I have six "new" in wax .303" barrels, four for the No1 and two for the No 4s one of which is a two groover. Must get round to unwrapping them and taking chamber/throat/lead/bore slugs.

I ended up getting Veral at LBT to cut me some moulds to chamber throat slugs for each rifle. Great mould but not an easy transaction.

The problem with the new barrel was that there was no throat wear so to get a decent throat fit I ended up with a shorter and lighter boolit than I originally fancied coming out at 198 gns with 20 - 22 BHN alloy.

I was wanting these rifles to shoot at 2200 + fps for long range so I had a demanding application, which Verals boolit delivered on, once I'd got the alloy hardness/elasticity right.

For most other applications up to say 1800 fps then any of the 314299 clones work well if they are at .315" body diameter and the nose riding part is not too loose in the bore.

Although I use a few different 314299 type moulds with good success, I'm not a big fan of bore riding designs in general and much prefer a Loverin.

314299 used to be my go to boolit for any new .303" as that was what I had in a .315" diameter, but now my go to is one of the fat .30s Loverins that we did as GBs here and they are far more forgiving for a starter boolit.

As you say you won't now exactlywhat to try 'till you slug/cast your throat/ lead/bore.

I'll be interested to see what your throat/lead looks like.

[dromia]

BTW I use brass batched to each rifle (I like PPU, HXP and Kynoch but I only have 100 of them) and a Lee Collet die. I use a Redding body die if I need to size the case body occassionaly.

The Lyman "M" die is the best way to go for case neck expanding, it certainly helps with concentricity.

[m.chalmers]

Give Jim a ring at CBE.
http://www.castbulletengineering.com/page001.html
He will be shipping the 315 218 in a week or so. Take a look at the pic!

I also run a NOE 316299 and the old Lyman 314299. I never could pass up a rifle in 303 British :)

[Brithunter]

I shoot a couple of new barreled .303"s, a No 4 MK1 and a No 1 MK111*.

I have six "new" in wax .303" barrels, four for the No1 and two for the No 4s one of which is a two groover. Must get round to unwrapping them and taking chamber/throat/lead/bore slugs.

I ended up getting Veral at LBT to cut me some moulds to chamber throat slugs for each rifle. Great mould but not an easy transaction.

The problem with the new barrel was that there was no throat wear so to get a decent throat fit I ended up with a shorter and lighter boolit than I originally fancied coming out at 198 gns with 20 - 22 BHN alloy.

I was wanting these rifles to shoot at 2200 + fps for long range so I had a demanding application, which Verals boolit delivered on, once I'd got the alloy hardness/elasticity right.

For most other applications up to say 1800 fps then any of the 314299 clones work well if they are at .315" body diameter and the nose riding part is not too loose in the bore.

Although I use a few different 314299 type moulds with good success, I'm not a big fan of bore riding designs in general and much prefer a Loverin.

314299 used to be my go to boolit for any new .303" as that was what I had in a .315" diameter, but now my go to is one of the fat .30s Loverins that we did as GBs here and they are far more forgiving for a starter boolit.

As you say you won't now exactlywhat to try 'till you slug/cast your throat/ lead/bore.

I'll be interested to see what your throat/lead looks like.

Ahhh the Lincs Firearms Licensing don't like spare barrels :groner: very sore point that! Now I hope to be able to get a high velocity with the cast, 2200fps sounds good :smile:, but as you say we are stumped until I get that throat dimension. I have the Lyman (M) die in 31 long already.

Now I looked at the CBE site and photo the problem there is the nose bore riding portion is too large for my bore. The bore diameter is 0.302". I just found a cast bullet with a 0.302" nose and it just slides into the muzzle with a gentle push but not under it's own weight. That is unless I misunderstand how it's suppose to work?

I know Veral says chamber casts are a waste of time but I might still get some Cerrosafe and see what mine looks like I see that Midway UK carries it.

Oh dromia I will have to see about my login over at the other forums. new computer and new ISP.

[dromia]

Kevin

making a throat/lead,bore slug is better than cerrosafe in my book, I'm a convert to that method from cerrosafe.

Your right on the bire riding and thats why I'm not too keen on it as you need to get a mould that gives you two diameter to fit your rifle. Its hard enough getting one let alone two. Also if your bore riding part isn't supported by the bore then there the possibilty of slump during ignition to peak pressure.

The graduated diameter loverins can be made to fit the throat by adjusting boolit length so long as you don't have a "forever" throat.

A made to measure mould is the best unless an off the shelf product fits your barrel.

N/land were OK about the barrels but I've gone the RFD route now to help eak out retirement.

Web site should be up soon I hope, its taking longer than anticipated, just got the electronic payment stuff sorted today, my there's a lot of snouts in that trough.

[Brithunter]

Adam,

I have been going over things and once I hear from Veral I will get going on sorting out the throat/bore size and get his slugs to do so. Meanwhile that looks like it's going to take some time them he will have to cut the mould so realistically we are looking at most likely the Autumn for that to get sorted. Sooooooooooooo.

I also asked the questions down in the paper Patching forums and have done a bit with the 577/450 when I had one and played a little with the 9.3mm so to get going quicker am thinking of going that route as I can vary the patch thickness so one bullet will fit most if not all my .303's [smilie=w:.

Just pricing it up and it's going to take little while to get the stuff together. Luckily when I saw a cheap Lyman 450 in Fultons several years back I brought it. never used it but I have it so just need dies and top punch to seat gas Checks. If I buy a Lee 0.308 mould I may be able to play with it in the .30 cals as well.

So firstly I need to get to the wood yard and get some timber and make the bench in the shed. Scree the corner of the floor to level it and build that bench :oops:. Get the lead pot set up and mount the Lyman 450 to the bench. Also mount the Lyman Spar-T press so leaving the Rockchucker set up where it is now. Sort out my lead (it's buried in the garage) and get the mould a new dipper and the sizing dies, gas checks and fluxing compound.

Hmmm better make a list and work through it. this is going to take a month at least to get this all together as I cannot afford it all in one go. Just priced it up at Midway UK and it's around £111 :cry:.

[dromia]

Kevin

PM me your address and I'll send you some PP paper, boolits, lube and gas checks, get you started.

I'll keep my eye open for a dipper.

All you need for fluxing is a dry stick.

[Brithunter]

PM sent............ and than you .


Hmmm what's this dry stick?

I'll order the dipper from Midway along with a couple of other bits. Probably the Lee mould once I decide which one would be best for me. Mind you I'll pop over to Burgh Gunshp and see what he has on the shelf first as he does carry a bit of cast stuff.

[dromia]

All you need to flux is some carbon in the alloy.

For me stirring the alloy when up to temp with a dry stick, old broom handle, dowel, piece of kindling etc does the job champion.

Just make sure its dry.

If you want to be a bit exotic then cedar or similar aromatic woods can gently scent you casting area.

Pat Marlins World famous Flux does that as well as it is aromatic wood shavings.

Far less offensive way of fluxing than using boolit lube, beeswax, candles etc. with their greasy fumes.

[Brithunter]

Ahhh I understand now and as it happens we have a bit of willow that I cut back I'll go save a few bits and let them really dry out and come to think of it I also have a nice dry bit of Apple wood and Hazel.

[AzShooter]

I bought my mold from CBE and it works great. Casts a 220 grain slug at .318 and I size to .317. Solved all my grouping problems.

[Brithunter]

Well have sent an e-mail to CBE asking for price quotes for the :-

316-22PB and the 318-155GC.

Also asking which would be best for my goal. Now we wait [smilie=1:.

Edit:- We didn't have to wait long as I got a reply but it's not so good as CBE cannot make any specials or customs for sometime :-( ......................... Oh why is life so ............................ Complicated :groner: