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Contributing Member
I found the * on the receiver.
Attachment 98943
Now I have to find some ammo.
303 is not easy to find. I have quite a bit of S&B brass, but the primer pocket is too tight and I need to use the primer pocket uniformer (hope the name is correct), but it is an extremely difficult job.
I'm not a weak guy, but I can't hold the case hard enough to turn that damned thing and do the job.
It breaks my hands...
Anybody with good suggestions on this?
I'm really at a loss.
Ah, by the way, Saturday I finally could bring my son out shooting rifles.
GREAT DAY!!!
Mosin and K31 were the diet.
He really liked it...almost as much as I did!
Now I have to find the ammo for "his" P14.
Attachment 98945Attachment 98944
34a cp., btg. Susa, 3° rgt. Alpini
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02-18-2019 01:14 PM
# ADS
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Legacy Member
Originally Posted by
Ovidio
I found the * on the receiver.
Attachment 98943
Now I have to find some ammo.
303 is not easy to find. I have quite a bit of S&B brass, but the primer pocket is too tight and I need to use the primer pocket uniformer (hope the name is correct), but it is an extremely difficult job.
I'm not a weak guy, but I can't hold the case hard enough to turn that damned thing and do the job.
It breaks my hands...
Anybody with good suggestions on this?
I'm really at a loss.
Ah, by the way, Saturday I finally could bring my son out shooting rifles.
GREAT DAY!!!
Mosin and
K31 were the diet.
He really liked it...almost as much as I did!
Now I have to find the ammo for "his" P14.
Attachment 98945Attachment 98944
The best way I've found to do the primer pocket is, I bought an RCBS case prep machine. It became a necessity after a severe wrist injury. I would do about 8 cases and my hand would lock up for the rest of the day before it. I use it for the inner and outer burr after trimming, nylon brush for inside the case, primer pocket brush for cleaning, primer pocket and flash hole uniform tools when needed. You will reload more once you have it, makes the work go much faster. Correct! Primer pocket uniforming tool.
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Legacy Member
Did the cases have military primers with the ring around them? If so you'll need to do them with a military primer swaging tool.
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Contributing Member
No military primers. I often find the S&B to be horrendously tight considering the primer pockets.
I took a look at the RCBS case preparing machine, the brass boss. Nice! Expensive, but nice!
Maybe one of these days...
Thanks for the advise.
34a cp., btg. Susa, 3° rgt. Alpini
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Legacy Member
all a primer pocket uniformer does is set the depth of the pocket.
I had some insanely tight pockets on some Norma brass and I chucked my tool in my drill and I was able to keep going without cramping my hand that held the brass.
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Thank You to jonh172 For This Useful Post:
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Contributing Member
First shooting with the P14 today.
I started at 50 to check how I adjusted the diopter and...10.
So I immediately went over to 100 meters.
Bad day for a diopter. Low light and difficult shooting.
But still...
Here a couple targets.
All the same the whole time.
3-4 shots ok, then a flyer.
S&B commercial rounds.
As others said, .303 is unbelievably soft on these heavy guns.
I liked this baby a lot and am looking forward to a repeat and to the 1917, which I’ll pick up next week.
Attachment 99290Attachment 99291
Last edited by Ovidio; 03-09-2019 at 05:24 PM.
Reason: Typo
34a cp., btg. Susa, 3° rgt. Alpini
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Legacy Member
Nice shooting! Once you start reloading for it your flyers will either be reduced in distance or disappear altogether, as long as you do your part. They are excellent rifles and shoot great even with marginal bores. I can't wait for the weather to warm up here so I can get back to the range. It's hard to shoot accurately when your shivering.
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Thank You to oldfoneguy For This Useful Post:
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Advisory Panel
A very good start Ovidio!
I am looking forward to seeing your first results with the M1917, for which I can give you a very good reloading recipe. See if you can get something better than S&B - I can confirm that also in my experience the primer pockets are too small.
If you can, get GECO or CINESHOT ammo - and keep the cases for reloading. Both types are made by the RWS group of companies, and are excellent brass. I can give you a very good reloading recipe for 30-06 in an M1917, but I must confess that I hardly have enough time for reloading for every rifle, and find that, since the GECO has become much more expensive, the CINESHOT offers first-class quality at an affordable price.
Good shooting!
Patrick
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Contributing Member
Thanks Patrick.
I’ll get some S&B with the rifle, but I can still buy Norma or Hornady brass without trouble.
Maybe even some other brands.
As for powders, I currently use Lovex S060-2, N140, N150 and W760 (a few ounces left).
Do you have anything for these powders?
Otherwise I can try find others too.
Thanks in advance!
34a cp., btg. Susa, 3° rgt. Alpini
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Advisory Panel
30-06 reload optimization with an M1917
The M1917 is a rifle with a good, long barrel and a good, long sight radius.
The best results I achieved were using Sierra 168 gn MatchKing bullets, set 0.5mm off the lands. The cases were neck-sized only, leaving a very small un-re sized section (about 0.5 mm) of neck that serves to center the resized neck in the chamber.
The powder was Vihtavuori N140. I have no test results for other powders.
Attachment 99306
Each load was fired with 8 shots. Iron sights, off a sandbag. 9 groups of 8 shots = 72 shots. A very long session, with breaks for "eyeball" recuperation.
Since a one can always make a bad shot, I established two curves of group sizes - one including all shots, and one where the worst shot from each group was eliminated.
One important thing I learnt from these tests: people write at length about finding the best load. But it is easier to find the WORST loads and then pick a value in between two obviously bad loads!
You can see from the graphs that 50 gn is a very good load. It is, however, also a shoulder punisher. Indeed, the Vihtavuori reloading manual gives 50.1 gn as the "accuracy load", but I am not keen on overstraining either the rifle or myself. 48 gn is much more comfortable, and you are unlikely to be able to detect any difference unless you are shooting long strings using a scope.
I calculated that the optimum value would be around 47.8 gn. Now you can reload as carefully as you like, but a good load should have a bit of tolerance. So I simply take the load as 48 gn with an allowable tolerance on the powder scales of +0.0 / -0.1 gn.
That is the weigher indication, of course. If you were to check the loads on a chemical balance, the variation would be somewhat larger, but as you can see from the graphs, a spread of 0.2 gn is not going to make any difference.
This reloading recipe allows my M1917 to achieve 1 MOA with a scope fitted. With iron sights, the accuracy is "shooter eyesight limited".
Good shooting with your "American Enfields"
Patrick
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Thank You to Patrick Chadwick For This Useful Post: