Headspace question.

[Edward Horton]

"All in the Family"?

SO is his dadgummed rifle safe to shoot? Eh? What?

I do not have this rifle in my hands Mr. jmoore, but this Enfield passed British military head space standards.

The real question is what brand of ammunition did GBinSC shoot in his enfield and a photo of his fired cases would be worth a thousand words.

As a side note to this topic and the quality of American cartridge cases, Remington at one time produced our military ammunition at the Lake City Arsenal but lost the contract to Winchester.

Winchester lost the contract to produce ammunition at the Lake City Arsenal and now ATK Ammunition Systems Group now produces ammunition at the Lake City Arsenal. (The contract went to the cheapest bidder)

Remington was bought out by Cerberus Capital Management and now sells Serbian made mausers. (Mitchell’s Mausers)

And Winchester is now owned by General Dynamic’s weapons division.

Greedy Corporate Companies now run the show and company profits are the bottom line.

In June 2007, a private equity firm, Cerberus Capital Management, acquired Remington Arms for $370 million, including $252 million in assumed debt. This happened because Remington was millions of dollars in debt and did not report a profit during the years 2003-2005.

Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. is one of the largest private equity investment firms in the United States. The firm is based in New York City, and run by 49-year-old financier Steve Feinberg. Former U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle has been a prominent Cerberus spokesperson and runs one of its international units.
Cerberus Capital Management - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I wonder what kind of Corporate bonuses are handed out for cost cutting measures at our ammunition plants.

And Mr. jmoore, its not "All in the Family" in our forums, its "Tom and Jerry"

[jmoore]

I do not have this rifle in my hands Mr. jmoore, but this Enfield passed British military head space standards.

The real question is what brand of ammunition did GBinSC shoot in his enfield and a photo of his fired cases would be worth a thousand words.

Well ask him to do so w/o losing the thrust of this thread which ain't yours.


BTW That's neither Tom nor Jerry.

[Edward Horton]

Well ask him to do so w/o losing the thrust of this thread which ain't yours.


BTW That's neither Tom nor Jerry.

This thread also does not belong to jmoore or parashooter and my main thrust here is to NOT blame the Enfield Rifle for the commercially designed American cases that were never designed to shoot in a British .303 military chamber.

If you also look at this Canadian website you will see what a Canadian Armourer has to say about the subject.

"Most gunsmiths use the tighter SAAMI gauges when accessing head space. I said most - not all. If your rifle is assessed as "serviceable" using military gauges, there is a distinct possibility that you will experience more case stretching. If this is so, you might want to tighten up the headspace."
Reloading the 303 British: Chambers and Headspace

Now look at Parashooters animated .gif image below and watch the case stretch and thin in the base web area. Parashooters answer for this stretching was to use resizing lube in his "Head Space 101" to keep the cartridge case from gripping the chamber walls.



I will end this post with the following statement:

Parashooters own animated .gif image shows this stretching and thinning and what happens to an American SAAMI designed .303 cartridge case when it is fired in a Enfield chamber. And yet Parashooter decided to bring up MY name criticizing my findings in my initial posting.

What you are seeing here is a war between the case greasers and non-case greasers that has been going on for seven years. And please notice I didn't bring anyones name up in my first posting.

The factory loaded Winchester case below stretched and thinned .009 thousandths in the web area on its first firing and Parashooter wants to tell everyone I do not know what I'm talking about. (I bought factory loaded ammunition just for this testing) The head space on the Enfield that fired this cartridge is set at less than .067, how much do you think this Winchester case would have stretched if the head space was at .074?





The bottom line here is knowing why "some" cases are bulging in the base web area and why other do not and STOP the name calling.

[madcratebuilder]

Damn jmoore, you made me spray coffee allover my key board!

To the OP, your rifle is safe to shoot. Do you have saami or British gauges? You can get different number bolt heads to decrease the head space. The search button is your friend.

[Amatikulu]

GBinSC please read the complete article (found in this site's reference section) in the link below:

https://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=10

It will answer your questions

[Brian Dick]

His rifle is safe to shoot. I gauged it here myself and also set a bunch of other problems right while he was here. If you're going to reload, take Ed's advice and buy the Privi Partisan cases and a neck sizing die. Fire form your brass and neck size only for maximum case life. I forgot to check the throat erosion while he was here because we had so many other issues to address. My advice there would be to use flat base bullets because the boat tail bullets won't perform as well if there's erosion from the use of cordite which is highlt possible. Try them both and see. The proof is in the pudding. ATB.

[Brian Dick]

Oh yeah, almost forgot. Remember what I told you about replacing bolt heads. You might get a good deal on one that you think is the correct size to fix the problem you think you have but the chances are slim that it'll fit and time correctly to your bolt unless you get real lucky. remember that you can lay out ten of any size and they will all measure differently, especially if they are used. The factories and Armourers had bins full of them to select fit correctly.

[Edward Horton]

Below in the attachments is a "0" (zero) bolt head that I lapped to give me slightly over a .084 head space setting in the same Enfield that caused the .009 case stretching in the web area at .067 in my posting above.

In this same Enfield at .084 and a rubber o-ring around the case with factory loaded Commercial Winchester ammunition I had NO, repeat NO case stretching in the web area.

I have said this before, I bought 500 once fired Greek HXP cases from Brian Dick and checked each case in three different places with my RCBS case mastering gauge. NOT one single Greek HXP case had ANY case stretching or thinning in the web area.
(NOT all brands of brass cases are the same quality)

The Prvi Partizan cases fired at .067 in this Enfield also had NO stretching or thinning in the base web area of the case.

These gauges below tell no lies and the Remington and Winchester we knew in the past are gone forever in cooperate takeovers.







The rubber o-ring holds the case against the bolt face when fire forming your cases at "ZERO" head space.



After fire forming with the rubber o-ring you neck size only as Brian stated and your .303 cases will then head space on the shoulder, which holds the case against the bolt face at "ZERO" head space.



With the rubber 0-ring you have NO grease or oil on your cases and NO added extra bolt thrust and possible damage to your Enfields.

(You also have the added benefit that the o-ring doesn't care what your bolt head size is or what your head space setting is at)

[MJ1]

Critters are called Itchy and Scratchy.

Peace
..MJ..

[ireload2]

JUST IN CASE no pun intended.