Loading die advice, pls?

[Canuck Bob]

I am tooling up for my No.5 tomorrow. I will be buying a Lee FC die ansd have a Lyman M that is already sized from my 32-20 Lyman set. I also will pick up a Lee hand case trimmer as I always do.

I'm eventually going to cast but will be loading either 150 or 174gr Hornady to start. CCI large rifle primers and I have some once-fired IVI brass.

I will be buying a full length size set and probably a Lee neck sizer. My rifle's throat is .315 and the 5 groove is keeping me from getting that size but the groove dia. is probably going to come in around .313 looking at the slug.

I have also read extensively on the headspace and case seperation threads. I neck size everything normally anyways and have only one 303. I did a bolt lug blue test and my lugs are both doing their job as specified.

Information

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[smellie]

Likely, friend, you will get your best accuracy with the Lee-Enfield rifle with flatbase bullets. Both the Hornady and the less expensive Sierra ro-Hunter are made this way.

I am shooting the Sierra Pro-Hunter 180 ahead of 38 grains of 4895, seating to the OAL of a Ball round. MV is 2250, accuracy is just fine.

With the Hornady 150 flatbase, I am usng 40 grains of 4064, seating so the ntire cannelure shows. Again, not a hot load but a very accurate one.

That 5-groove rifling does mak a difference. Try sticking a Ball round in the muzzle untilit meets the lands, then give it a gentle twist, remove and mike the mark on the bullet. That will tell you what the bore diameter is at the muzzle. The flatbase bullets, kicked hard enough on their little tail ends, tend to swell in the bore before they start moving, taking up some excess diameter. Boat-tails don't do this as well, which i why you stick with the flatbase slugs.

Most important of all: have fun!

And welcome to the club!
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[Canuck Bob]

Thanks Smellie, I am a plain base guy. I read some of your thoughts on another thread regarding boatails and plain base. I'm a firm believer that a true crown and flat bullets handle the muzzle blast best.

I'm hoping the 150 gr Hornady's perform in my rifle. They are priced right. I must admit I chose the hornadys because they advertise .312 diameter. I thought that might be important. Initially I think I'll try to stay around 1800 fps and medium pressure, all plinking loads for now. Got a shoulder problem that needs some healing time.

[ireload2]

Lee-Enfield chambers at the shoulder do not look much like factory .303 brass or ammo. Full length dies produce sized brass that looks like factory ammo.
You can readily verify this. The dimensional differences are so great that you can see the differences. This will result in excessive sizing. A FL die is not recommended unless it is to make fired brass fit a different rifle than what it was fired in.

[Canuck Bob]

ireload2, thanks, I do have a pile of IVI brass that is too big around the head to fit my rifle. That is the only type of full sizing I do. Even then I'll size only enough to chamber. I'm starting to lean heavily to the Lee neck size die set. It is available locally and gets some nice reviews from cast reloaders.

[gumpire]

I have always used Lee Dies and can say that won't go wrong with them .

[old crow]

Neck size and assign brass to a specific rifle. I use the Sierra #2310 .311 180gr spire point exclusively; as close a match to the 174gr FMJ as I can get with a FB bullet and they have worked well for me in several different LEs with good bores (I've not slugged the bores) using 43.5gr of IMR4350 - easy formula for my old brain to remember and it works for me.

[Jerome Cooper]

There is really no one brand of major dies that loads ammunition better than another.It just comes down to personal belief or choice. Some have certain features that may meet a persons particular needs such as neck sizing only or a type of lock ring, etc, but I do not believe that it changes very much, if at all, the performance results on the target. Claims and opinions do vary, but to my knowledge no study, conclusive or otherwise, has been done on this subject. JC

[smellie]

If you are keeping your brass separated by the rifles it is fired in, you can't go wrong spending 25 bucks on that new LEE Collet Die.

It doesn't size the casing at all, just squeezes the neck back to factory size by squeezing it against a ground mandrel.

Less resizing = MUCH longer case life.

And it's cheap.

Bonus!
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