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Thread: 303 happiness
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10-09-2020, 13:36 #1
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303 happiness
I thought some of you guys who have old .303s around and never use them, would find this interesting.
I landed up with an old drill rifle 1953 model, so not much historical value.
I took off the woodwork,free floated, trimmed and re-crowned the barrel. It shot Ok ish (3-4 inch groups) with the old military amo, but when I put anything else through like PMP it could hardly hit an A4 target.
I then heard of a few guys with some success with getting them to group, and asked our local 303 reloading guru to put together a few test loads.
His advice was as follows:
1. Use fire formed brass. Even PMP is ok
2. Use the Hornady 0.312 round nose interlocks 174gr
3. Load up with magnum primers (we used winchester) and ball powder (used S341).
We tried loads at 44.0, 44.3, 44.6, and 44.9 grains.
The 44gr was a horror show, A5 groups.
The 44.3gr started to close up nicely to about 2-3 MOA
The 44.6gr was the bomb with <1 inch group
The 44.9gr started to open up a bit to 2-3 inches again at 100m
So I can say that it is possible to get these rather ancient worn out old rifles to shoot really well.
.....after my shoulder recovers from the solid brass recoil pad
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10-09-2020, 14:13 #2
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- May 2011
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- GP, but in my mind, hunting for Ivory in the 1930's
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Re: 303 happiness
Tobie here on the forum has a “wenrecep” for the 303, shooting this load my 12yr old daughter was hitting steel plates at 300m with my CLLE.
Standard T&C apply
38,5gr S335
OAL: 77,6mm
PMP 174gr SP or FMJDon’t take life too seriously, no one gets out alive.
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10-09-2020, 14:18 #3
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- Aug 2012
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- Pretoria, South Africa
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Re: 303 happiness
Yep. These old rifles can do really well. Mine never really shot THAT well (I never changed it). Factory shooting with the scope it did around 2" at 100m. Without the scope I do around 3". Not bad, I'd guess I can do hunting with that, but not great either.
Father in law's rifle, though. "Sported" it, in other words, removed the stock and installed a synthetic stock. Next up was properly free floating the barrel with a bedding job. Next came a Thor trigger. A good scope and eventually a Numenor reflex silencer and this thing now shoots less than 1" groups at 100m all day with Sierra 180gr Pro Hunters in front of a nice and mild 40.5 grains of S335. I honestly can't tell you how many animals that rifle has taken, all the way from monkeys to blue wildebeest, with MANY new shooters. With the recoil pad and silencer the recoil is practically zero, and the trigger is light and crisp. The rifle is closing in on 80 years old, but shoots as well as modern ones.
Never underestimate an old rifle...
EDIT: Oh yes, and if there's one thing I can REALLY recommend for the old .303, it is to get the headspace issue sorted ASAP. I spent thousands on brass in mine, because it used to break A LOT of brass. Eventually I counted the cost to have the rifle fixed, and weighed it up against the sentimental value of the rifle and decided to not do it and rather buy another rifle. These old 303s are brass munchers, so if you can get the headspace fixed, and you can do necksizing on your brass (like you said, shoot fireformed brass) it should do much better.
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10-09-2020, 14:35 #4
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- May 2011
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- GP, but in my mind, hunting for Ivory in the 1930's
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Re: 303 happiness
Yes neck sizing help to sort out the soppy chamber issues.
Don’t take life too seriously, no one gets out alive.
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10-09-2020, 15:00 #5
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- Jan 2010
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Re: 303 happiness
Yep, that is a pet recipe, really mild, and has worked in 3x .303 rifles with great success. Sadly S335 is unobtanium :(
It was quite hilarious to see a guy struggling to zero his modern scoped rifle at 300m while a little girl with an old rifle and told to "hold a bit low" was hitting the gongs
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10-09-2020, 15:11 #6
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- Dec 2010
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Re: 303 happiness
You can sometimes fix the headspace issues simply by changing out the the head of the bolt , I was lucky and the gunsmith I took mine to had some lying around, and changing out my #1 with a #3 fixed my problem.
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10-09-2020, 15:12 #7
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- May 2011
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- GP, but in my mind, hunting for Ivory in the 1930's
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10-09-2020, 15:15 #8
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- Aug 2012
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- Pretoria, South Africa
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10-09-2020, 15:39 #9
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Re: 303 happiness
As far as I know the headspace decreases when you go up in number.
They are not that easy to find, try smaller gunsmiths.
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10-09-2020, 15:42 #10
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- Apr 2019
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- Cape Town
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Mine still has headspace issues with a #4 bolt head. My pet load is 42.5gr S355 using 174grSierra Match King. Very mild load at 2270fps. Still gave less than 2.5MOA all the way to 700m shooting Bisley style. Else, 44.6gr gave me 2450fps to get to 900m. This worked in my SMLE and the wife's No4MkII.
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