Most inexpensive .303 British reloads?

TargetNorth

TargetNorth

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Hi All
I recently have been fortunate to come upon a Lee Enfield No4 Mk1, and have a question about reloading. If I want to do it on the cheap, what is the cheapest option out there? This is for paper punching only, probably often shooting at cans etc.

I understand that saving money means lower quality, I'm OK with that. I often take friends out plinking, and to be honest it's more to get them interested in shooting then making a 1MOA load. That's what my .243 is for... Anyway, this is what I've found from looking around so far:

-.312 bullets like these below. They look like pistol rounds to me, but at 7.7 cents each looks like they're the cheapest. I read on this forum a guy say he'd put 5 or 10 grains of powder in for a light 50m target load.
http://www.midwayusa.com/viewProduct/?productNumber=1050160059

-pulling 7.62 bullets + powder from the bulk 7.62x39mm (SKS etc) ammo and reloading that in a .303 case. That would be about $.20 per shot including powder.

-Casting lead bullets and shooting a light charge? Any idea of cost?

-buying bulk remington or winchester ammo. Seems like $.20 to $.25 is the cheapest you can buy the bullets from what I've seen shopping online in canada.

Any other ideas? Any of these ideas sound like really really bad ones?
Cheers.
 
Casting lead with light loads would be the cheapest solution. You can actually get pretty decent groups with cast bullets. Lead is pretty cheap, tire shops will often sell large pales of used wheel weight for cheap, although their are increasing amounts of non-lead weights, the majority is still lead. Not to mention if you really want o save money, you can "mine" the berm for bullets and smelt them again.

I have never heard of people pulling 7.62x39 bullets and reloading them into .303. They are slightly ligter then traditional .303 bullets which is not a bad thing. Accuracy might be a toss up and I read the M43 bullet is not the best.It seems like a pretty cheap solution as well.
 
PerversPépère said:
12 grains of Red Dot behind a Lee 200gr. gas-checked cast bullet. Mix 9 pounds of clean wheelweight metal with one pound of 60/40 fluxless solder.
Lubricate with Lee's Liquid Alox.
Fun!
PP.
Click to expand...

+1. Read this thread, it has a couple of excellent articles on shooting light loads with cast bullets in milsurps. I plan on trying both my Enfield sporter and my Yugo Mauser with cast this summer.

http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/showthread.php?t=423660


Mark
 
Check out SFRC, a banner sponsor at the top of the page. He has 112 grain .312 projectiles for $144/1000 already pulled, with vld qualities and fmj to boot.
 
$16/100 of target quality 205gr. gas check hard cast, sized to customer specs, .311",.312",.313", .314",.316"...this last bullet is 216grs.(bulk pricing)...bore riding portion.303"...........add cost of primers and 19.5 grs of SR4759.
 
mmattockx said:
+1. Read this thread, it has a couple of excellent articles on shooting light loads with cast bullets in milsurps. I plan on trying both my Enfield sporter and my Yugo Mauser with cast this summer.

http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/showthread.php?t=423660


Mark
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link. I have a pile of cast .311 and could not get them to shoot. I will try out "the load".

As far as ops question goes. I just loaded 500 rounds of 303 brit. I put a WTB on the EE for cheap bullets and brass. You can get brass pretty cheap. Make sure it is not old ammo stamped "GB 55 7" as they are not reloadable. I also had a fellow sell me 400 177g FMJs that shoot extremely well. Other than that I had to buy a couple hundred Honrnady 174g from the local gun store, but they were an "ok" price. Wolverine also had 5 bottles of IMR 4320 for $25 a pound so I bought those as well. Primers are primers.

Calculator says $0.38 per shot for FMJ and $0.57 for the Hornady loads. Bought the same price as shooting a 223.
 
ben hunchak said:
$16/100 of target quality 205gr. gas check hard cast, sized to customer specs, .311",.312",.313", .314",.316"...this last bullet is 216grs.(bulk pricing)...bore riding portion.303"...........add cost of primers and 19.5 grs of SR4759.
Click to expand...

That's your best bet IMO. Buy them ready cast, as unless you want to get into high volume cast shooting, you'll never recoup your initial outlay. Slug your bore, choose a cast bullet 1-2 thou over that and have at her.

Pulling 7.62x39 and using the bullet and powder won't be cheaper (wait for it), and no doubt the bullet will be undersized, so accuracy will be a crap shoot. I say it won't be cheaper because the powder load from one 7.62x39 cartridge will be too small. If you pull three bullets, to make two, you'll be ok. You'll see about 28.0 grs of powder from each pulldown. Start at 40.0 grs and work up to 42.0 grs, and you'll be in the zone with the 303. Yes - I've actually done it.
 
Excellent, looks like I'll be buying some caste bullets. "The Load" looks awesome, I read that link and the author said he could shoot (with his milsurp, open sights) 4-5" at 200m. That is better that I can shoot, and cheap to boot.

Thanks for the input,

Now I just need to slug my barrel.
 
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