common for 303 to fireform factory brass?

WhelanLad

WhelanLad

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so i shot some S&B factory out of the 303 and the brass is very different in the shoulder from the original unfired case to the once fired brass....

is it just a common thing with the 303s especially Ruger 303s ?

the SB shoulders are a little more round and sharper, then once shot the shoulder length incr further up the neck to appear not as sharp...

cheers
 
It is very common with a military chamber 303 Brit.

Back in the Zulu days when they had copper foil cases that would easily dent they realized that they should have oversized chambers to accommodate such things, especially because production of rifles and ammo were throughout the commonwealth. The military did not care about reloading so having the case blow out a significant amount was no big deal. The No 1 rifles are really bad, the No 4 rifles are a lot better. Some No 1 rifles have cases that almost look like a banana and you can get case head separation with a single shot on factory ammo in some cases. This is not a headspace problem, so many people do not understand that, the headspace on a rimmed case is measured on the rim and not on the shoulder, the case is essentially hung into the chamber by the rim where it expands to fire form and seal out the gases.

I am surprised that the Ruger has a large chamber though as it is a commercial firearm and not military.
 
cosmic said:
Surprisingly, The Rugers have a fairly sloppy chamber. I have military Lee Enfields that have a tighter chamber than the Ruger...
Click to expand...

Weird, so fireform and neck size like every other 303 Brit gun then, well maybe not the 1895, that may need a full length resize to chamber.
 
Would the Oring trick be suitable for the Ruger too then? I would have expected them to have far tighter chambers than the Enfields, but I guess not...
 
I think the O-ring trick is to combat the play found in rear locking LE's.
The Ruger won't have much rearward play with the falling block I'd think.
 
Suther said:
Would the Oring trick be suitable for the Ruger too then? I would have expected them to have far tighter chambers than the Enfields, but I guess not...
Click to expand...

No, the boring trick is to tighten up headspace (rim thickness and clearance) when fire forming, if you do not have a headspace issue then this will not benefit you.
 
yeah interesting, rest of case is nice an straight , good chamber there but just longer shoulders so to speak as described in a reply above makes sense, esp if ruger went of those old school specs hey.. 314 and all.... few extra mm on the neck wont hurt :p
 
I currently have a 1910 Ross, an 1895 Winchester, a No.4 Sporter and a Ruger #1. They have all got very different shoulders.
I load the Ruger to a much stouter level than the others so I have no problem with segregating the brass for each. I label the boxes very clearly so there's no mistake.
The Lee neck die saves a lot of headaches with adjustments as well.
 
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