Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Express Rifles and Big Bores Only 303 British double rifle

I wonder, could a little 303 British rifle be considered an Express Rifle? in the hands of Bell i bet it was most certainly Expressly used LOL!

Pics on the way from our old bud Pacecars, Thanks again Sir.

Here you go! Nice rifle! Love the exposed hammers

Thank you kind Sir, it's a fun little rifle, i had a great time this afternoon working up that load.

For those that may wonder, i slid decapping pin as low as i could to get it to pop out the old primers, then removed pin with expander ball and resized cases like i always do for the 215gr Woodleigh soft, full neck size only, cases so sized hold the .308 diameter solid just fine, also used the same 40gr RL-15 as i do under the 215gr soft.

It appears the 210gr BBW#13 solid is taking the rifling plenty enough to seal the bore for 2250 fps, 6 0'clock hold on the red label attached to shipping box firing the left barrel leaning off back porch post at a stepped off 40 yards says regulation is done too as the first sight blade on the rifle is for 100 yards, nice round hole tells me the 10 twist has it spun up pretty well.

I couldn't find any 311/312" solids and didn't want to bug Sir Ron with trying to swage these mono solids up to 312 inch, that may have taken a 50,000 lb press effort and one HELL of a 312" die to contain the pressure!

Whew !
I dodged that bullet !
That would have been way above my pay grade.

Glad it worked so well.
Copper is grabby and does well when a few thou below groove diameter,
especially if twist is fast enough !
Copper is less likely to skid on the rifling than brass with a loose fit.


.423" North Forks were great in a .425"-grooved McGowen barrel of 1:10" twist.
Accurate, and first RL-15 then Varget loads had no problems getting +2400 fps out of a 404 Jeffery with 24"-long McGowen barrel.
I just could not do +2600 fps with H4831 like Ray Atkinson did in his .423"-grooved 404 Jeffery, heh-heh-heh.

Never know about those old doubles until you slug them.
You might have tighter grooves than you think ?

Should be very easy on the old DR, whether .308 or larger.

Great bullet for training with iron-sighted rat caliber to mimic .458 WinMag with iron sights.
Fun to try in subsonic 300 Blackout too, heh-heh-heh.

Happy days Sir, glad to hear about the copper being grabby, had to run to town to get pickup tags, met mail lady out front with some boxes:

7mm 160gr North Fork flat point solids came in.
100 brand new old stock sticks of fine R-P 303 British brass from Deakin here at the fire, love that old brass with annealing flame stains ever present.
Atlas bipod from Rick Bin, they're 319 bucks plus tax plus shipping anywhere else, Rick will send you a brand new one for 285 bucks all up, sticky down in the classifieds.

Took the 160gr North Fork solids to the bench right quick, loaded them with the same 46gr charge of IMR-4350 as i did under the 175gr Grand Slams, COL at 3.150" too, feeds like a greased glass rod, i'll adjust load if need be later to get it too land with the 175's at 100, the 7x57mm and 458 WM go together like prime rib and a good potato, PB&J, spicy fried sausage and eggs, i know why, I've read what you wrote..................THROAT, THROAT, THROAT!!!!!

I seem to recall reading that one should avoid monos in double rifles. Anyone else?

CEB solids will damage a double rifle, because they have minimal bearing surface

There, fixed it for you, Sir John.
Especially safe shooting a .308" copper mono in a .311"?-grooved barrel.
SLUG THAT THING SIR JERRY.
I certainly never worried about shooting GSC and North Fork copper monos in my 470 NE.
Minimal bearing surface there too.

Sir Jerry's latest hardrock candy:

Pappy, yes, you may have heard of the old ASquare monolithic solids or Barnes Super Solids, smooth sides, no relief grooves, i have read they have damaged some doubles, Betting spell check got our friend JWP, Ron's got it right, as with me, i have fired hundreds and hundreds of Barnes banded flat nosed solids in double rifles without care or damage.

IIRC Michael458 andd his buddy Sam pressure tested the CEB solids and found they give the very least [barrel bulge] pressure of any solids to date, including the lead core steel jacketed copper solids.

Man i love solids Sir Ron, and you're exactly right, not a game animal living that could buck off those two bullets from a 7x57mm when delivered where they belong.

BTW, Sir Ron, i should have said i use the same 40 grain charge in the left barrel on that rifle, the right barrel takes 41gr RL-15 to regulate the 215gr Woodleighs at 2168 fps, the left barrel takes one full grain less for the same velocity, about guaranteeing the right barrel has more wear, hence your guesstimation of the left barrel being tighter, may indeed be the reason it's shooting these 308 cal bullets so well.

With the 215's of course being heavier and having much more bearing surface, i think these 210's are slipping right on through around 80 fps faster with less pressure.

Sir Jerry,
You sure know how to shoot and have fine tuned separate right and left barrel loads.
Even more reason to slug both barrels knowing that!
One soft lead ball of .33 caliber (00 buck ?)
dropped into the breech end and tapped through with a 1/4" dowel or cleaning rod with flat brass jag that fits ? Barrels cleaned and lightly lubricated before slugging of course.

Each coat of powder-coat paint might increase the bullet diameter by 0.001".
Final size the PC paint with a sizer die.

Color code bullets. Red for right barrel,
blue or no paint for left barrel.
Heh-heh-heh.

Thanks, and great idea, iirc 0 buck is 32 cal, may have to make a plan to get some and a wooden dowel, be nice to know, really happy these shot so well, also glad i got a half rick of firewood piled on the hearth bricks last night before dark, temps going to drop 25 degrees over the next couple hours, single digits over the next several days.

Big grin on that powder coating, it may work but damn the defile-ation ; ] i do black marker color primers in the shell belt on that rifle, black primers go in left barrel, so arranged are 40 rounds in culling belt, i may pull those black primer softs and replace with solids in new RP brass for that belt, do need to check my stash of 215gr Woodleigh Weldcores, will be really nice when they're up and running full steam ahead again.

Yup,



32-cal will be easier to push through.
33-cal will give a little wider band to measure with your verynear calipers.

I use a .495" Hornady soft lead swaged ball (for 50-cal ML) to slug any .458-cal at the drop of a hat.

The softer the lead, the easier the pushin' and the better the measure.

Hornady .32-cal swaged roundballs for muzzleloader are actually .310" and .315" diameter, probably too small.
32 Cal. .310"
32 Cal. .315"
36 Cal. .350"
36 Cal. .375"
40 Cal. .395"
... Various diameters for handgun and long gun rifling and patch thicknesses etc. ...
44 Cal. .451"
45 Cal. .457"
50 Cal. .480"
50 Cal. .485"
50 Cal. .490"
50 Cal. .495"
50 Cal. .499"
50 Cal. .500"
54 Cal. .520"
54 Cal. .530"
54 Cal. .535"
58 Cal. .570"

I bet the .350" 36-cal ball would make a nice slug, soft lead, no springback.

Perfect, but, i have some 000 buck i cast from a Lee gang mould for some homemade 000 buckshot loads, 12 pellets in a 2-3/4" hull is a sleeper in more ways than one ; ] i cast those sobs with 22 BH alloy, may be hard to pound one of those through, when the weather clears and i can do more shooting too verify 210gr solid load i may leave it be, i do like your idea of Varget powder, mighty temp stable.

Excellent. I have no use for solids myself, and doubles are out of my price range, but I sure like ‘em.

IIRC Elmer Keith wrote that a .303 double would make a dandy woods gun. Close as I’ll ever come would be carrying a double shotgun with shot in one barrel and a slug in the other. Francis E. Sell wrote about doing that, or maybe it was buckshot?

Gunner, I have an idea for that rifle and a couple woodleighs....

There's something about the extra wear in that right barrel of what you and Elmer speak Pappy, the 303 with 215gr Kynoch/Woodleigh bullet may have been so effective the folks that owned that rifle for more than 100 years prior to me may have completed their hunts with one shot per animal, as most fire a double rifle front trigger first which is the right barrel, BOOM, animal down or dying, reload right barrel and go get animal, next hunt/hunts, same/same.

I love shotgun slugs too, have seen what they do, have an old FN A5 12 gauge with short slug barrel and rifle sights, Brenneke KO slugs hit 100 yard steel very easy, Remington Versa-Max house gun with the first three [ghost loaded] being 10 pellets of 22 BH alloy 0000 buckshot followed by 7 rounds of Hornady Black with 8 pellets of 00 buck at 1600 fps along with a side saddle carrying 7 rounds of slugs loaded with very hard alloyed Dangerous game slugs makes a fine home, yard and shop'truck gun.

As far as extra hard alloy flat nosed slugs, nothing lives with an inch and a half hole blown clean through, lots of leakage ; ]

LOL Ingwe, i got you covered on that Sir, it'll be a blast.

Jerry, is that the double Rattler still has sexual fantasies about?