After fixing the chamber, will the gun fire

[Bruce_in_Oz]

The "soldiers of the Queen" were never really into reloading, especially with the old Mercuric Berdan-primed stuff. Some of us civilian shooters here in the outer colonies did so out of necessity until VERY recently, however. I still have a couple of thousand RWS 6000 .250" primers tucked away. Ya' never know when......... Bear in mind that these old Mercuric-primed case are inevitably prone to cracking because of the Mercury in the priming compound. NOT SO anything using a Lead Azide or similarly-brewed primer.

Military priorities were reliability, safety and accuracy, pretty much in that order. And having a beer or three after a hard day sending the tax-payers' shillings down-range..

A LOT of Lee Enfields seem to have "oversized" chambers, FAR from "bench-rest "spec". Some of this is because of the way the originals were cut and probably more-so nowadays, because "surplus dealers" have been known to "freshen-up" the appearance of a chamber with all manner of power-driven rotary abrasive devices.

Being a rimmed case, it basically does not matter if the shoulder and body of the case have a rather casual relationship with the chamber, as long as the chamber is bigger than the cartridge.

If you are only reloading for ONE .303 rifle, play round with die settings and die selection. Try just neck sizing, because you need the neck tension to retain the bullet. Setting the Full-length die out a bit is an old trick. Adjust it until it sizes the body taper so that the case is a neat but not "tight" fit in the chamber. LABEL this ammo as being for the specific rifle by serial number if you have other .303 rifles.

If you regularly shoot a serious fleet of these things, and reload for all of them, you will have to decide whether to go through this routine for EACH of them, set up for a "compromise / average" or just go back to "standard" ammo and live with the shorter life of the brass. Neck / shoulder annealing between reloads will reduce case loss a bit, but it involves more time and equipment.

One of life's many interesting decisions.

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