Anyone tried the new Wolf steel-case .303 ?

[Gil Boyd]

I am currently firing 7.62 x 51 from Lithuania, cracking ammo and hope it continues especially at the current price.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

Tumbling bullets usually indicates dire lack of stability.

This is almost always caused by one thing: Insufficient rotational speed.

This, in turn, is caused by one or both of two things:

1. Insufficiently fast twist rate in the barrel (for the specific bullet LENGTH and velocity)

2. Insufficient VELOCITY to achieve that spin rate from the nominally correct twist.

.303 BALL needs a 1:10" twist because the Mk7 bullet, whilst somewhat lighter than its predecessors, is the SAME LENGTH, give or take a few thou'.

As discussed in earlier posts, the OVERALL cartridge length was retained so that the entire fleet of small arms did not have to be re-engineered to reliably feed with a shorter bullet.

A badly "flogged-out" .303 barrel will deliver reduced velocities, AND poorer centering of the bullet in what is left of the rifling. This means wild precession at shorter ranges, coupled with lower velocities giving lower spin rates, resulting in VERY poor down-range consistency.

"Keyholes" at 100m are a bad thing; keyholes at 400m are a REALLY bad thing.

Boat-tailed bullets have a shorter parallel bearing surface to engage whatever remains of the rifling; they will NOT shoot well in general in a "deeply pre-loved" tube and, because of gas "blow-by", will only help to destroy any remaining throat (and thus accuracy), that much faster.

If you have a MINT No4 Mk2 it will probably work quite well with Mk8 style boat-tailed bullets driven by cooler-burning "Z" propellants (nitro-cellulose) as opposed to much hotter burning "Cordite".

However: NOTHING lasts forever (apart, apparently, from the two great historical realities: death and taxes)