Using .313 32 caliber bullets in 310/311 rifle

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adosland

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I bought a thousand . 313 bullets thinking they were .357 at a gunshow few years back. They were miss labeled.

They are a lead cast wad cutter bullet 90 grains and .313 diameter.

Here's my question..... I like shooting sub sonic rifle.
I'm aware when shooting cast bullets it best to be a bit larger. With that said anyone ever tried shooting
.32 bullets from a 303 brit? Or Russian?
Thanks
 
To directly answer you - no, I never tried that. What I would do - is load one up see if that dummy round can be chambered - that bullet might make the neck too fat for the neck area of your chamber. If it fits okay, then I would work up a load for blasting away - not likely that you will get very close to your lands - I suspect is perhaps a very short bullet - but being a wad cutter, maybe the ogive diameter is close to the front end?? A new-to-me one that I am playing with to reload is a 7.62x39 - with 123 grain jacketed bullets - is not much for "seating depth" - much, much less than I am used to in other cartridges - might be what you run into? Is a lot of concern about a few thousandths sizing different than the bore size - but I would be more concerned about the "throat area" fill - the lead bullet will swage down to whatever that bore wants to see, I think, if that bullet fits into the throat. All within reason, of course - if you say the bullets are .313" - there are/were some 303 British rifles with as much as .316" groove size or more - and some as small as .310" or less. Is all about how much powder - how much pressure that you create with your hand load - is a good section in Richard Lee "Modern Loading - Second Edition" about matching breech pressure to cast bullet "hardness" - at least Richard Lee's thoughts about it anyways - others may disagree with him.

Further - again, I never did so on purpose - but read many times to get ALL copper jacket residue out of the bore, before trying to shoot cast lead bullets - they apparently do NOT get along - you apparently will not get good results shooting cast bullets in a barrel with copper jacket fouling. I just do not know about the cupro-nickel jacketing that was apparently common in elder milsurp ammo - and I have heard it is a real "bear" to get that stuff out of a rifled bore, to be clean to bare steel. As bizarre as it may sound, someone could have fired off a box or two of milsurp cupro-nickel in 1922 - and if never properly cleaned out - that jacket fouling is still in that SMLE bore - more than 100 years later.
 
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adosland said:
I bought a thousand . 313 bullets thinking they were .357 at a gunshow few years back. They were miss labeled.

They are a lead cast wad cutter bullet 90 grains and .313 diameter.

Here's my question..... I like shooting sub sonic rifle.
I'm aware when shooting cast bullets it best to be a bit larger. With that said anyone ever tried shooting
.32 bullets from a 303 brit? Or Russian?
Thanks
Click to expand...

You start off talking .313 and then change to .320 without any comment to suggest you understand that .313" and .320" are not the same caliber?

.313 is a common size for 303 Brit. .320 is not and would need to be sized down to fit a 303 Brit chamber.

IF you try to cram an oversized bullet into a chamber .... note I said CHAMBER ... the most likely result will be the thing won't chamber fully but if it does, the next most likely schenario is the now oversized cartridge neck will jam in the chamber neck and result in a massive overpressure when the bullet won't release from the case neck at the same time the burning powder is trying to push the bullet out of the case neck. This is a VERY BAD result.

The difference between the .320 bullet and the .313 bore is irrelevant. The bullet will simply swage down to fit the bore. The problem is all in the chamber and the bullet not releasing from the case when it should.
 
I Dont Care About You said:
You start off talking .313 and then change to .320 without any comment to suggest you understand that .313" and .320" are not the same caliber?

.313 is a common size for 303 Brit. .320 is not and would need to be sized down to fit a 303 Brit chamber.

IF you try to cram an oversized bullet into a chamber .... note I said CHAMBER ... the most likely result will be the thing won't chamber fully but if it does, the next most likely schenario is the now oversized cartridge neck will jam in the chamber neck and result in a massive overpressure when the bullet won't release from the case neck at the same time the burning powder is trying to push the bullet out of the case neck. This is a VERY BAD result.

The difference between the .320 bullet and the .313 bore is irrelevant. The bullet will simply swage down to fit the bore. The problem is all in the chamber and the bullet not releasing from the case when it should.
Click to expand...

32 cal 90gr pistol bullets are not .320 they are more like .312-.313.
He states same in first sentence.
Bullets are for a .32 PISTOL
Most likely will work OK with a light charge in his .303
 
Further - again, I never did so on purpose - but read many times to get ALL copper jacket residue out of the bore, before trying to shoot cast lead bullets - they apparently do NOT get along - you apparently will not get good results shooting cast bullets in a barrel with copper jacket fouling. I just do not know about the cupro-nickel jacketing that was apparently common in elder milsurp ammo - and I have heard it is a real "bear" to get that stuff out of a rifled bore, to be clean to bare steel. As bizarre as it may sound, someone could have fired off a box or two of milsurp cupro-nickel in 1922 - and if never properly cleaned out - that jacket fouling is still in that SMLE bore - more than 100 years later.[/QUOTE]


Getting all the jacket material out before shooting cast has been conventional wisdom as long as I've been pouring lead, almost six decades now.
However, several years back, Venturino wrote that he routinely shoots cast loads after shooting jacketed, without accuracy loss.
Now, I'm not a big fan of his, but he has certainly put more lead downrange than I have.

And I have to affirm that the cupro-nickel jacket material is no friend to rifle barrels. If your milsurp ammo has a tiny bit of sticky grease on the bullet where it meets the case mouth, don't wipe it off. It's there for a reason.
 
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I always thought you had to clean bores of fouling before changing to cast bullets or cast to jacketed. I have found out that it is a load of bull. I switch between bullet types all the time with no loss in accuracy. Only time I had problems was with a new to me badly copper fouled Lee Enfield. Wouldn’t shoot less than 8”. I had just bought it and decided to try it out. After cleaning it ,it now shoots 2to 3” groups at 100.
 
I have an adapter for my 303 and mosin that takes the 32acp 90 gr lead bullet and it is fun to shoot and is accurate for a good distance. you do not need hearing protection as it is rather quiet.
 
I load 7 gr of Unique with 100gr .312 XTP's and now 5gr of Herco for .313 115 gr cast. The bench is snowed in so I haven't stretched the 115 cast out to 100 yards yet. But the battle sight on the No4 I tried seems to be fine at 50 yards. The 312's out of a No1 at 100 yards, sight set to 800, hit the gong.

Clint
 
I Dont Care About You said:
You start off talking .313 and then change to .320 without any comment to suggest you understand that .313" and .320" are not the same caliber?

.313 is a common size for 303 Brit. .320 is not and would need to be sized down to fit a 303 Brit chamber.

IF you try to cram an oversized bullet into a chamber .... note I said CHAMBER ... the most likely result will be the thing won't chamber fully but if it does, the next most likely schenario is the now oversized cartridge neck will jam in the chamber neck and result in a massive overpressure when the bullet won't release from the case neck at the same time the burning powder is trying to push the bullet out of the case neck. This is a VERY BAD result.

The difference between the .320 bullet and the .313 bore is irrelevant. The bullet will simply swage down to fit the bore. The problem is all in the chamber and the bullet not releasing from the case when it should.
Click to expand...
With all you have said and advice is appreciated, what do I have? 90 grain wad cutter with .313 diameter.

What caliber was it made for?
Pardon my ignorance
 
I Dont Care About You said:
You start off talking .313 and then change to .320 without any comment to suggest you understand that .313" and .320" are not the same caliber?

.313 is a common size for 303 Brit. .320 is not and would need to be sized down to fit a 303 Brit chamber.

IF you try to cram an oversized bullet into a chamber .... note I said CHAMBER ... the most likely result will be the thing won't chamber fully but if it does, the next most likely schenario is the now oversized cartridge neck will jam in the chamber neck and result in a massive overpressure when the bullet won't release from the case neck at the same time the burning powder is trying to push the bullet out of the case neck. This is a VERY BAD result.

The difference between the .320 bullet and the .313 bore is irrelevant. The bullet will simply swage down to fit the bore. The problem is all in the chamber and the bullet not releasing from the case when it should.
Click to expand...

To further the conversation.
When I search for .313 wad cutter bullets
Everything stream lines to .32 caliber.
In fact most searches says .312, .313, .314
Are for .32 caliber.
 
They are confusing you with .32 used in conjunction with 32 without the period. .320 is 32 caliber, I can only find one cartridge produced in the world that uses/specifies a true .320 in my Cartridges of the World publication ( some European milt pistol cartridge).
32 without the period is not a measurement, only a name reference to a specific proprietary cartridge such as a 32-20, not a 32 caliber at all, 313 is the proper measurement caliber but the federal govt. in their confounding wisdom, compounds the confusion by prohibing every pistol with 32 name and designates them as .32 caliber but their not, they are .31 in measurement....not sure I clarified or more confused the situation but its all I have LOL.

They ( the govt.) further confuse the situation by prohibbing named metric designated cartridges 7.?? with bullet Dia. as small as .308 as being .32 caliber & prohibited.
 
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