need help slugs to .318

[adrians]

hi ,my gew 88 with a great bore slugs to 318.
i cast many 323 with soft lead , my question is how do i get some of them 323 bullets down to a satisfactory size to be used in my gew 1888?
the 323,s are gc. can i get a lee sizer at about 319/320 that will seat a 323 gc or is this out of the question?. if not what can i do?
(i have some norma 318's but they wont last forever lol.) please any help/advice would be awesome .thanks , adrians[smilie=b:

[Buckshot]

..............With the majority of cast lead loads you can simply size to the throat and you'll be fine. What dies are you using to load for it now?

...............Buckshot

[adrians]

morning buckshot.
the dies i use now are for my mausers in .323 i have a set of lyman 8x57,s .
for loading the gew 88's i have a set of lee 8x57 with the "decapping pin" sized down to .318 whitch i did at home with the help of a drill and fine sand paper,obviously the .323 with the gas chacks on them won,t fit into my sized down 318 necks (maybe if i left the gc,s off they might fit if i chamfer the inside rim but im afraidthe .005 diff may be too big for the 318 bore ,heck i don.t know i,m still trying to learn and the way its shaping up i have a great long wa.aa.y to go lol).
anyway it,s 550 am here in arkansas and i have to get ready for the daily GRIND so i,ll get gone .
thanks for the quick response and keep em comming ,yall have a great day adrians.[smilie=b:
oh i told a lie !my 45-70 dies are lyman . i use redding for my 323 mausers (full lenghtsizing). sorry its still early.

[Calamity Jake]

Get a Lee push thru sizer at .320.
Put the GC on and fill the grooves in your boolit with lube, completely full, then push thru the .320 sizer.
Filling the grooves full before sizing keeps them from collasping.

[chboats]

adrians +1 to what Buckshot said about the throat. Slug the throat and you may find that you don't have to size down as far as you think. I have a 7.65 Argentine that the throat is .323 and it shoots great with boolits sized to .323 and a bore that looks like 100 grit sand paper.

Carl

[Dutch4122]

Try measuring the inside neck diameter of a casing fired in that rifle. Then size to .001" under that measurement. Chances are you'll find that measurment to be a lot closer to .323" than .318"

Hope this helps,

[adrians]

thanks guys for the quick responses to my ? ,i will try to do as advised and let yall know what happens .
oh i forgot to mention last night i placed one of my cast 8mm /.323 dia cartridges in my gew and to my suprise it chambered without any real effort at all ,when i looked at the lead "pill" it wasn't marked at all.
does this mean if it chambers it just might be o.k to shoot that soft lead and hope it makes it out the other end without removing my ugly mug in the process?
:twisted: [smilie=w::twisted:

[Buckshot]

oh i forgot to mention last night i placed one of my cast 8mm /.323 dia cartridges in my gew and to my suprise it chambered without any real effort at all ,when i looked at the lead "pill" it wasn't marked at all.

Both about what I figured would happen :-)

does this mean if it chambers it just might be o.k to shoot that soft lead and hope it makes it out the other end without removing my ugly mug in the process?
:twisted: [smilie=w::twisted:

Yup, just make sure the case has enough room to release the slug. Do as Dutch4122 suggested and see what you've got.

...............Buckshot

[BABore]

No worries at all as long as you work up your loads and your gun is capable. I do the same things as Dutch4122 mentioned. In my VZ-24 for instance. The groove is 0.323 and bore is 0.312. My chamber throat will allow for a 0.327 boolit. My case neck will allow for a 0.333 boolit. I size my boolits to 0.327 to fill the throat. Since the case neck is still quite sloppy, I went to reforming commercial 30-06 case to 8mm. Cases get thicker as you move toward the base. As the 8mm is shorter than the "06, the reformed brass ends up with a thicker neck than normal cases. In my case it increased the neck thickness by 0.003 per side or 0.006" total. Exactly what I needed to make it a perfect fit for the rear of my 0.327 boolit. At the same time I measured the actual chamber length. It was 0.075" longer than nominal brass length. I ended up trimming my reformed brass 0.050" longer than spec. This gives you a better grip and control of the seated boolit. All this allows the boolit only one place to go, straight down the bbl. There's no chance of the pressure shoving the boolit base to one side of the case neck as it expands or cockeyed in the throat. A final tweak is to only partially size, or neck size the brass after fireforming. This allows the round to be centered in the chamber rather than lying on the bottom of it. The end result is accuracy. Doesn't matter whether it's a 15.5 grain load of Unique or a 50 something grain load of Reloder 19. You work it up like any other load. Your bbl make for a very efficient sizing die with cast. It also doesn't matter if the boolit is soft or hard, works the same.

[jonk]

Now if you ever shoot jacketed bullets, then I'd size to .318......but for cast, if it chambers, let her rip.

[budman46]

adrians,

lee will custom make any dia. bullet sizing die you want, but why don't you just buy a standard .314" die and hone it out yourself? slot a brass rod with a hacksaw, chuck it in a drill, fit some emery cloth and hone the die, test sizing 8mm diameter boolits until you get .319-.320" readings.

budman

[GunnyJohn]

I have an Ideal mold #320366 and a 320 sizer die. It's a single cavity. I couldn't find it listed in my lyman manual but it is pointed gas checked and appears to drop a 170/180 grain Boolit??? Don't really know. Any way if you think it might work for you let me know and we'll work something out.

[Multigunner]

The .32 Winchester Special was normally loaded with a .321 bullet.
You might find a suitable boolit mold for that cartridge which should throw bullets of about the diameter you'd want.

Remington had used .32 WS bullets when they developed their stepped down 8mm loads.
The .321 bullets were soft enough that they didn't cause excessive pressures in bores as tight as .318.

Not sure but I think .32-40 bullets are the same .321 diameter.

Bullet diameter can make a great deal of difference when hard jacketed bullets and full power loads are used.

An article on these rifles mentioned that the German proof houses had many Gew88 rifles fail proof when the then standard .323 bullet was used, but they apparently had no such problem when the same proof loads were used with the smaller diameter bullets.

A tight chamber neck can cause excessive pressures if it interferes with bullet release. A chamber with barely enough clearance when clean can bind the neck if heavily fouled.

[adrians]

gunny, p.m sent:mrgreen:

[bruce drake]

What type of Commission 88 are you using?

An 88 can also be an 88/05 or 88/14 that were rethroated to handle the new German .323 spitzer bullet and to load from stripper clips vice the en-bloc clip of the original 88. An easy mark to tell this is a S stamped on the top of the front receiver ring, a set if clip guides silver-soldered to the rear of the reciever and a cut in the front of the receiver face to account for the longer spitzer bullet.

Also if your rifle is still in the original 88 format, it may have been rebarreled in the past by the country that owned the rifle afte the first World War with a CZ barrel in the 30's it will be throated as well for the newer bullet diameter versus the older bullet.

If your 88 is a civilian Guild rifle than most likely it will be in the original .318 bore.

I often shot my 88/05 Commission Rifle with .323 lead boolits with no issues and great accuracy for an antique rifle.

Bruce