Reloading help for No1Mk3*

[3rdTennCoC]

By stretching I mean keyholes. The hole isn't round. Anyway, I suspect your barrel is oversize so you aren't getting accuracy.

Yes I know, theres no keyholing, and I am using oversized bullets in my current loads .316

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[bob q]

Try the Hornady .312 174 rn bullet seated with the whole crimp groove showing and about 19.8 grains of SR-4759 or 20.8 of XMR-5744 . Use a mag primer and measure the powder well as it does not meter well . If your rifle will not shoot that load well at 50 yards I think there is something really wrong .

[Brian Dick]

All the speculation is great but useless. Take my advice, go to BRP or APEX, buy the .310 and .307 plug gauges. If they respectively enter the barrel more than .25", your barrel is out of spec and needs replacing. There's no speculation using correct gauges. Everyone worried about their barrels should add these gauges to their tool kit while they're available. You need the .310 for the throat, .307 for the muzzle and .301 which must run through the barrel. If the barrel gauges in spec, you most likely have a forend bedding problem.

[bob q]

While test firing over 2000 different types of military rifles for accuracy I never needed a gauge to check anything to see if it would shoot . A good slug reading will get you the land and groove at the muzzle and barrel , which will tell you how much rifling you have and the sizes . If you know your land and groove and use your eyeball to check for obvious problems at the muzzle and down the bore , that will tell you what you need to know . Bedding will not cause that bad of problems at 25 yards . Gauges like that are for military armorer's to see if a weapon meets their spec but will not help much for reloading for problem guns . Try the load I gave .

[Bruce_in_Oz]

As there is no such thing as a "perfect" bullet, let alone a "perfect" barrel, the slightest eccentricity of the bullet core and of the bullet in the rifling will become apparent as soon as the bullet leaves the muzzle. The bullet WILL spiral around the nominal trajectory, (precession). If the bullet were not presented to the bore such that it was perfectly co-axial, then it will start into the leade"out of whack".

When such a bullet leaves the muzzle it will then be under the influence of "drag" and gravity, despite traveling at 2440 fps and spinning at several thousand rpm.

The old Mk Vll ball was base-heavy and took a couple of hundred yards to settle down or, as the old target shooters put it, "go to sleep".

Running ANY boat-tailed bullet in an original. "much-loved" .303 barrel will do two things. Drive you nuts and rapidly eat away at the already worn throat / leade.

Remember, this is nineteenth century engineering and thought processes at work here. When the official drawings and gauging allow the nominal groove diameter to run out to .319 AT THE FACTORY and such barrels are being fed with .312" bullets driven by fast and hot burning cordite, it is all a losing battle.

Using an "oversized" bullet will work up until you get to the point that the bullet is so fat that it causes the cartridge necks to be too big to fit into even the "generous" mil-spec Lee Enfield chamber.

Then, there is the bedding for the standard barrel. This was carefully arrived at, to tune the barrel to a factory standard round, typically, the Mk Vll ball cartridge. Changing the ammo may well (very likely, in fact) nullify all of that tricky arrangement of springs, plungers and contact points. Not that there is much original Mk Vll ammo or even a commercial approximation out there, either.

If your non-performing rifle is an otherwise un-molested, all matching piece, clean it thoroughly and set it aside in comfortable retirement and buy or build a "bitza" with a NEW, commercial barrel for competition work. This will cost money, but will reduce the frustration factor enormously.

[bob q]

A good explanation of bullet flight and it applies to all bullets , they settle more as the range increases . That is why saying a gun shoots MOA at all distances wrong . A pointed bullet will enter a worn throat at more of an angle than a long round nose bullet seated long , like the Hornady 174 rn . A lower velocity loading will put less pressure on the bullet and let it ride straighter . A cylinder shaped bullet will stay straighter in a loose bore than a bullet with points at one or both ends . The load with the 174 has always given the best 100 yard results in my really worn 303 rifles , for those reasons .