New paper patch barrel .303 British

[Brithunter]

Just got a new barrel fitted to a BSA sporterised P-14 rifle (Model C) now the barrel is actually of 1954 vintage but new and the bore is mint and smoooooooooooooooooth especially as it's been "Ball Burnished" by A.G. Parker and is so stamped at the muzzle.

Now the drawbacks the bore diameter is 0.301" but the groove diameter is 0.315" we don't know what the throat measurement is as yet. Now I fired 10 rounds loaded with a commercially cast gas Checked 205 grain bullet sized to 0.311" with a bore riding nose diameter of 0.302" and after the test firing/function testing when I cleaned the bore I got some lead slivers ot of it. Not surprising with the bullet being undersize, oh the propellent was Reloader 7.

Now as this barrel is new the thinking is of keeping it as a cast/PP bullet rifle as after all we have a pristine barrel to play with.

I am new to cast but have used PP bullets some years ago in 577/450 Swinburns patent sporting rifle and tried a few through a .458" Win mag and a couple from a 9.3x57 but depsite that I have an electric pot and a Lyman 450 and a Saeco lubesizer I have never used them. Just collected them for when the casting got underway and now it seems is the time.

I would like a bullet weight of 180- 210 grains and it being capable of a velocity of 2000fps+ the question is what do I use and what size should it be?

[303Guy]

Is that a two-groove or five? The .301 bore sounds suspicious. I wonder if it came out of the Springfield armoury? (Might have some 17 Enfield influence?) Anyway, whatever the explanation, I have just recently found that it is not necessary to seal the bore (groove) with a paper patched boolit.

Check out my thread on two-groove patching.

[Brithunter]

It's a commercially produced BSA manufactured Five groove barrel circa 1954. BSA obtained a load of P-14's and P-17's from the War Office when they were clearing out some depot. A lot were only good for parts donors but between 1946 and 1954 they built sporting rifles on the ones that were good enough.

Models A-E with "E" being the highest and they had new walnut stocks and new BSA made barrels. The rifles were offered in .303, .270 Win and .30 Springfield. I think the .270 as it required a new barrel was only offered in the Models "D" & "E".

Production stopped after BSA got the Hunter model into full scale production.

[docone31]

The Lee 303B mold, sized to .308 will work great with that barrel.
Don't worry about throat. This is smokeless, not BP.
Size the casting to .308, then wrap with two wraps of notebook paper. Fire unsized. Should do well.
That caliber is a joy to patch for.

[Brithunter]

Thank you.

Looks like I will have to look at setting the old lead pot up. I see Midway UK has these Lee moulds in stock:-

Lee 2-Cavity Bullet Mold C312-185-1R 303 British (312 Diameter) 185 Grain 1 Ogive Radius Gas Check
Product : 562844

Lee 2-Cavity Bullet Mold C309-180-R 30 Caliber (309 Diameter) 180 Grain 1 Ogive Radius Gas Check
Product : 107571

Lee 2-Cavity Bullet Mold C309-200-1R 30 Caliber (309 Diameter) 200 Grain 1 Ogive Radius Gas Check
Product : 183267

If I can Paper patch a .308" dia bullet then perhaps I should buy the 0.309" mould? but which weight/ 180 grains of 200 grains? ................................ Hmmm

Then I could also try the bullet in one of my .30 cals :bigsmyl2: at a later date

Of course I would need a sizing die and top punch to seat the gas Checks anyway in the Lyman 450. Oh dear this is getting expensive ............................... fast :oops: Looks like I will have to spread these purchases out some :cry: me and my bright ideas the little lot to get going would cost £111. Oh well it will have to be one bit at a time just liks cash sung it.

[Multigunner]

Ball burnishing increased minor diameter by about .001, so this barrel would have been .300 in minor dia when delivered.
The barrel may have been rejected due to undersized minor dia and been held in a war reserve status for emergency use till folded in to the sporting rifle trade.

SAID drawings for the P-14 gives maximum groove depth as .008 so a .315 bore while at the larger end of the spectrum is not as loose as it might have been, and I suspect the grooves were lead lapped to a high finish before the ball burnishing procedure. Lapping would increase Major diameter by about .001 to .002 , so the bore may have been a .313-.314 when it originally left the factory.

[Stoats]

The 309 moulds will probably be a bit narrow on the nose, although at 301 you might get away with it.

I would recommend one of the Cast Bullet Engineering oversized moulds without a patch (Google them) and crack on from there.

I'm currently trying to get a 318 groove diameter Enfield to shoot at anything over 1100 ft./s and I'm going to resort to paper patching the Lyman (I don't buy Lee moulds any more after being burned too many times) 314 diameter mould.

By the way, if you keep the velocity to around 1100 ft./s and the powder extremely fast (Bullseye, Ba10, N310 etc) you can get away with absolute murder (no gas checks, a bit of flashing on the bases, drastically undersized bullets, Lee liquid Alox) with reasonable accuracy and no leading.

[Brithunter]

Thanks for the tips. I checked CBE's web site and they say they are not exceptign orders liek mine right now. As for velocities of 1100 not much interest in sub sonics right now.

Now as far as I can find out BSA didn't make any P-14 or p-17 barrels until after the war. During the war they made the Lee Enfield barrels for the No1's and No4's along with those for the BESA and Browning machine guns so the theory does not quite fly. The problem is we will never know why this barrel ended up with parkers to be ball burnished then back at BSA's as that's where I believe Knibbs got the stock from........................................ strange but no matter we will just accept it for what it is and work with it.

The only moulds I have are a pair of older Lyman moulds and handles them being :-

35875- a flat based flat point bullet probably meant for the lever actions?

35897- a gas checked tapered nose bullet mention in some of Ken Walters pet Loads with the .35 Whelan amongst others.

I picked them up at a Bisley gun show several years ago now thinking they would do for paper patching and using in the 9.3x57 Mauser cartridge however the Husqvarna model 46 I have has gorooves of 0.370":confused:.

As funds are tight the Lee mould sounds like a good way to go and then acquire another different and better mould later on once I can afford to.

[303Guy]

For what it's worth, because of my two-groove being a bit challanginge to patch for, I tried a tight fitting patch in the throat and found base drag feathering and strange patterns on the seated section of boolit. I eventually tried a one diameter under bore sized core patched to under groove size but still a snug fit in the throat and that seemed to work with little or no rifling shearing and no patch failure but full patch disintigration. The alloy was quite soft - can't tell you in BHN but soft enough to bump up. I can't say how far up the nose the boolit bumps up as that bit gets destroyed in the catch medium - the velocity being reasonably high but not hyper-sonic in any way. I did use wheat bran filler so that's prolly why there was no flame cutting. This will be my next range test.

Oh, I have this theory that the smoother the bore the higher the velocity the pacthed boolit can take or that even may be required to get full confetti but that would be alloy hardness dependant too.

I've found that a light lubing of the patched boolit by rolling on the case lube pad helps a bit and at least does no harm. I haven't tried the wax emulsion lubes so I can'r comment there but may folks use it successfully. It seems one does not want to fill the air voids in the patch - the trapped air plays a roll. (Case lube seems to work as does wax lubes).

[Brithunter]

Thank you,

Well I just had this crazy idea, took a sheet of lined note paper which is 0.003" thick and cut a strip of it just long enough to go around one of those commercial cast 205 grn 0.312" bullets. I de-capped a fired case using a Lee Universal De-Capping die and flared the neck slightly with a Lyman (M) die. in the morning once the patch has dried I will see if it will fit into the unsized neck of the cartridge and if it does If the cartridge will chamber.

If it does I will patch 1/2 dozen then load them and see how they shoot. Patched this way the bullet measures 0.3172 but as it dries it might shrink a bit more. I will see as I am sure I have soem paper that's only 0.0025" thick ......................................... Fingers crossed.

[303Guy]

I made 'boolit chambering guage' by fitting a bolt through the back of a case and setting it so as to hold a boolit flush at the base of the neck. Firstly, a boolit has to fit into the neck and then it has to chamber without due force. The boolit may stay behind in the throat which OK - in fact, good. (This case neck was sized so as to only just fit the rifle chamber). That's for my 25/303. For my other Lee Endfield's in 303, I use a gauged brass rod. (It has two markings, one for the No.4's and one for the No.I's. It's not difficult to get the correct depth - simply measure from the face of a chambered, fired case to the reference point and add the length from case base to neck base.

[Brithunter]

Welll my little experiment didn't work :roll: the 0.312" bullets are just too big to do this with even with 0.0025" thick paper.

So it's back to the drawing board and plan to get some 0.308" bullets and try again.

[docone31]

I had to send my dies back to Lee to have them modified.
After that, I could just reload with them. I have designated dies, one set for patching, and one for jacketed.