reloading 303 brit

[mitchell]

i'm thinking about buying a 303 Enfield No 4 and i was wondering about reloading for it and if i can use 308 cal bullets in it or does it have to 311?

thanks for any help

[John Traveler]

Nominal bullet diameter for the .303 British is .311".

The nominal groove diameter for this caliber is .311-.312".

.308" diameter bullets will give poor accuracy, plus the expander plug in your .303 British dies will be too large.

This caliber is notorious for short case life.  New or factory ammo fired even once in a military .303 chamber will stretch excessivly.  The head-to-shoulder dimension on military rifles was generous, to allow for reliability under dirty battlefield conditions.  Even though the case headspaces on the rim, the long shoulder dimension gives case separations after only one or two loads.

HTH
John

[Mikey]

Hay John Traveler - thanks for that last insight about the case stretching.  Even to this day I had thought the reason for my short case life was headspacing but wasn't really sure and had suspected that there was another reason.  Mikey.

[ajj]

I got the Lee collet dies that work so well for me in other calibers and have fired one set of cases eight times, neck sizing only. If you don't full length resize, they don't stretch much above the web after the first firing.

[Val]

The cases fired in a .303 British Enfield do indeed stretch more than modern rifles but I generally get at least six reloads per case. The key is the head space. If your cases are stretching excessively the head space is probably too long. One nice feature of the .303 Enfields is that you can change the bilt heads. The bolt heads on the No4 rifles are numbered and the higher numbers reduce head space. On the No1 Mk III rifles you need to order a bolt head of longer length as measured from the face to the shoulder where the threaded stud portrudes. Improving the headspace reduces the case stretch.

The following web site has good infor on the .303 Enfields:
http://www.303british.com/

[Siskiyou]

I have had a .303 Jungle Carbine for over 40 years.  It is my least used firearm, but I did some reloading for it in the past.  I had good success with .311 bullets and IMR4320 powder.  The powder charge was in the moderate range for the round.(I need to compare them with the new lawyer-proof loadeds currently published.)

I view the blown out shoulder as the same as if I were shooting an improved case.  When a reloader blows out a shoulder for an improved round it is not a big deal.  All he needs to do is inspect his cases to insure safety.  The one thing I have not done is increase the powder charge in my new .303 Improved.

Neck sizing and moderate loads are the key to success with this round in my rifle.

One of the reasons I have not reloaded this round is because of the cheap surplus ammo in the past.  I was able to pickup a good supply of hunting ammo that was loaded for the RCMP with 150 grain Sierra bullets in Canadian military cases at the Reno gunshow years back.  It was cheaper to buy the loaded ammo then to buy the components to reload with.  At one time I purchased a couple of boxes of primed W-W cases to load for the .303.  I have not touched them because I have had very good luck with Canadian Military cases.  I had bought a bunch of Canadian ball ammo at one time.  The cases have held up very good.

I suspect that the quality of the individual firearm may be a concern because of it's long military history.  

 :sniper:

[S.S.]

Case life really depends on the firearm involved,
J.Traveler is absolutely correct if the rounds are fired
in an SMLE, They will stretch and swell pretty badly.
some to the point that they will "BUCKLE" slightly
in the middle when full length sized.
A P-14 does not have a "LOOSE"
chamber like the SMLE does. The #4's have pretty
decent chambers too, but they still swell quite a bit.
In my own experience, I have not really been able
to improve upon factory loads much in .303 British
anyway. I have not been able to find much of a variety
of 7.7 mm Bullets to experiment with  
Light loads can be made from .308 lead/alloy bullets,
but I have not seen any that would group very well.

[KimW]

First of all, the info above about NECK SIZING only is accurate. Full length pushes back the shoulder and reworks the brass to excess. Headspace is almost irrelevant with a rimmed round, after the first firing in the same rifle, the case is fireformed to that chamber. 5 to 10 reloads at full power (174gr FMJ and 39gr 4895 for me) is typical. If you don't want to buy a .303 neck sizing die and you also reload .308 Win, try a .308Win die, that will, when adjusted, size only the neck of the .303. It will hold the projectiles a bit tight but thats OK.
Headspace- for the .303 case the rim thickness, min 0.058" Max 0.062"
For the bolt Min 0.064 Max 0.074" (British military dimensions). You can immediately see that a combination of Min/Max rim and bolt gives a headspace of 0.016"- a condition that the victorian engineers were very comfortable with. So should you worry ?. If it passes the 0.074" gauge (that is, it does NOT close on the 0.074" gauge) it is safe to fire. Just DON'T full length size the cases!!!.

The question about firing .308 bullets - most of these are boat tailed and don't work too good with a bore that may be 0.003 or more larger, stay with .311 bullets. The flat base upsets better. 123 gr 0.311 pulled bullets from the Russian 7.62 x 39mm shoot quite well at 100yds, just remember that bullet quality is what accuracy is all about and some of those pulls are not good quality - 6" groups with 7.62 x 39mm at 100 yds must be due to the bullet. As for cast bullets, first, the rifle must shoot OK, that is be properly set up and accurate anyway- most .303 are not properly set up. They need to have - tight bearing against the rear of the butt socket-firm contact all around the action- firm bearing of the recoil shoulders(the lugs that have the two pins for the trigger sear and the magazine release) against the corresponding part of the stock-absolutely NO TRACES OF COPPER in the bore if you fire cast bullets. The cast bullets need to be .313-better is .315" -LEE 180gr or Lyman 314299-gas checked and well lubricated and also lubed with LEE liquid Alox. Fired at a moderate velocity by say 19 gr 4198 or 18 gr 4227 or 24gr Varget. Most of my .303 respond well to that averaging 2" x 3" 10 shot groups at 100yds and my best is a 1912 SHtLE with a very pitted Australian Heavy barrel fitted in 1952 that does 1.5" x 1.5" 10 shot groups at 100yds. Incidently, it shoots like that after me spending over 1000 cast bullets through it to find out some of the items above, starting out with 6" groups at 100yds. I used the same 30 cases all the time  and lost 2 from case shoulder splits.