My .22 Hornet PP succeeds, my .303 British PP not yet ...

[gunwonk]

I wanted to try paper patching in .30 caliber and .303 British, asked for sample bullets of about .300" diameter in the Bullet Exchange, and had two respondents fill my cup to overflowing. One even asked if I needed anything else to fill up the SFRB (!).

That being too good to miss, I thought "What the Heck", and asked if there was such a thing as a .216" (=.224-.008) bullet suitable for .22 paper patching. Well no, apparently that's too unusual , but instead it was suggested that I simply patch a .224 bullet and then run the whole thing through a .224" sizer. (I've seen advice to the contrary on this forum, but it worked just fine -- this time, anyway -- see below.)

So, I tried .303 British and .22 Hornet. (My paper patching in .30 caliber is on hold for the moment, pending rifle repair.) Here's the 25-yard target:



My .303 is a P-14, with groove diameter .3125" or so. (Yes, this is the wrong dimension to key off of. As advised on this forum. And as will become apparent. ) Two layers of green bar paper gave me a .310" bullet, too small. So for .303 I wrapped three layers of green bar paper, which got me to .314", and then sized down to .3125". Those are the 4 larger holes in the target. Note that only one of them is round! Looks like the other 3 bullets didn't spin, with about the results you'd expect.

I had some Cerrosafe, made a chamber cast, and found the throat of this rifle to be about .316". So it looks like a) advice on this forum to size for your rifle throat is right on, and b) I'll need a bigger sizer and matching M-die for this rifle. Or maybe it was the 3 layers instead of 2. Whatever. I'm still thinking ...

My .22 Hornet is actually a Euro-Hornet (5.6x35), with .222" groove diameter and about .224" throat, so my .224" sizer and M-die worked well. The six .22 holes grouped together are actually from 6 slightly different reloads, with two different powders, two different seating depths for the paper patch bullets (that's 4), and two powder coated .22 bullets, one for each powder charge. All the bullets were 50-gr Lee Bator. That all 6 grouped in more or less the same place tells me that all these reloads were pretty good. In particular, all 4 of the paper patched .22's went into about 3/4", different loads & all, despite the abuse of patching as cast and then sizing down a presumably excessive .008" or so.

All in all, I'm very happy with the .22 Hornet. As for the .303, not yet. But maybe I'll think of something.

[StrawHat]

Interesting! Not sure I have the skills to PP such a small boolit.

Kevin

[kenyerian]

Learn something new everyday. I never even considered paper patching the 22 Hornet. Great idea!

[303Guy]

Interesting! Not sure I have the skills to PP such a small boolit.

Kevin

It takes more than skill - it takes youth! Something I may be lacking in just slightly.

gunwonk, keep at it. I want to know what works for the hornet. The Brit problem could be your bore. It might be too good. What you need is a really old gun with rifling that's hardly visible. A heavily rusted bore will work fine too.

What I've found is that 303's with well eroded throats and bores will accommodate patched boolits that seat just nicely in unsized necks and with an appropriately tapered boolit nose shank profile, will set into the 'throat' with full contacted over the exposed boolit. Well eroded bores also tend to taper down toward the muzzle where the rifling becomes more defined (but not always).

Now to get a hornet to work with paper patching. I'm still at the making decent castings stage but the boolit I tried is the RCBS 55 FN. I made tracing paper sleeves which I fitted to the castings by filling with water to support the sleeve while being pressed on. That part worked. But lacking in youthful fingers and casting skill, I haven't pursued the hornet with cast. So I shall be following your progress with interest.

[gunwonk]

gunwonk, keep at it. I want to know what works for the hornet.

I got the hornet to do 1-1.5 moa at 100 yards, but it began to scatter at 200 yards, and at 300 yards I couldn't even find any bullet holes.

So it's on hold for the moment. (While I obsess on .303 ) When I take up the hornet again, I plan to try reducing the powder charge, and using thinner paper.

[bigted]

Ill betcha that little boolit takes a beating in any kinda wind at longer ranges. Im in the above camp concerning fingers not being young enough ... The 30's are the end of my old fingers ability to keep stuff straight ... And then only on good days ... 45's and 50's are more to my liking

[bigted]

380's are really my smallest diameter so my hat is off to ya rollin those lil 22 cal boolits

[longbow]

Try knurling the .303's. I made a push out mould (smooth sided) for my .303 base on the old NRA design for .30 cal. and it cast right at 0.301" diameter so perfect for the .308 at 0.300" bore diameter. I tried using them in the .303 both by using three wraps and with thicker paper to get to my 0.314' groove diameter and both failed. Then I tried knurling the boolits up to 0.303"/0.304" and going back to two wraps of thinner paper. That did it.

t the time I was not sure if the knurling gripped the paper better so no slip or if the larger diameter core was the reason... or both. I guess I am still not sure but give that a try or go to a larger core of bore diameter or a thou or so over bore diameter. That seems to be a key point of the core being at least bore diameter.

Longbow