FYI- 8mm swaged Ruger 303 projie testing.

WhelanLad

WhelanLad

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Gents a fella off a Aussie forum has got in touch, him an his mate dabble with odd cartridges and have some swaging dies for 314 and 316 an others, but the moral of my story is that im in process of receiving some 8mm Speer hot cors, swaged down to .314 .315 to try out in the 303 Brit Ruger #1......

Anyone else tried this, i would assume so on CGN?

woodleigh and hornady did not swage down well, but the speers appeared too.....

his mate wants em to test for any accuracy changes and to "blow a doe" an try recover one..... suits me.


Whats ya thoughts for loading, start well load on min or lower , for older smle 303s ?

im a bit excited, imaaaagine if it shoots em straight.....

i will report back an update in between taxidermy hours :D


lemme hear it!
 
Never one 303, but years ago we swaged down some 9.3 bullets too 9mm for a 9X57 Mauser a buddy had- they worked fine and it was an accurate rifle.
If the bullets mic. out well I would use the dame data for starting as you would any other .303 Brit bullet of the same weight.
Cat
 
Any reason you are stopping at .314? I don't doubt they would be safe but if you are going through the trouble .312 may perform better in a nice gun like a No.1.
 
B said:
Any reason you are stopping at .314? I don't doubt they would be safe but if you are going through the trouble .312 may perform better in a nice gun like a No.1.
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Because ruger made their barrels .313/.314”, I believe that’s the whole point of WhelanLad doing this experiment.
 
The common "concern" about this method is the same expressed for many "outside the box" approaches on CGN and elsewhere - that it's dangerous. Specifically that the swaging will loosen the bond between the jacket and the core causing the two to separate in the bore, cause an obstruction and hence a destructive event. No-one can point to it ever having happened, just that it "could". That was not a cconern for me.

All bullets are swaged in the rifle lands upon firing, an amount that varies by caliber, but for the 8mm, that's typically about 0.008" - from 0.323" to about 0.315". This action forcibly engraves a spiral pattern into the bullet mechanically bonding the jacket to the core (unless it's a solid). Of course upon impact, it's quite common to find that a bullet has separated the jacket from its core, either in the backstop or in the dead animal that causes its rapid decelleration.
 
double gun said:
Because ruger made their barrels .313/.314”, I believe that’s the whole point of WhelanLad doing this experiment.
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I am curious why Ruger would have done that, when most manufacturers are making 0.311" or 0.312 bullets for this caliber. I understand why that was done on the Enfield rifles during wartime, but why on a modern sporting rifle? I'm not specifically asking you Double Gun, just a bit surprised that they would do something like that.

Jim
 
And who makes bullets? They should have used more common sense for todays market and made a .311 groove barrel.
 
Well, here they Are.... 170gr 8mm down to .314 i think, i havnt measured an he mentioned a few sizes lol, 315 316 etc....

look the goods........ got quite a box full of them actually!! i expected 10-20, id say close to 50 an maybe more! stoked.

ipMnzsX.jpg
 
now my battery is dead on the calipers, but they are definatly bigger than a woodleigh .312 ..... by a bit.

ill take a handful to an old fulla tomorow an run a coupe on the calipers to see exactly.....

when i stuck one upside down in the muzzle, it stops before the point flattens... how Large is too large for jacketed, this makes me wonder.
 
Well - I would be more concerned about the loaded cartridges binding in the neck. Take a fired case from your Ruger and see if one of your new-fangled bullets inserts without any interference.
 
cosmic said:
Well - I would be more concerned about the loaded cartridges binding in the neck. Take a fired case from your Ruger and see if one of your new-fangled bullets inserts without any interference.
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hey mate i was doin some reading last night in regards to over sized jacketed and some issues, the neck/throat was of concern in some instances, but if that was free enough to allow, then the pressure build up was more but not alot ore, a guy tested an found 3-4000 psi increase, an that was even a similiar sized bullet into a 30-06 from memory.

so i will test the dummy cartidge, be interesting to see if they reach the lands on the ruger 1 with such lng throat.

report back over the weekend.


Not thoought bout barnes, seems like an expensive venture from here. an seems expensive when a fellow gun nutter from au would size them for me, if i bought the 8mm stuffs... :)

il look up other weights :)
apparently woodleih an hornaday did not swage well
 
mbogo3 said:
Did you use the modern .323 or older .318 to start with?
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Sorry dude i missed this post-

they are original .323 mm Speer Hot Cors 170gr !

im just about to load some up to test.... im thinking il use old 303 load data, which is 38 gr of Varget "up to 40gr" for 2500 fps,...... but first i have to load a dummy an make sure it fits ..
 
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