herently accurate rifles/calibers

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If you are looking for an accurate Milsurp rifle today, your best bet would be either the 6.5x55 Swedish Mauser of the K31 Swiss. BUT you better not dally, because the supply of these are drying up fast. To have a really accurate rifle, handloading is the way to go, because you can match your custom made ammunition to the rifle. Either calibre has easily obtained components for reloading, and a bit of load development can surprise you as to the capabilities of these rifles. Reloading for either of these calibres is really no different than reloading for commonly used calibres. Some powders tend to be better for a cartridge, and Reloader 22 for the 6.5x55 with Reloader 17 for the K31 can give amazing results.

As mentioned, there are still some Swedish FSR target rifles available, and these usually have very good adjustable sights on them. There are target sights available for the k31 but they tend to be more expensive.
 
I have had SMLE's, No. 4's, P14's, Mosin 91 and 91/30's, and even SVT's with poor bores and lots of wear and tear, still manage to significantly surpass their original design dispersion standards. To me that's a clear sign of an inherently accurate system. MOA accuracy is largely irrelevent to these weapons although it can certainly be attained with handloading. Interestingly, at the longest range I routinely shoot at (about 450 yards) I find the simple leaf sights on SVT's, Mosin's and SMLE's work (for me) every bit as well as the coarse peep sights on P14's, Model 1917's and No. 4's. Replace the military sight on a No. 4 with a Parker-Hale peep with adjustable aperture and it's a whole new ball game.

milsurpo
 
Here's a useful benchmark on military accuracy standards for the fabled No4Mk1 T sniper rifle from Cdn Army EMEIs. To be acceptable the rifle must place a 5 shot group within a 3 inch x 3 inch square @ 100 yds. No doubt most would have surpassed that.

In reality most MILSURPS will shoot at least this well or better provided that the bore is unworn, stock bedding is to specifications, sights are tight and quality ammo is used. I've done better than this with any number of M1 Garands, M1903 Springfields, M96 Mausers, No 4s, MkIIIs, M14s, M1917/P14 Enfields , a MkIII Ross and a M27 Finnish Mosin-Nagant, all with handloads. The best of MILSURP ball ammo can be expected to shoot 2 MOA. Quality handloads with match grade bullets will always shoot better.
 
I borrowed my neighbour's US Model of 1917 30-06 this spring and just fired a handful of shots off the hood of the truck at a target tacked to a stump at 50 yards with some old 30-06 Winchester cartridges I had laying around.

The bullet holes were touching. I don't think that rifle has been shot much. It has the red paint around the end.
 
"Ross"

I read one trial in an old guy's letters on the surplusrifle forum; they put a 280 (I think) Ross barreled action in a vise and it grouped 6.5" at a thousand yards.
 
MD said:
I borrowed my neighbour's US Model of 1917 30-06 this spring and just fired a handful of shots off the hood of the truck at a target tacked to a stump at 50 yards with some old 30-06 Winchester cartridges I had laying around.

The bullet holes were touching. I don't think that rifle has been shot much. It has the red paint around the end.
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It was probably not shot much on account of that little bit of red paint put there by the inspecting armourer when he condemned that rifle as NFFU for one reason or another.

tac
 
purple said:
Red paint was applied to the forend of Model 1917s in British service during WW2 to indicate that the rifle used a different round (.30-06) from the standard .303 British.
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I don't think the practice was limited to British service. I have a lovely P17 with large Broad arrow C marks, indicating Canadian service. There was an ex REME in Vernon BC, now deceased, named Walter Rogers as well as a cohort of his who was also a REME, Les Viel. They plied their services from repairing firearms for the RMRs from Victoria to Revelstoke out of Chiliwack and later along the BC coast where they often worked with their US counterparts. Because of resupply constraints it was often necessary and expedient for Canadians to have similar firearms and especially ammunition. He spoke of servicing Garands, Springfields and P17s while performing these duties. The P17s were the usual rifle encountered and they all had training on the platform on both sides. A few Garands were encountered and the same could be said for the Springfield 03s. He knew the P17s were issued by Canada due to the RED painted bands. As far as the 03s and Garands, that was a gray area that no one questioned. He didn't elaborate from there.
 
Gerald the red band was used on Cdn issued M1917s as well, but not always. It was also used on lend lease Garands and M1903s that were supplied to the Brits on lend lease in the 1941/1942 timeframe. The Brits even got some BARs on lend lease, so no doubt these were given the red paint treatment as well. In some cases the Brits went a bit further and even painted .300 or .30 or variations of this in black or white numbers on top of the red bands.

I have a very interesting copy of an early Cdn Army WW2 training film on the M1917s showing quite a number of M1917 rifles. None of them appear to have either the red band or the curious "notch" which was milled out of the rear of the receiver ring by the Danes or Norwegians. The film is quite an early one as it shows troops wearing the early pattern black on khaki shoulder flashes. I could make out both 4PLDG and RCOC flashes.
 
Personally I think the Swedish 96's reputation for accuracy comes from shooting a (fairly) mild cartridge in a (fairly) heavy rifle, with generally excellent bores with a long sight radius.

It has long been noted that as recoil goes down, shooting scores go up.
 
I'm guessing you've never shot 'lively' rounds through the 6.5 x 55.
The fodder we get here in north America is pretty sedate; the same with 8 x57.
 
It has been my experience that loading military cartridges DOWN about 10% in MV while staying with a reasonably quick powder, can give some interesting results.

My "pet" load for the much-maligned .303, for example, is 37 grains of IMR-4895 with a Sierra 180 Pro-Hunter flatbased bullet. Seating is to OAL of a Ball round: 3.05". This combination, from an SMLE, gives almost exactly 2250 ft/sec, which is right on the by-test most accurate velocity observed during the development of the Mark VII Ball round. In a properly-bedded 1918 Lithgow, this load has repeatedly shot half-inch "sniper/hunter" groups: 2 rounds, first from a dead-cold bore, second round in 1 minute or less. In a completely-untouched all-matching 1918 NRF, this same load shoots a consistent 1 inch at 100 under the same conditions.

In an UNCUT Ross, this load clocks almost 2400 ft/sec. To reduce it to the magical 2250, I lowered the charge by 2 grains. With this ammunition, my very-early Mark III Ross has piled its bullets on top of each other too many times for it to be luck.

When the different military organisations were developing their ammunition, I am quite convinced that they did not simply go for the most horsepower they could cram into a casing. In the British example, they first developed the most accurate round they could, THEN built a single rifle completely with worn-out parts, maximum clearances, headspace and so forth.... with the single exception that the Barrel was tighter than should have been accepted. With this combination, they pushed the ammunition higher and higher, starting from the most-accurate velocity, until the rifle started wrecking its empties. They then SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE and came up with the nominal 2440 ft/sec for the Mark VII round which lasted for the remainder of production. That was in 1910. It seems to have worked.

I have no reason to expect that any other MAJOR military organisation would have done any differently. Powders were kept FAST because of cost and shipping tonnage. Intensity of the load would have been kept to something ABOVE the most-accurate level in order to extend range but NOT so much as to promote excessive maintenance problems in the field.

The result, to us a century later, is that we can turn out VERY accurate ammunition simply by dropping the Service velocities by about 10%.

Hope this makes sense.
 
I've done a lot of reloading for the .30-06 in various MILSURPs incl the M1 Garand, Model 1903 Springfield, and Model 1917 Enfield and have found that the best accuracy usually comes at less than top velocity.

Commercial ammo is loaded with slower burning propellants in order to generate higher velocities (speed and ### always sell better), but take a look at using faster burners like IMR4064, IMR 4895 and H4895 which are recommended for the M1 Garand as they do generate the correct gas port pressure pulse to cycle the action. Not only are these best from a functionality point of view, but they are also excellent for accuracy. Both the Sierra and Lyman reloading manuals cite IMR 4064 as the preferred accuracy propellant in the .30-06 and they do load development and testing for a living. Sierra recommends 45.9gr of IMR4064 with a fairly sedate MV of 2600fps as the accuracy load for 168gr match bullets in the .30-06. This confirms my own findings which have led me to settle on 46gr of the same propellant with the same bullet weight.

Most shooters are notorious cheap-a$$es so we can appreciate the gains in using 45.9gr of IMR 4064 to generate the same MV as 52.2gr of IMR4350. The other bonus is that less propellant means a bit less recoil. I have nothing against IMR4350 and do use it for 180gr hunting loads in my .30-06 bolt gun where it seems to be a real champ. The other oldie, but goodie, to try in a .30-06 bolt gun is IMR4320. IMR4320 was originally developed in the 1930s for use in .30-06 match ammo using 180gr bullets. You don't hear much about IMR4320 any more, but it is still worth a try in a .30-06 bolt gun. Incidentally it is also very good in both the 7.62x54 Russian and the .303 Brit.
 
7.62x54r, 7mm, 8mm, 7.5 french, 7.5 swiss, 303, 30-06, 6.5x55, 7.62x39, 223, 308................can't really say i've ever seen one caliber more accurate then any others. Some rifles are better built..but change the chambering and keep the quality the same and you will get the same accuracy. Obviously this assumes good quality ammunition, but i've seen SKS's regularly punch 2" groups at 100 yards prone if used with quality handloads worked up for the rifle
 
Smellie wrote: "My "pet" load for the much-maligned .303, for example, is 37 grains of IMR-4895 with a Sierra 180 Pro-Hunter flatbased bullet."

Milsurp barrels are seldom match quality. It has been my observation that flatbased bullets usually out perform boatailed bullets. In 303, the only exception to this was my new in the wrap Irish Contract #4. It shot much better groups with the Sierra 174 MatchKing. It is the only 303 I have with expensive taste. All the others shoot better with the cheaper flatbased bullets.
 
smellie said:
My "pet" load for the much-maligned .303, for example, is 37 grains of IMR-4895 with a Sierra 180 Pro-Hunter flatbased bullet. Seating is to OAL of a Ball round: 3.05".
Click to expand...

Ganderite said:
Smellie wrote: "My "pet" load for the much-maligned .303, for example, is 37 grains of IMR-4895 with a Sierra 180 Pro-Hunter flatbased bullet."
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Hey mine too. Only mine is 37.5 grains.
 
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