Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Handloader Magazine .303 Redux

The article on pg. 18 February 2019 No. 318 , made a larger point to me about bore diameter, than which came first .....the chicken or the egg. The author stated that the original Savage .303 bullet diameter was .313 not .308. There is even a difference between the outside case diameter in early vs. latter .303 cases I had the pleasure of shooting an 1895 a while back, perfect bore, bullets were all over the place (was using 150gr bullets). This article has me wondering if our poor results were due to a discrepancy such as this. I know that some of ya'll collect cartridges and rifles and I would love to hear if you have .303's with these differing diameters. Or if you have ever slugged the barrels on any of the older rifles ? Just started a curiosity for me. Came here looking for knowledge.

Thanks,
John

I have a 1895 in 303 that I inherited recently. Nice rifle except it has been re-blued. I' haven't fired it yet as I just got some brass and dies The rifle is half or so octagon barrel and best I can tell is.308. SN 11.030

Sorry Kend but the serial number denotes that rifle is an early 1899. The 1895s rifles had 4 digit.

Enjoy your gun.

All good.

kend, the s.n. dictates your rifle as an early Model 1899.

Beyond that I've read different things. .311, .308, etc.
Are those numbers bullet diameter and/or bore diameter??
This could be a source of confusion depending upon what the topic of discussion is.

disclaimer: I am not an expert on this topic, but enjoy the read (history).

Unless it was a real early gun, and I don't know about those, I'd expect most 303s to have 308 bores. About 20-years ago I had to return a set of dies twice to RCBS because they had assembled them with 311 expander balls. Man, that will let a 308 bullet pretty much drop straight down the neck. About the same time I bought a back issue of Handloader dating to 1967 that had a Ken Waters article on the 303. I still have it stowed away somewhere. I happen to be a fan of both the cartridge and Mr. Waters.

The SAAMI spec for the 303 Savage includes .311" bullets, it's why Lee and many other reloading sources have weak loads. It's just better to use .308 bullets, early sources that specify bore on the 1899's/1895's all say the same as 30-30 (.308).

Thanks Rory for the info. That article nearly blew my mind. I can't imagine .313 bullets going down a .308 bore. In the Mauser 8mm .323 runs pressures to a dangerous high in a .318 bore. I think that would be the same .005 difference. Can only imagine what would happen in one of the older Savages. If you don't take the magazine, I would be glad to send you the article.

Thanks again.
John

The way I understand it, .303 Savages always had .308 groove diameters and the very earliest ammo utilized .311 bullets to induce a bit more pressure with which to boost performance a tad. A couple pre-1900 cartridges I had in my collection did indeed have .311 bullets. I suppose they saw the fallacy in that and corrected the situation early on.

Perhaps a better question to ask would be what was the throat diameter of those earliest rifles for which Savage intended that bizarre approach? If those throats were oversize to accommodate "oversize" bullets (and I bet they were or you couldn't have chambered the ammo), then they would prove loosey-goosey for helping to guide .308 bullets straight into the rifling- hence questionable accuracy. That's my theory, and I would appreciate it if anyone here could/would do a chamber cast on a sampling of M1895's to confirm it.

Wow, imagine that in this day and age of litigation and suing!