Some Ammo Really Sucks...

[amadeus76]

Took a new No4 Mk2 out to zero the other day and do some preliminary accuracy testing... I don’t have any handloads made up currently and since it seems Hornady has ceased production on their .303 Vintage Match ammo I went out with some Remington UMC 174gr FMJ thinking it should work. Yea I got it zeroed but I was shooting at 3-4 inches at 25 yards. My initial thought was, ok this gun doesn’t like boat tails. But regardless I decided to go home and put my Fulton no drill mount on with a K3 and try again. With the UMC ammo I zeroed the scope and still got roughly the same accuracy. So again, not happy... Because I was there I decided to see how bad it was at 100 yards and while I didn’t measure it was pretty abhorrent. I also brought out some of the Hornady Vintage ammo I still had and tried that at 100 yards. With that I got a 5 shot group measuring just over 1.5 MOA. So in the end I’m happy with the rifle but I’ll be damned if I ever buy Remington UMC again.

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[30Three]

Can you find the PPU ammunition in texas. It's a good factory load and the brass is good for reloading.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

Be aware that some combinations of rifle and ammo will shoot proportionately WORSE at 25 yards than they do at 200.

It is all to do with the behaviour of the bullet as it leaves the muzzle.

There are a lot of factors at play, but the big one is that Lee Enfields were built to use ONE cartridge. that is, the "ammo of the day". Every time the ammo was changed, most notably, from the old heavy, hard-jacketed Mk6, to the superb Mk7, they not only had to change the sight calibration, but the entire bedding setup and even the magazine.

If your barrel is one of the ones that left the factory with a barrel at the "high" end of rifling tolerances, It would probably shoot open-based Mk7 to military standard,. If not, it would not have left the factory.

Solid-based boat-tails are not what the rifle was built around.

Furthermore, if a steady diet of Mk7 CORDITE ammo was consumed in service life, there WILL be measurable throat (leade) erosion. This will also not be conducive to "bumping-up" a boat-tail to a close fit in the rifling grooves..

PPU and Barnaul have both advertised (and made) 174gn FLAT-based ammo and projectiles, in both "ball" and "sporting" configurations.

Failing finding any of that, there are two options: Find a manufacturer who loads flat-based 174-180 gn bullets and stock up, or, roll your own.

Here in Australia, one very small local bullet maker offers a flat-based hollow-point that closely mimics the shape and BALANCE of the Mk7. These also perform well in Mosin Nagants, Schmidt Rubins and Type 99 Arisakas. Whether these are exported, I do not know.

[pisco]

hi i use the hornady 312 “ diameter in my 1917 Lithgow with very good results they are flat based

[Daan Kemp]

From the original post it's clear the rifle doesn't like those bullets. Possibly/probably different bullet shape from the same manufacturer would group well.

Don't condemn the ammo because the rifle sneers at it.

[Macca]

G’day Bruce,
Who would be the manufacturer that you speak of?

[CINDERS]

The bullet factory is that place google them not to sure on the exportation of components from Aus I use them they are good pills very uniform meplats used them in a as issued 1942 Savage No.4 in a walk up 3 range multi position 300yds/200/100 shoot at the SASR range in Perth against 40 other shooters and won so they do work. Think I brought 1000 of them a while ago then lucked onto 400 174 grain Highland pills long out of production so brought them as well along with 1500 174 SMK's before they went through the roof.........$'s wise

[amadeus76]

Can you find the PPU ammunition in texas. It's a good factory load and the brass is good for reloading.

I'm actually in Iowa now (Army moved me), but .303 British is a pain to find all over. Texas was a little easier but was usually 150gr soft points. Here the only LE rifle I've seen that I didn't own was a sportarized No 5.

I have used PPU before and out of a couple of my rifles it shoots decent. I usually reload, but don't have any cooked up due to recently moving. I did like to use Hornady Vintage as a baseline for accuracy to build off of, but I guess that won't be an option anymore.

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---------- Post added at 09:36 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:27 AM ----------

To clarify, Hornady Vintage is a boat tail design and shoots pretty well out of this rifle. So keeping that in mind I don't think the issue was boat tail vs flat base, I think the UMC ammo just is much lower quality as attested by the price.

[Sunray]

Slug your barrel. Not all No. 4 Rifles have a .311" barrel. They can go to .315" and be considered ok.
The issue is the American manufacturers don't use the same diameter. Hornady uses .312" diameter or .3105". Sierra uses .311"(they make a .311" MatchKing). You'll have to measure a Remington bullet as they don't publish what diameter they use. Prvi uses .311". However, none of that matters if you have a .313" + barrel.
Montana Bullets makes several over .313" cast bullets that aren't stupid expensive.
In any case, if you're not reloading you have to try a box of as many brands as you can to find the ammo that rifle likes. But you must slug the barrel on any Lee-Enfield first.

[GeeRam]

PPU and Barnaul have both advertised (and made) 174gn FLAT-based ammo and projectiles, in both "ball" and "sporting" configurations.

PPU no longer list flat base bullet ammo for .303, only the 174 gn FMJ BT.

In the UK we only have 2 options for factory 303 ammo, either the PPU or Sellier & Bellot 180gn FMJ BT.
Never seen any other make of 303 for sale here in UK for target use.

I have seen Remington SP Core-Lokt hunting ammo in 303 for sale by one dealer in the UK, but you can't use that on most target ranges here.