reloading 303.

[Bindi2]

In the years since the American Rifleman article there have been tens of thousands of rounds fired in all sorts of rifles with all sorts of brass.

The only bananas that were found came out of a Lee-Enfield brand banana maker.
No other brands of banana makers have be found. Even the tilting bolt Hakim does not produce bananas in spite of the fact that it's bolt must tilt up and down to lock and unlock.
The same brass that some attribute the problem to can be reformed to other round such as the 6.5X53R Dutch Mannlicher and reloaded many times without case head separations or bananas resulting.

That maybe the case. History shows that American made brass is the problem in Lee- Enfield Rifles even those made in the USA. This thread accepts the problem and shows how to deal with it. These battle rifles are not benchrest machines though it took the world along time to equal or surpass there qualities on the range.

[Edward Horton]

Bindi2

In the 1970s I had a 1943 Remington Springfield 03-A3, this American military 30-06 caused warped banana shaped cases with both Winchester and Remington cases. Warped banana shaped cases are NOT strictly related to the British Enfield Rifle. "ANY" caliber rifle case with unequal case wall thickness aggravated further by a small base diameter will cause this problem.

With the proper gauges these out of round warped cases are very easy to find.



What I don't understand is "WHY" the same people keep coming into this Enfield forum and time after time are endlessly criticising the Enfield Rifle.

Could it be that these people just want to disrupt this forum with their comments and are here just trying to start arguments with other forum members.

[Edward Horton]

Bindi2

Thank you for your reply, some people don't understand what I'm trying to do. You have one military Enfield rifle and three standards for manufacturing .303 cartridge cases, American commercial SAAMI standards, European commercial CIP standards and last but not least British and Commonwealth military standards. Even the European CIP states that the .303 Enfield has headspace problems.

Delta L problem

Conflicting industry standards

The main cause for the ΔL is that the two main civilian ammunition and firearms industry standards organizations C.I.P. and SAAMI have assigned different standards for the same cartridges. This leads to officially sanctioned conflicting differences between European and American ammunition dimensions and chamber dimensions. Since C.I.P. and SAAMI do not rule nor control civilian ammunition standards worldwide other causes for conflicting standards leading to ΔL issues are also possible.

Firearm cartridges with otherwise problematic headspace

There are also some firearm calibers with problematic headspace listed by C.I.P.[2]
The headspace defined by:
Depth of rim recess

* .303 British
* .38 Sp AMU
* 6.35 Browning
* 7.65 Browning
* 9 mm Browning long


Delta L problem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.I.P.

For reloading and testing purposes I have set my headspace from just kissing the rear of my American made cases which is way under .064 to .010 over the military maximum of .074. If you do a search, the people in our forums who say the least about head space are shooting Greek HXP ammunition, and the people who ask the most questions about headspace are shooting American made commercial cases and ammunition. (This tells me a great deal)

If you reload American made cases you have two choices, tighten up your headspace by changing bolt heads or tighten up your cases in the chamber using the rubber o-ring method of fire forming. The rubber o-ring is cheaper than a #3 bolt head and very easy to use when fire forming cases.

The Canadian Terry in Victoria posted the o-ring method in the old Jouster forum over five years ago and any that knew him know Terry was no fool.

In the end it doesn't matter what method you use to hold your cases against the bolt face when you fire form your cases to fit the Enfield chamber. All that really matters is that you enjoy your Enfield Rifles and enjoy reloading a proven battle rifle.

For those of you who would like to read about banana shaped cases and checking case wall concentricity please click on the link below from Precision Shooting. These Banana shaped case articles were written in Precision Shooting and the American Rifleman Magazine. Please notice the date of the article below is dated January 2010.

Please notice that these warped cases can occur in ANY rifle in ANY caliber regardless of the country of manufacture and deals with cartridge case construction and manufacturing.

The rubber o-ring method of fire forming .303 cases helps center the rear of the case in the chamber and helps promote even case expansion which increases accuracy of your reloaded ammunition.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sourc...xkpzpg&cad=rja

[tbonesmith]

I recently had my primary shooting rifle No4mk2 stop shooting well. It was setup by AJP and always shot great but now the bore is pretty worn, and it will pass a .303 gauge, and I thought I'd retire it. So I started using a new No4mk2, that didn't shoot well with the old load. I spoke to a guy at my club who put me onto these hornady.312dia. 174gn HPBT Matchkings that I thought might be just the ticket for my worn rifle, so I decided to do some load development on the new and the worn rifle.
I did this yesterday. and I used the" ladder method",components were Remington brass, CCI 250 magnum primers, AR2208, and Hornady .3105 174gn FMJ's for the new rifle and Hornady .312 174gn HPBT MK's for the worn one.OAL was 3.05" for both as this is my determined safe all round length to fit in any No4or SMLE mag.
I tend to err to lighter loads, but this test showed me 3 distinct clusters in both rifles, with the smallest cluster of both being the hottest end of the scale.
The smallest clusters of 7 odd consecutive rounds from each rifle was about 1" at 100m, which is just fine.
So I've now got good new loads for these rifles, and next week I'll repeat the test with AR2209 to see how that goes, as it fills the case a bit better, and I'm told it's more ideal.
Anyway if you havn't used the ladder method of load development I'd suggest looking it up and trying it as it works great and saves alot of time and rounds.
BTW both rifles had no problem approaching and at maximum loads.

[spinecracker]

All of this technical discussion is fascinating and going right over my head (I might understand it one day), so I will ask a question that I might have a chance of understanding the resulting answers - anyone have any experience of using the RCBS Universal Hand Priming Tool for repriming British .303 cases? Anyone have a particular priming setup they prefer?

[Bindi2]

I used a Lee hand priming tool for years in conjunction with a single stage press no problems just too slow for the number of reloads i do. Now use a Dillon progressive (rifles) or Hornady projector ( pistol). If i use a single stage press i always use the Lee tool ( have all the case holders) in preferrence to the press pimer tool,easier,quicker,safer,no individual handling of primers.

[RobD]

Lee Auto Prime Hand Priming Tool is outstanding - and at at $12.95 it is very cheap.
Lee Auto Prime Hand Priming Tool - MidwayUSA


You need to buy a shell holder, see
Lee Auto Prime Hand Priming Tool Shellholder Package of 11 - MidwayUSA

[bellerophon]

ok spinecracker,
I´m indeed using the RCBS device, but what do you want to know ? Insert the right shellholder and rod and there you go.
I prefer RCBS over the mentioned lee, because it looks more rigid. I´ve seen many cracked lees but no RCBS handprimers.
But that´s just my point of view.

[spinecracker]

bellerophon, I just wanted people's opinions regarding ease of use, any issues with using the RCBS primer, etc - I bought one yesterday, tried it out, and liked it immediately. Assuming that I am not too hamfisted, I should be good to start reloading this week

[bellerophon]

yeah, I think it´s a good buy !
btw S&B cases have too small priming holes, wouldn´t bother with them.
I have PPU from Serbia and winchester is again working best, for me at least.