.303 crooked cases

J

Jack of all trades

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maple ridge, bc, canada
so i took my wife out shooting her 1918 shtle no1 mk3, i plan to reload for her and me, i have the same rifle:D. i was checking the cases and found most of them to be crooked near the rim after being shot. all new loads, ivi, imperial, dominion, rp, winchester. and it was happening from both guns. is this a normal thing with the lee enfields or the case in general? never owned or reloaded these before. always been partial to the 45-70 and other straight walls.
 
Sounds like the headspace is bad and the case is stretching on one side. If you were to stand them up together they would be leaning one way or the other.
If this is the case its not good.
 
Jack of all trades said:
yeah they are leaning to one side or the other. how bad? and how do i fix it?
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You might be able to change the bolt face(?) AFAIK they are numbered 1 through 4 and find the number that takes up the slack. Sounds like you will need to at least gain 20 thou. Not my expertise here so someone else with a higher pay scale might jump in:)
Others use a rubber "O" ring around the base of the cartridge to hold the shell against the bolt to fireform it to your guns chamber, then neck sizing all reloading in the future.
But before any fix to get around this you might want to fix the problem outright before working around it, just my 2 cents.
 
Jack of all trades said:
bah, aint buying a new rifle. near anything can be fixed. someone here has to have had experience with this, or am i just hearing "bad news"?
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Mine is the same way , it aint cracked a case yet
But i had a 303 that did....let me tell you ...it rang my bell;)
That being said , i will still fire the one thats stretched cases , the other was sold to a smith for 50$ as parts only

But i try to keep the round count low on it as it is near the end of its life as a usable firearm ...say max shoot one shot to tell she is on target then only at a moose after that;) say 3 shots a year
I examin every case that goes thru it after and would not reload them

The round count is extra low in recent years as i have a 30-06 now:D
Same caliber as Dad was useing
Dad gave me the .303 so it holds a special place in my heart and i shot my first moose with that rifle

Like was said , best to buy another rifle
 
The rifles just have large chambers and a bit of excess head space. Very common in SMLE rifles. They were designed to shoot in all conditions, including with dirty ammunition. So tolerances were high and they had no intention to reuse the fired cases.
These rifles would be poor for reloading, as case life would be very short. However, it is possible to make good brass from new, unfired brass, which would have normal case life, if properly reloaded.
But you can not make good brass out of the brass you have already fired in the rifles.
 
so basically if im going to load for these guns, i need to use unfired brass and toss after shooting?

these are what they look like after being shot from her rifle.

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Neck size only and shoot reduced loads (cast your own). Also to tighten things up a bit you can run ( if you can find) 30/40 crag brass thru your 303 fl size die and fire form. It has a slightly thicker rim and should help make up for some of the "slop" in your headspacing. YMMV.
 
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