Accuracy Q's need a little help.

[Bigdonkey]

So I have been playing with a No1 MKIII that I inherited, this old rifle has been sitting for a very long time but is in surprisingly good shape. I've been able to shoot 2-3" groups at 200m with the old stock and a new scope so I decided to put an aftermarket stock under it in hopes of getting a more comfortable and acurate hold.
I have been playing with loads trying to find the perfect weight of bullet and powder but noticed that with most boat tail bullets the groups open up. Now why is that.
Also has anyone bothered with really light bullets like the 110gr if so are they accurate. I would like to squeeze as much out of this rig as possible as I find it both challenging and fun. Especially when they say it can't be done.

 

[Red Iron]

For whatever reason boat tail bullets and 303 just don't go together so you may be beating a dead horse there. 2" groups may be as good as the rifle can shoot although many have tweaked Lee Enfields to shoot MOA. The first thing I would check is that you have upward pressure on the tip of the fore end against the barrel. You can play with different thicknesses of shims until you find what the rifle likes best. There are others here with much more experience than me who I'm sure will chime in as well. Do a search there are a couple of threads on this.

 

[smellie]

A Lee-Enfield rifle has Enfield rifling in the barrel. That's how the critter got its name; before that it was callled a Lee-Metford because it had Metford rifling. The change came in 1896.

Enfield rifling is characterised by lands and grooves of equal width, odd number of them (5) and deep grooves. As a point in its favour, it will outlast any other barrel available. Actually, it is a left-hand version of the latest best-thing-since-sliced-bread "5R" rifling which is said to be so wonderful; it is actually a copy of Enfield rifling with a new advertising manager. This rifling was adopted as a fix for the great erosive power of the old Cordite Mark I which was the standard up until 1910.

But Enfield rifling distorts the bullet rather a great deal. And barrels nearly a century old are often not up to the highest standards. They need the bullet to UPSET or obturate in order to fill the barrel completely, preventing gas blowby which will destabilise the bullet upon exit from the bore.

What you want with any Lee-Enfield rifle is a bullet with a FLAT base. Forget boat-tails completely; they are well suited to Mauser rifling but NOT to Enfield rifling, which happens also to be used in P-14s and P-17s.

Correct bullet weight for any post-1910 Lee-Enfield is 174 grains but you can get away with 180s. I use Sierra Pro-Hunter 180s and I seat them out to the OAL of a military Ball round. I load with 38 grains of 4895. This is a relatively mild loading at 2250 ft/sec. It is also extremely accurate if reasonable care is taken in putting the ammo together. This is my standard test load for any .303.

Hope this helps.
.

 

[Dakk]

^^^^^ Love informative posts like that one.

 

[mg4201]

A Lee-Enfield rifle has Enfield rifling in the barrel. That's how the critter got its name; before that it was callled a Lee-Metford because it had Metford rifling. The change came in 1896.

Enfield rifling is characterised by lands and grooves of equal width, odd number of them (5) and deep grooves. As a point in its favour, it will outlast any other barrel available. Actually, it is a left-hand version of the latest best-thing-since-sliced-bread "5R" rifling which is said to be so wonderful; it is actually a copy of Enfield rifling with a new advertising manager. This rifling was adopted as a fix for the great erosive power of the old Cordite Mark I which was the standard up until 1910.

But Enfield rifling distorts the bullet rather a great deal. And barrels nearly a century old are often not up to the highest standards. They need the bullet to UPSET or obturate in order to fill the barrel completely, preventing gas blowby which will destabilise the bullet upon exit from the bore.

What you want with any Lee-Enfield rifle is a bullet with a FLAT base. Forget boat-tails completely; they are well suited to Mauser rifling but NOT to Enfield rifling, which happens also to be used in P-14s and P-17s.

Correct bullet weight for any post-1910 Lee-Enfield is 174 grains but you can get away with 180s. I use Sierra Pro-Hunter 180s and I seat them out to the OAL of a military Ball round. I load with 38 grains of 4895. This is a relatively mild loading at 2250 ft/sec. It is also extremely accurate if reasonable care is taken in putting the ammo together. This is my standard test load for any .303.

Hope this helps.
.

Awesome thanks for the load data Smellie. what is the oal of the military ball rounds? Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Ganderite]

In my experience top grade match barrels work well with boattails. ordinary rifles with mediocre crowns work much better with flat base bullets.

If a flat base spitzer does not work well, don't forget to try a flat base round nose. That is what works best in my 6.5x55 Mauser.

 

[Bigdonkey]

You see this is why I love shopping at this store. You go in to get a bannana and end up with a basket full of steak.
Thanks for the help guys.
I plan to try using this rifle for off hand competitions and we shoot at a reduced range to 300m. I have some concerns regarding the use of the heavier bullets and their effect on the metal targets.
Well that's not entirely true. I'm getting soft and I'm more worried about my fricken shoulder after 200 rounds in 4 hours.
That being said what could a guy use as far as lighter bullets but keep some type of respectful accuracy. I know I have not found there to be too many opptions for the .311 range and don't really want to waste too much time on say a 110gr if it won't work.
Thanks again for the info up to date.

 

[smellie]

Try some of those "heavy" 130s for the 7.62x39 if you can find them in flatbase.

Otherwise, give a try to the Hornady 123 bullet for the x39 and work up a load with a FAST powder: it does have an extra 1 thou to obturate as well as a flat base.

Twist in ALL .303s was 1 turn in 10 inches. This was not altered during the entire period in which the .303" round was in the Service. It worked just fine for the entire 215-grain series (all 8 Marks), for the Mark VII (174) and for all the various Specials (AP, API, APTI, et cetera). And it worked pretty well for the lead 115-grain bullets in the GP-B ammo for indoor target practice, made here in Canada. It also works fine with the Hornady (and other) 150s and might possibly work well with other lightweights.

If you are firing 200 rounds in an afternoon match, friend, you are punishing the hell outta your rifle AND your shoulder. Your poor shoulder must be like raw meat and you are murdering the barrel of your rifle!

Have you thought about using the C.E. Harris "UNIVERSAL LOAD" in your rifle?????? It is very simple: 13 (thirteen) grains of Red Dot shotgun powder with a 180-grain CAST .312" slug. The slug can be plain-base OR gas-checked. Likely the RIFLE will want gas-checks, so you put them on with that little $18 LEE tool. You get about 1800 ft/sec MV, so the load produces about 56% of the horsepower of a full-house Service round. It also has 56% of the RECOIL and, with cast bullets made from wheelweights, bore wear will be almost ZERO. You GET 2 MOA with most rifles and this is out past 200; that's as good as you could count on with Service ammo when it was new. You get 538 rounds out of ONE pound of powder, so it's cheap to load: works out to 10 or 11 cents a shot.... and that includes the gas-check. BTW, this is friend Buffdog's gopher-sniping load for out to 300. If it will clang a gopher at 300, it should do a plate 2 or 3 times that size!

Hope this helps.
.

 

[stevebc]

Smellie, I see that the Bullet Barn ( ht tp://www.thebulletbarn.com/pricelist-r.html ) offers 2 cast lead .313 rounds with gas checks, one a rather odd looking 180gr round and the other a very long-looking 200gr.
I may need to try these as my recent SMLE purchase has a somewhat worn-looking bore. I've never loaded any bullet with gas checks: is the procedure any different? I'm currently using Varget and Hornady .312 RN FB 174gr rounds, any suggestions for a starting load using cast lead rounds?

 

[buffdog]

.
As SMELLIE has mentioned, the 13 grains of Red Dot load for military Calibres using cast bullets was called "The Load" and was developed by C.E. Harris, a Staff Writer for the NRA "American Rifleman" magazine who did a lot of work and research on cast bullet shooting.

Generally heavier round nosed bullets work better in rifles than short pointed types. The longer rounds give a "bore riding" surface area that aids in lining up the bullet in the bore and the round nose keep the weight and balance of the bullet forward.

Most people try to drive cast bullets too fast. An example of this is the 169 grain SQUIBB spitzer pointed bullet that is almost a copy of the 30-06 M1 bullet. Over 2000 fps, it flies all over the place, BUT---reduce the speed to 1700-1800 fps, and you will do nice, round, one inch groups at 100 yards with a little bit of load development.

Copper gas checks allow bullets to be pushed a bit faster, and also protect the soft lead bases a bit when loading and when they are fired. I like the Hornady "crimp on" gas checks as they really attach themselves to the lead bullet base. I also use a LEE resizing die as SMELLIE mentioned, because the die is designed to push the bullet from the base, much the same as through a rifle barrel, thus less deformation happens.

Back in the late 1950s when I was going to high school, loved target shooting, and had little available cash, I used cast bullets all the way out to 600 yards. A bit of experimentation with sight settings was necessary, but it is easy to make a range chart for different loads.

There are a couple of things that take a bit of extra care in loading cast bullets rather than jacketed ones. First, do not crimp cast bullets. In fact, I do not crimp any of my loads, cast or jacketed, target or hunting. This deforms the bullet slightly.

Most important, is that cast bullets need a two stage expanding die when you resize the cases. I deburr and chamfer the mouth of the case, inside and out, then run them an extra step into a two stage expanding die. This die is a two diameter expander, with the bottom part of the plug at bullet diameter, and the top one 3 or 4 thousands larger. The brass springs back slightly, so the bullets are held firmly, and the larger opening at the mouth of the case, (less than 1/8 inch long,) allows the bullet to be pushed in a bit without any resistance, then seated normally.

Cast bullets also shoot better when they are a couple of thousands over size of the bore diameter IN MOST CASES, but this is not written in stone. You have to experiment a bit to see, and with the variations in 303 bore sizes, you can experiment a LOT.

I have also used the 123 grain bullets designed for the 7.62X39 Russian cartridges for target shooting. Out to 300 yards, they work well in most rifles, and are a lot easier on the shoulder, especially in the "Mad Minute" shoots.

If cast bullets interest you, buy a copy of the Lyman "Cast Bullet Handbook." It is not rocket science, but rather practical science that has evolved from the past 150 years or so. And, it's a lot of fun, especially when you can lob one of those big heavy bullets at a far away Gopher, and await the results. Bit of an overkill from the normal .22 rimfire but a lot more fun.
.

 

[stevebc]

Thanks buffdog, most helpful. I'll see how it goes with the Hornady's I mentioned, but I'm subscribing to this thread for future reference, looking forward to trying this out.