Whats harder- Reloading .303 british or 7.5x55 swiss?

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GunNewb

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Ive been pondering bolt action milsurps lately. (alot) Seems to me that in order to get any serious range time with either gun I'm going to need to get into the reloading game. (ammo cost is prohibitive)

Is there any significant difference between reloading for the .303 brit and 7.5x55 swiss? Such as finding components, cost of components, resizing brass etc etc...

This might help tip the scales as the enfield and swiss k31 vie for a place in my safe.

Edit- I cant seem to find 7.5x55 swiss brass anywhere! Looking grim




* thanks for not jumping down my throat for calling this a 7.62 not 7.5!
 
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I'm going with yes.

Never looked for 7.5x55 swiss components, but every decent store should carry .303 components since they are so bloody common in Canada. Maybe not as good of selection as some calibers but they should have components.

The 7.5x55 you'll probably have problems with finding brass as it is not that common of a caliber meaning you will likely have to order it in(if you're in Calgary/Edmonton you might/should be able to find it locally). For bullets you *should* be able to use 0.308(used for 30-06/.308, very common) but you would have to slug the bore to be positive as it's technically a 0.306 bore diameter. Never reloaded for it so I can't say for sure but this is what google is hinting to me. Someone else who has reloaded for this should comment to clarify this point.

Cost should be similar for both, especially if the 7.5x55 will take .308 bullets. The main difference will be brass availability. Reloading procedure is the same.
 
GunNewb said:
* thanks for not jumping down my throat for calling this a 7.62 not 7.5!
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Eh..I find the people who do that kind of thing more irritating than the person who initially made the typo/error. I know I mix and match some days and if your new to this there are a crap load of numbers to get to know like 6.5x55, 7.5x55, 7.62x25, 7.62x39, 7.62x54R, 8x57, 9.3x57, 9.3x62...etc.

Actually if you're going milisurp you might want to look into getting a 6.5x55 swiss. Much easier to find components for I would think and an extremely good round for long distances and up to elk/maybe moose.
 
Freyr_255 said:
Eh..I find the people who do that kind of thing more irritating than the person who initially made the typo/error. I know I mix and match some days and if your new to this there are a crap load of numbers to get to know like 6.5x55, 7.5x55, 7.62x25, 7.62x39, 7.62x54R, 8x57, 9.3x57, 9.3x62...etc.

Actually if you're going milisurp you might want to look into getting a 6.5x55 SWEDE Much easier to find components for I would think and an extremely good round for long distances and up to elk/maybe moose.
Click to expand...

There I fixed that for you.
 
Freyr_255 said:
Eh..I find the people who do that kind of thing more irritating than the person who initially made the typo/error. I know I mix and match some days and if your new to this there are a crap load of numbers to get to know like 6.5x55, 7.5x55, 7.62x25, 7.62x39, 7.62x54R, 8x57, 9.3x57, 9.3x62...etc.

Actually if you're going milisurp you might want to look into getting a 6.5x55 swiss. Much easier to find components for I would think and an extremely good round for long distances and up to elk/maybe moose.
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heheheheh yeah but theyre out there! and theres no shortage of them on the interwebs. unfortunately the k31 im looking at is in 7.5x55
 
GunNewb said:
Ive been pondering bolt action milsurps lately. (alot) Seems to me that in order to get any serious range time with either gun I'm going to need to get into the reloading game. (ammo cost is prohibitive)

Is there any significant difference between reloading for the .303 brit and 7.5x55 swiss? Such as finding components, cost of components, resizing brass etc etc...

This might help tip the scales as the enfield and swiss k31 vie for a place in my safe.

* thanks for not jumping down my throat for calling this a 7.62 not 7.5!
Click to expand...

I find licking my elbow to be easier than reloading for 303 British.

You're probably going to run into head space issues, due to the rear locking lug amongst other things. This requires some dental floss or o-rings to fix. Components you won't have trouble finding.

All I do now with my 303 is run cast bullets in neck sized brass. I now use all my .311 180g bullets in my Mosin.

I don't know anything about 7.5 sorry.
 
Making 7.5 brass is as easy as resizing .284 brass. Do it once and you are good to go.
I use .308 bullets. K31s tend to be accurate, mine is as accurate as any military rifle I have ever used, and that includes 6.5 Swedes and my Ross Mk. II** target rifle.
.303 is quirky to reload, and no matter what you do, brass will be consumed, and case life is shorter than with many other calibers. This applies to Lee Enfield rifles, not to P14s.
If you want to deal with the 7.62 thing, click on Edit, click on Go Advanced, and fix it.
 
thanks tiriaq. Now realizing that I can not find 7.5 brass at all yipes. The big stores (bass pro, wholesale sports) dont even seem to carry winchester .284. Geeeese.
 
The first batch of .284 brass I bought was from P&D. The other stores probably didn't even know that particular caliber existed :rolleyes:. Had no problems resizing them and I still have some from that batch.
I then got some 7.5 brass from Rayn'er Shine Gunworks out of SK. Give them a try. He seems to have all the odd calibers at the shows I've seen him at.

(E) :cool:
 
Rocket Surgery said:
I find licking my elbow to be easier than reloading for 303 British.

You're probably going to run into head space issues, due to the rear locking lug amongst other things. This requires some dental floss or o-rings to fix. Components you won't have trouble finding.

All I do now with my 303 is run cast bullets in neck sized brass. I now use all my .311 180g bullets in my Mosin.

I don't know anything about 7.5 sorry.
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This seems more like a rifle problem than a reloading problem? Head space should have nothing to do with loading for a particular rifle as that is a mechanical problem unrelated to making ammunition unless your solving the head spacing problem by using fire formed brass. :confused:
 
NEVER reload .303 brass if you haven't invested in a broken case extractor first!! If you are lucky some brands of .303 brass will allow you 4-6 reloads before the case separates from the head, this is because of the design of the cartridge case over 100 years ago.
 
Freyr_255 said:
This seems more like a rifle problem than a reloading problem? Head space should have nothing to do with loading for a particular rifle as that is a mechanical problem unrelated to making ammunition unless your solving the head spacing problem by using fire formed brass. :confused:
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You're right, it's probably just my Enfield that has generous amounts of headspace. Not even worth bringing up, sorry guys.
 
For 7.5x55:
Used Privi 7.5x55 brass I bought from Tradex.
Used .284Win brass from Higginson.
Used reloaded GP11 brass de-primed with hydrolic method and with RCBS Berdan depriming tool. Berdan primers available from RWS wholesaler.

All work very well indeed.
Just watch cartridge overall length, since 99% of 7.5x55 C.O.L data is for the Older Swiss rifles and way too long for K31s, zfk31/55 and Stgw 57 and most 7.5x55 Match rifles
 
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I have no knowledge of the metric size you quote, but I STARTED my reloading hobby with 303. Someone gave me an old rusted LE No1MkIII* and I restored it and started reloading for it.

Now I've got two different moulds for plinkers as well as full loads for the rifle. I mostly shoot reduced loads cos its cheap as dirt. That's another story though.

From my experience, reloading the 303 is so easy, I let my daughters do it for me (under my watchful eye). I used the Lee Neck Sizer after full-length resizing every once-fired brass that I have. So far, I have not had a single case separation. However, I have it EXPERT advice, that case separations are not a big deal and no tool is required to remove the case that's left in the rifle. Apparently (and the guys in milsurps can confirm this) the LE is built such that all it takes is a gentle shake or at most a small tap of the butt on the ground and the broken case falls out.

There are TONs of loads out there for 303. Pick one and run with it. I load with Varget and RL15 with no problems at all...decent accuracy and for reduced loads, I use Bullseye...again with decent accuracy.

Regarding headspace, i was so afraid of this gun (because of all I read) that I made a special heavy-duty rack to put the rifle on, clamped it to the table at the range and was all set to fire it with a length of string. A fellow shooter asked what I was doing, picked up the rifle and said: If you're not going to shoot it, can I? Well, I took the rifle from him, closed my eyes and fired.

The rest is history...being replayed every other weekend :)
 
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