Anyone have experience w/ .303 loading this: Hornady 7.62X39 (.310) 123gr V-Max ?

Hungry

Hungry

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Okay your .303 Milsurp expert reloaders!

I'm thinking about shooting this bullet (inside 100m and 200m) at my home range just for kicks, giggles, and more friends. :D

I'm not caring about Precision Rifle (sub-MOA) accuracy, but minute-of-pie-plate accuracy will be fine for me and my Jungle Carbine!

Any experiences with the sub-125 grain bullets also? No need to shoot 150 gr or 175 grain 0.311" diam bullets since I will be goofing around (safely of course). :cool:

What say all you experts?

Barney
 
For MOPP you should be good out to 100.

This is something I haven't done, but will be trying shortly. Thanks.

You are using a JC, so I would DEFINITELY stay with a fast powder: I think 4198 or RL7 should do the trick. You don't want huge fireballs and window-cracking BOOM!s going on too often.

I have a friend South of here who is using this combo for sniping gophers out to about 125, so it should work. Seat LONG so as to get the short slug somewhere in the general postal code of the leade. You don't need a whole tubful of powder, either. I haven't seen the pieplate yet which will not succumb to a light load out of a .303.

And there is something else which you might not have considered, and this is the C.E. Harris UNIVERSAL load: a CAST 180 with 13 grains of Red Dot. Comes out at about 1800 ft/sec and is MEGACHEAP to load: 537 shots per pound of powder. Throw in 12 pounds of wheelweights and it's still cheap.

Most important of all: have fun!
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123 Grain bullets in the .303

Go for it. I shoot them all the time on the range, out to 300 yards for target shooting.

A standard primer and a medium burning powder, such as 3031, 4895, etc. will give you an accurate and light recoiling load that will shoot with the heavier bullets. Some experimenting is necessary to find the right combination, but they work quite well. Easier on the brass too.

I really haven't shot Competition Targets for over 10 years, but the last .303 Shoot I attended had targets at 100, 200 and 300 yards. There were 12 prizes available, I took home 6 of them using the 123 grain bullet load and a Number 1 Mark III SMLE. The rifle was a Commercial BSA, made in 1939, and had a Parker Hale 5A micrometer rear sight on it, in other words, a Target rifle. However, the load I used with the 123 grain bullet proved accurate.
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I'm not an expert, but I have pulled the FMJ bullets from Czech surplus and loaded them in the .303 brass for my No. 4. Not super accurate, but not bad either.
 
buffdog said:
Go for it. I shoot them all the time on the range, out to 300 yards for target shooting.

A standard primer and a medium burning powder, such as 3031, 4895, etc. will give you an accurate and light recoiling load that will shoot with the heavier bullets. Some experimenting is necessary to find the right combination, but they work quite well. Easier on the brass too.

I really haven't shot Competition Targets for over 10 years, but the last .303 Shoot I attended had targets at 100, 200 and 300 yards. There were 12 prizes available, I took home 6 of them using the 123 grain bullet load and a Number 1 Mark III SMLE. The rifle was a Commercial BSA, made in 1939, and had a Parker Hale 5A micrometer rear sight on it, in other words, a Target rifle. However, the load I used with the 123 grain bullet proved accurate.
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buffdog....

Thanks a whole bunch. I was gonna load up some extra W748 I had laying around with this .310" 123 Gr Hornady VMax bullet for horsing around and then the odd coyote that happens to wander in front of my Jungle Carbine on it's way to the cat food pile (heeeere kitty kitty kitty) :evil: just 100 steps in front of my buddy's woodpile. ;)

Cheers,
Barney
 
FMJ from Czeck 7.62 X 39 pulled for a .303 BR

mkrainc said:
I'm not an expert, but I have pulled the FMJ bullets from Czech surplus and loaded them in the .303 brass for my No. 4. Not super accurate, but not bad either.
Click to expand...

I know that the thread started off with a commercal light weight bullet, Speer I think...

But will the steel FMJ bullets shoot reasonably well in a LE #4 or #5, without harming the bore?

If so, anyone want to suggest a light load for 100 yard minute of tea cup accuracy?

Thanks
 
Most military bullets today are jacketed with mild steel as an economy measure. We did the same thing in Canada in World War Two. I you check all those pretty copper-coloured Defence Industries bullets, you will find that most of them are magnetic: mild steel jackets plated with enough copper-based gilding-metal that they don't rust.

Extensive British experiments indicated that there was a difference between the bore-wearing qualities of mild steel jackets versus cupro-nickel or other copper-based jackets, but that most bore erosion was caused by flame pressure and temperature.

Most of the former East Bloc slugs for the 7.62x39 are copper plated mild steel jackets with a layer of soft lead under that, and a mild-steel core. The layer of soft lead insulates the hard core from wearing directly against the steel jacket and so the bullets are no problem from a bore-wear standpoint. A few of them, or a few hundred, won't do any damage to the deep rifling of a Lee-Enfield rifle.

Where these bullets might not be the best thing is the fact that the rifling in all Lee-Enfields was 1 turn in 10 inches. It might not stabilise the 7.62x39 slugs, even though their iron cores give them much more length than they would have otherwise. One thing you might do would be to select a lot of bullets made to their maximum limits. Boat-tailed bullets do not obturate all that well in Enfield rifling, so this could be a problem.

I think you would have to try it to find out. Your best bet would be to try it with a reasonably light charge of a fast powder, I would think.

Hopefully, somebody who has investigated this will chime in and tell us both what to do!

Most important point: have fun!
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Slug your barrel Barney. If she's opened up to .313 or .314" you're probably wasting time and components.

If she is a Pakistani No4Mk2 a lot of them are very tight barrels. A friend's rifle was recently slugged at .310" and would be perfect for your needs. I had a punctured primer on one of these Paki enfields running .311" 175gr Mk8Z ammo.

Details in this Riflechair article.

This rifle would have been perfect for SKS / AK projectiles. I betcha you could safely work them up to 2700 to 2800 +/- fps. Probably best to find a softer jacketted bullet and I'n not 100% sure if a slower twist would be optimal but interesting project either way. Look out ground hogs!
 
FMJ 123 gr. Czech bullet out of a .303 BR

smellie said:
Most military bullets today are jacketed with mild steel as an economy measure. We did the same thing in Canada in World War Two. I you check all those pretty copper-coloured Defence Industries bullets, you will find that most of them are magnetic: mild steel jackets plated with enough copper-based gilding-metal that they don't rust.

Extensive British experiments indicated that there was a difference between the bore-wearing qualities of mild steel jackets versus cupro-nickel or other copper-based jackets, but that most bore erosion was caused by flame pressure and temperature.

Most of the former East Bloc slugs for the 7.62x39 are copper plated mild steel jackets with a layer of soft lead under that, and a mild-steel core. The layer of soft lead insulates the hard core from wearing directly against the steel jacket and so the bullets are no problem from a bore-wear standpoint. A few of them, or a few hundred, won't do any damage to the deep rifling of a Lee-Enfield rifle.

Where these bullets might not be the best thing is the fact that the rifling in all Lee-Enfields was 1 turn in 10 inches. It might not stabilise the 7.62x39 slugs, even though their iron cores give them much more length than they would have otherwise. One thing you might do would be to select a lot of bullets made to their maximum limits. Boat-tailed bullets do not obturate all that well in Enfield rifling, so this could be a problem.

I think you would have to try it to find out. Your best bet would be to try it with a reasonably light charge of a fast powder, I would think.

Hopefully, somebody who has investigated this will chime in and tell us both what to do!

Most important point: have fun!.
Click to expand...

Thank you Smellie for the above. Very informative and reassuring.:dancingbanana:

I have one comment though. You mention a 10" twist for the .303 BR perhaps not stabilizing the lighter shorter FMJ 123 gr.?

It is my understanding that the SKS-45 has a twist of 9.45" and thus should present no problem. Don't longer bullets with higher ballistic coefficients and section densities, like a 6.5mm 160-170 gr, require the faster twist? An in BP ML'ers , round walls take a much less twist than do slugs.
 
Riflechair said:
Slug your barrel Barney. If she's opened up to .313 or .314" you're probably wasting time and components.

If she is a Pakistani No4Mk2 a lot of them are very tight barrels. A friend's rifle was recently slugged at .310" and would be perfect for your needs. I had a punctured primer on one of these Paki enfields running .311" 175gr Mk8Z ammo.

Details in this Riflechair article.

This rifle would have been perfect for SKS / AK projectiles. I betcha you could safely work them up to 2700 to 2800 +/- fps. Probably best to find a softer jacketted bullet and I'n not 100% sure if a slower twist would be optimal but interesting project either way. Look out ground hogs!
Click to expand...

I just returned from Ellwood Epps tonight with 100 count box of the 7.62 / 0.310" 123 gr. SP Hornady bullets. Will have the new-to-me No. 5 Jungle Carbine soon. Previous owner says barrel has not been shot that much so we'll just load some rounds up and then test them at 25m, 50m and then 100m. Will get back to all of you next week when the rifle arrives and we can start the testing process. :D

Cheers and thanks for all your help.

Barney :evil:
 
That bullet will likely be undersized by 2-5 thou, but might still shoot well. I'd use WC-735 - 40.0 to 44.0 grs. That little bugger will really zip along.
 
Hornady Number 3140 is flat-base bullet.

It should obturate well in a .303 if a fast powder is used to give it a good, solid kick on the base.

For my money, it's the right bullet for the test.

.303 was made with 10-inch twist right from the start. It worked fine with the 215-grain RN slugs and with the later 174-grain composite bullets. I have run into a couple of rifles that don't like 150s, but 2 rifles in 45 years really isn't all that many.

I would think that some rifles will stabilise the lightweight 123s far better than others, but anything is possible. Buffdog is certainly getting great results with these bullets, but I rather suspect that his rifle is in a bit better shape than my resurrected 1907 junker.

I think I'm looking forward to this experiment almost as much as friend Hungry is!
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