Blown out .303 British brass

[kjohn]

I have an old Lee Enfield No.1 MkIII that is intended for use with straight walled .303 British brass. After reading about doing this and that to arrive at a straight wall empty brass, I put this matter on hold some years ago. The recent thread on .410 brass got me inspired again. (Oh oh!)

This one won't take .410 hulls, nor will it take 444 Marlin, like the one I have that is chambered for 3" .410. I've got that one perking now.

I have a fair few .303 brass of various brands, so I thought, well, I'll skip the annealing, skip the corn meal and toilet paper filler. I picked out an orphan .303 WW, primed it with a rifle primer, resized the neck to accept a .323 gas checked 175 gr. Lee cast bullet,dumped in 11 gr. of 700X, seated the bullet after belling the mouth out a wee bit, crimped it a bit with a .303 collet crimp die. I took rifle and cartridge out of town a ways, loaded up and let 'er off into the snow bank.

A nice straight wall brass came out of the chamber! Did I get lucky? Well, probably, but I am going to do up four Federal brass and try it again. My .395 squashed and sized to .410 ww balls fit in nicely after belling the mouth out a wee bit. If the Federals behave, I will reload the five and try them with wads and two squashed balls, just to see if they shoot as good as the 3" one does. I haven't tried the .410 squashed lead in that one yet.

Stay tuned for a progress report.

** I'm not recommending this method. Posted for info. **

 

[vagrantviking]

Sounds like a reasonable way to fireform if you don't mind wasting the bullets. With a fast enough powder (and 700x is pretty fast) a wax plug or something similar would probably work too.

I'd take the time to anneal half way down just to prevent as many as possible from splitting.

 

[kjohn]

Yeah. I have enough wheel weights, plus a fair number of .323 bullets already cast. No reason I can't use .312 bullets either. I have lots of them, too. I just happened to have an 8x57 die handy. For the purpose of "straightwalling", I could simply seat a bullet, crimp it, and go. Eventually, I'll get it down to a science.

I'll see how the Federals take to this method. I checked the next four that I plan to blow out, to make sure they chamber in the old boomer.

 

[bigedp51]

Place a thin rubber o-ring around the base of the case. This will hold the case against the bolt face when fired and blow out the shoulder of the case to fit the chamber.

From this point on the.303 case will headspace on the case shoulder not the rim.

 

[Ganderite]

I second the motion on annealing the entire case.

I did not, and half the cases split, and the other half were poor.

 

[Ashcroft]

Awesome Ganderite, looks like you’ve developed a few new wildcats!

 

[woodchopper]

I've found WW cases a little more forgiving when necking up, Federal brass tends to be stiffer so annealing might be a good step for you take

 

[kjohn]

All duly noted. Thanks for the help and advice.

 

[buzzmagoo]

Them little rubber bands,, are they Dental braces elastics ??

 

[Andy]

What I do with 30-06 brass to make 9.3X62 might work well to make straight-wall 303 Brit. Anneal to below the shoulder and lube well. Saves powder, primer, bullet and time.

 

[M1-Garand]

Them little rubber bands,, are they Dental braces elastics ??

I use the little elastics that girls use for their hair/ ponytails

 

[vagrantviking]

Them little rubber bands,, are they Dental braces elastics ??

The elastic is so the case stays against the bolt face and the shoulder is blown forward to fit a long chamber. Subsequent sizing you do minimal shoulder bump. Basically converting the brass to headspace on the shoulder rather than the rim.

If you are blowing out the neck entirely to have a straight 410 case I can't see how there is any benefit to using the elastic. It can only headspace on the rim anyway.

 

[kjohn]

Update: Blew out four more Winchester Super X brass. They came out nice. Blew out four Federal. The bottom half didn't blow out as nice as the W-W. I'll use them, but will stick with W-W brass for more "hulls".

One thing I did notice was that the Federals didn't split when I belled the mouth out, whereas two of the W-W did. I maybe belled them a bit too much, but in order to start the wad card, they need a bit of belling.

Smells like annealing will be my next project.

 

[antiqueguy]

I took a bunch of odd ball brass I have sitting here federal and Remington mostly and have them mostly set up to be fire formed into .410. I had to thin the rims I just ran the back side of the rim along a flat file checking to see when they would fit they take a large pistol primer no problem. I need to buy some .410 appropriate powder before I feel comfortable with fire forming them.

I have heard that federal brass is a bit softer.

 

[mctrigger]

Always wanted a 410 musket Enfield. Can’t wait to see the reloads.

Nice work

 

[kjohn]

Always wanted a 410 musket Enfield. Can’t wait to see the reloads.

Nice work

As you’ve probably already figured out, I have two of these old curios, one an original “blown out .303 case chambered one” and a 3” chambered one. They require two different sizes of brass, as the older size won’t take regular .410 hulls nor .444 Marlin.

I’ll post pics of the loaded cases, both sizes once I load up some for the older size.

 

[antiqueguy]

I have noticed a lot of these pop up for sale lately.

 

[gunlaker]

I have been using unique and cornmeal for expanding 30-40 brass to 0.375, but recently I have decided to try using a series of custom expander plugs from Buffalo Arms. I first go to .32, then .35 , then .38 , finally to .40 to get rid of the shoulder and then a fl size. I'm not sure it works better than unique and cornmeal but it saves on primers and powder.

Chris

 

[kjohn]

Here's a pic of four loaded blown out .303 W-W brass. There's one more, but the case mouth is a bit mutilated, and I didn't want to ruin my stellar reputation for top notch work! There are loaded fairly light, as they are still in the experimental phase.



Here's four Federal brass loaded, plus one to be blown out. The bulge is visible on the rh side on the two right most loads.

 

[Andy]

What I do with 30-06 brass to make 9.3X62 might work well to make straight-wall 303 Brit. Anneal to below the shoulder and lube well. Saves powder, primer, bullet and time.


View attachment 643531

Had five spare minutes so sized a twice-fired 303 Brit with this method. No annealing, lots of Imperial Case Lube and one quick pass and presto. I've done plenty of 30-06 this way and never had a split.