303 British. IMR4831 vs IMR4350

Seabass

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I have both these powders on hand and wanted to see what the rest of you fellas used for your mighty 303's. I've made up some light plinkers with 180gr Speers bullets, 46grains of Imr4831, Win Cases, CCI 200LR primer. These gave 2100fps with good accuracy. I just don't know if I can compress enough Imr4831 into the case to get "Factory" 2400fps velocity and still be safe. (48grains of Imr 4831 only yeilds 2200fps in my rifle). Would imr4350 serve me better inorder to safely achive 2400fps with a 180grain bullet?

Thanks

Seabass
 
Of the two powders you mention, yes, 4350 would be your best bet (though even at that, it's a bit on the slow side for the case in question, IMHO). R15, Varget, BL-C(2), 4895, 748, an that sort of thing would probably be closer to "just right". That said, though, I hear that lots of guys use 4350 in a 303 Brit with excellent results, so since you've already got some 4350 on hand - by all means start there. :)
 
Side note - loading a 180 grain bullet to 2400FPS in a 303 Brit is very do-able, but your case life will suck, and suck bigtime! At 2450FPS-ish, I've occasionally had borderline case-head separation on only the 2nd firing -- though usually I can get 3 firings per case at that level of load. Drop it back to 2200FPS or so and get a neck sizer die, and your brass will last much better.
 
I'll look into the 4320 later on, thank you. As for using 4831, is it possible to get facory 180's @2400fps safely out of this powder?? Or 4350 for that matter?? I just want the factory ballistics for hunting. I use the lighter loads I mentioned earlier for practice as they are accurate and easy to shoot.

Cheers

Seabass
 
Thanks brotherjack. Currently I have 180grain .311 Speer soft nose bullets and some Norma 180grain .311 boatails. The Speer shoot well in my gun. What sort of bullets have you used in your 303 for at the range or on game? What would you recomend?
 
In my 303's, I've tried the following:


165 grain 308 Hornady InterLock's + IMR4895 - shot very well in my 303 that has the 2 groove rifling in the barrel, not so well in my other one with standard rifling, no critters shot with this bullet (at least not out of a 303 - it's worked well out of a 308).

123 grain Hornady InterLock + Red Dot (reduced load) - shot poorly in my 2 groove, shot well in my other one, no critters shot with this bullet (just a "plinking" load).

180 Grain Sierra GameKing's + Reloader 15, and later, BL-C(2) - shot very (very) well in both of my 303's (in the 2 groove, it would shoot 1/2 inch groups, actually, WOW!). I loaded them up to 2450FPS and that year I went and shot a mule deer with this bullet (3 times, from inside the 30 yard mark). The deer died (slowly), and on the post-mortem, none of the 3 bullets appeared to have expanded, I would NOT recommend them for hunting purposes, EVER!

180 grain Winchester PowerPoint factory ammo - shot well in both of my rifles, and performs excellent on critters.

150 grain Federal factory ammo - didn't shoot worth beans in either rifle.

My next round of loading for my 303's (in progress, currently, actually) is three different combinations:

150 Grain .312 Hornady InterLock's + Varget

150 Grain .312 Hornady InterLock's + Win 760

180 Grain .308 Winchester PowerPoint's + Win 760.

We'll see if either of those shoots straight in both guns. In all cases, I'm looking for a fairly low pressure load that shoots straight - not chasing velocity at all, as I don't like buying new brass, and the 303's will eat brass bigtime at even "normal" pressures.

And side note - I think the 760 is probably going to turn out to be a bit slow for 150 grain bullets in the 303 case, but I've got a bunch of it on-hand, and I need to find something use it for other than 220 grain bullets in my 308's, so I'm giving er a try - if it'll just work half way well, I'll be happy. :)
 
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Oh, one other note - if I was looking for a 180 grain hunting bullet for the 303, the Speer would be the next one I'd have on my list to try.
 
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