Amphibious said:
First of all it's a 303/25
second of all:
http://thecanadianoutb.vf11.com/thecanadianoutb-about344.html
oh, yeah, and talk to Kombi1976
Amphibious is right.......it's
303/25!
And don't you forget it!
Now that I've sorted that out, here's bit of an explaination of this ol' wildcat.
Before the mid 1950s hi-velocity sporting cartridges and rifles in most cals were hard to obtain or expensive.
As such the 303 was necked up and down and reshaped in a number of ways in order to make it more flexible.
To add fuel to this, NSW(
the state Sydney is in), introduced a law in the late 1940s banning the use of rifles chambered for military cartridges, basically because some of the power mongers in state parliament were concerned about the significant amount of the SMLEs floating around after the war.
It was repealed in the early 50s when it became obvious that people were getting ammo from sources interstate but by then a burgeoning industry supplying these cartridges was already there.
The stand out among these wildcats was the 303/25 for a number of reasons.
It was very flexible, being just as effective against big pigs & some deer as it was against roos, goats and foxes, and for some reason it was the most efficient in performance of all the small bore .303 derivatives.
Sportco made a lot of 303/25 barrels and companies like RiverBrand Ammo in Adelaide, South Australia, and The Super Cartridge Co. in Melbourne, Victoria, produced a range of factory ammo for the many farmers, graziers & professional roo shooters that depended on this round for their livelihood.
So, to all intents and purposes, 303/25 actually rose above wildcat status and became a proprietry round, at least here in Australia.
But with the influx of rounds like the .243 Win and the hype surrounding them the 303/25 faded a little into the shadows, although it remained a popular round among farmers, and unfortunately the production of factory ammo ceased when Super Cartridge Co. closed in the early 80s.
Much like .303 Epps in your country, the performance of the '25 differs depending upon the action.
My particular rifle is built on a 1914 ShtLE action and so it propels things at a fairly modest velocity.
The most effective load I have is 30gn of ADI AR2206 behing the Sierra GameKing 90gn HPBT bullet, probably clocking about 2700fps.
This is a sensible load for any sort of SMLE.
Mind you, it's still super effective on game.
Build it on P14 or M98 action, however, and the 303/25 will match and better a 250 Savage, almost to 257 Roberts power, pushing an 87gn bullet to 3050fps.
ADI has a number of loads for this cartridge and since they provide extruded powders for Hodgdon exact equivalents can usually be found.
The only serious limitation the 303/25 often has is that most barrels made here had a 1:12 twist, meaning they only stabilise 100gn bullets effectively, perhaps 110gn out the outside, but anyone building one on a good P14 could easily overcome this by having the barrel made with a 1:10 twist.
And yeah, I love this cartridge.
My 303/25 is my main rifle.
Out of interest, Duffy, why do you ask?
