310 Greener/Cadet

[magdump]

John K, It is a BSA, nice rear sight, Victoria marked. Thanks

[john.k]

Yes ,the BSA s are made to the best commercial standard with nice wood......however ,the headspace is always so tight they wont take a 32/20 without taking a bit from the rim recess.......with the Nagant case ,this is unnecessary ,anyway.........The advantage of the 32/20 case is the neck is very thin,and a conventionally loaded .320 bullet will chamber ok.......Ive never seen a Nagant case ,but the method of operation of the pistol would need a thick case,i imagine.

[pworley1]

It is a heeled bullet. With my alloy the heel is about .311 and the band is about .321

[magdump]

Pworley1, mine mold is supposed to drop .311 .323. I have not cast any yet. I was going to try pure lead?

[magdump]

johnk. My nagant cases arrived last night. I will try to trim one down to length this weekend to see if it chambers. Too many projects.

[magdump]

Wilderness thanks for the link, I have downloaded it and will read it this weekend.

[Intel6]

I have an original chamber and I am using 32-20 brass trimmed with thinned rims. I have experimented with the Nagant brass and it looks like it will work if I ever need more brass. I am casting bullets using the RCBS heeled bullet mould and found using the Lee tumble lube works the best in my rifle. I am not resizing the cases, just cleaning and repriming and then seating the heeled bullets. I use a thicker coat of Lee tumble lube to help hold the bullet in and ti seems to work and they shoot really well. I have also experimented with shooting non heeled bullets sized to .313" and have had some success. I also have shot some .313" sized bullets that I normally load and shoot in 7.62x39 including a 150 gr. Ranch Dog bullet. I had 50+ .218 Mashburn Bee cases that had blown shoulders from fireforming and I had the rims turned down on them and shortened them and found they worked well for the longer non heeled bullets I was experimenting with even though they were shorter than normal.




Here is a pic of the rifle




In the pic below you can see some of my .310 Cadet loads.

Left to Right:

RCBS heeled bullet w/Lee tumble lube
Lee 90 gr. SWC coated with HiTech
Lee 95 gr. wadcutter coated with HiTech
Salvaged .218MB Bee case with NOE 129 gr. SP w/GC

[magdump]

intel6 ,
Wow I think that is the nicest wood I have ever seen on a cadet!

[john.k]

Lots of ordinary BSA s of that era have what would now be called medium fancy grade wood.....seems they were mainly concerned in using hard dense wood with a good grain for structural durability.

[magdump]

Hello, I made the chamber cast today .317 will it be possible to size my .323 heeled bullet down to .318 or.319?

[john.k]

Yes ,they will size down down ,but not necessarily evenly.....in other words the round nose may not be centred.......an old trick is to lube the grooves before sizing.....the grease will maintain the groove dimensions ,without grease ,you may have very small grooves.

[magdump]

Thanks john.k , I think I will cast a few and see how they drop. I was really hoping to cast pure lead heeled boolits with grease. I have been powder coating 6.5 x 55 and have still been unsuccessful with that project. Now giving up on that one.

[magdump]

I think I will cast a few in the new mold and see what happens. I would love to see this work out.

[Bad Ass Wallace]

Been using this NON=HEELED boolit for over 40 years.

https://www.castbulletengineering.co...3702-317-125pb

[Wilderness]

Magdump - beware when measuring a slug or a cast from these barrels. These are Enfield 5 groove barrels, with lands and grooves of equal width, so there is no such thing as opposite groove impressions. The first measurement you will get will actually be from the impression of a groove to the impression of a land. A typical measurement would be about .316". It is a tricky operation to get a measurement across the bullet from the edge of a groove impression to an opposite edge. One way of measuring is to set the micrometer and rotate the slug in the opening. If the slug catches, the micrometer is set for too small a diameter.

[john.k]

The 310 would be the easiest gun to get shooting with any cast.......many years ago ,I shot one using buckshot as bullets,then chanced on a very rusty 32/20 Winchester tong tool with a mould....when we were kids,buying a bullet mould would have been a terrible extravagence ,and remarked on by the whole district........who would then want to borrow it,and never give it back.

[magdump]

john.k ,
thanks for the grease tip. I have been looking at the chamber casting, I think that the mold I have may work. I will just have to see.

[magdump]

wilderness.
I saw the 5 grove rifling. I measured it the best I could. it is .316 - .317 ish.
It is unmolested. I will get something worked out with it.

[magdump]

BAW.
Thanks for the link. I may go that route. I have always wanted a cadet. I have been looking for one for years. They were always eluding me. I actually ordered the mold in January. I figured better to have it than nothing at all. I bought the rifle a few weeks ago. I will see if it works out. If not I will order that mold you suggested. Thanks.

[Whole Bunches]

I also have a Vic marked BSA 310 Cadet. CBE 320-120 heeled Cadet brass 2 cavity mould (my thought process was that Cast Bullet Engineering in Australia ought to know how to make a proper Cadet bullet). Don't remember how long for the mould to arrive in the U.S., but it was a month or more (this was years ago), and Customs opened the package before I got it. My bullets weigh 110-111gr cast from COWW with a little tin added. As cast, the bullets go .308-.309" heel diameter, and .323" at the widest part in front of the heel. Dies are RCBS (a friend bought them for me so I could also reload Cadet rounds for his use). I mainly use 32/20 brass with a thinned rim thickness, trimmed to match the length of Bertram Cadet brass I had purchased at first to have some brass to load until we figured out cheaper brass.

I coat the loose bullets all surfaces with Lee Liquid Alox (LLA) and let dry. No sizing of the bullets is done. I've found 4.1gr Unique with small pistol primers to be accurate in the 3 Cadets they've been shot in. 1050-1100fps I've never had any leading, and only clean the bore every 500 or so rounds, only cause I feel guilty not having cleaned it. Inside the action keeps clean, with only a little soot on the face of the breech block that was easily wiped off.

After the bullet is seated in the case, I put a little more LLA on the exposed bullet at the groove, and, taking another loaded Cadet round, I rub the bullets together smearing the LLA onto/into groove of the bullet on both rounds, ending up with LLA in the grooves and on the wide part of the bullets. Set aside standing up to let dry. A bit of labor, but it works for me. Never tried them without smearing the additional nth of the drop of LLA on the bullet outside, and I like the extra lube precaution.

Did try 2400, but didn't get as nice of accuracy as with Unique, so I stopped there and didn't try other powders that could be easier to measure out than Unique (electronic powder measure weighs the charges for me now). I saw no reason to load hotter rounds, so didn't try. I speculate my 2400 rounds could have been too LOW of pressure as the velocities were bouncing around, and powder was being left in the bore (I don't recall the charges of 2400 tried). I only plink with mine, and 1" groups at 35yd (my club's plinking range) is better than the "minute of can" accuracy needed there for our most common target.

For fun, I'll bring my "running man" steel target out. He's about 12" tall. The 3 of us all bring our Cadets. Another club member will command, "load", "aim", and "fire". We all fire at once.

PS. Recovered a bullet shot into water. Other than from engaging in the rifling and the heeled part being expanded a little from the pressure, it was not deformed. As best I could determine, my Vic groove to groove diameter is .3175". Again, I do no bullet sizing for the 3 Cadets I reload for. Have never tried measuring the bores of my friends' Cadets.