Restocking a Canadian marked 1918 No1 Mk III

[Sentryduty]

Last summer I obtained a No4 for my brother-in-law and we worked up some loads with his expansive collection of equipment. He had gotten the Hornady 150gr SPFB projectiles, a large volume of surplus once fired IVI .303 brass, and we worked up some loads. He had a lot of Varget powder on hand so we researched some of the Australian articles on the combination and rather arbitrarily settling on the following:

150 gr Hornady SP .312"
Federal 210M Primers
IVI '08 Mark 8Z once fired surplus brass.
41 gr VARGET
OAL 2.995' without a neck tension crimp.

The results were excellent, the only issue was a rookie mistake of FL sizing of the brass which gave us a few uneventful case head separations that the ruined the brass. We didn't have a neck sizing die at that time, and the brass was already prepped. I have gotten a neck sizing dies for the future. The recoil was a tad sharp (for a LE) and there was quite a crack to the report but the cases showed no pressure signs and the bolt worked easily.

Performance was better than I could shoot through the mirage that day, with most rounds touching, aside from obvious flyers due to sighting errors. But personally I am hoping to build a Mark 7 or 8Z ball equal to give that bit of long range stability and hopefully keep the sight regulation as engineered at the factory.

As always, more to follow as projects develop.

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