Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Single Shots Shot the .303 today...

The throat is pretty long. I've ordered some more .303 bullets (including 215 Woodleighs) but wanted to get started and all I could find locally was 150-grain Sierra Pro-Hunters. These will work fine as a deer load, but cannot be seated deeply enough to stay in the case necks and still reach the lands. It's a LONG throat.

However, often that doesn't matter if the throat is cut to not much over bulet diameter. We shall see how these loads do on a target.

A Ruger, with a long throat! Whosa thunk it?

Now, if it's throated for the 215 Woodleighs, could there be a better combination?

Just loaded some more rounds, and it turns out the throat is just about right for 180 Nosler Partitions seated with their base just above the bottom of the neck.

This may seem to be a weird thing to try, but our friend Ingqe took a .303 with him when we hunted Namibia 11 years ago, and he found that evidently 180 Partitions "bump up" enough to shoot pretty well in .303's. I hope to get to the range this afternoon and find out!

Shhhhhhhhhh!

JB...alot of the .303 aficianados absolutely cringe at the thought of a .308 diameter bullet in a .312.....


BTW: did you have to swap out the expander ball to .308 to get them to seat snugly??


Ingwe

I think if they shoot well you should call it a 308 British or perhaps a 303 Krag... or just buy a number 1 in 30-30 and rechamber to 303 then you can use 308 bullets regularly.

IMHO The biggest weakness of the 303 is the odd bullet size making it another caliber one has to stock (not that many have issues with having to buy more bullets but it does bug me)

Thanks JB. I thought that might be the case. I reckon the .311 180gn Sierra might be the go as it's about the only 174/180gn spitzer in .303. At 2500-2550 fps it should give reliable performance. I think the 174gn Woodleigh might be a pointed bullet also.

Sorry for talking dirty, but Epps says using a .308 barrel for the 303 Epps chamber works fine without pressure problems. I have shot .308 180s in my #1mkIII and chronographed them to be 100 ft/sec slower than the Sierra .311 180s. There was only a slight POI change at 100 yds of an inch lower and about a half inch right.

I wondered if they bumped a bit, but doubted it as the bullets are harder than lead, which shoot best for me in that rifle at .313,wheel weight and tempered. I have not shot that for years now.

Ingwe, those were great pictures of that Lee Enfield in Africa.

Randy

Tom,

I was shooting new Winchester brass and just ran the cases over the expander ball in a .308 Win. die. Plan to try swapping expander/decapping assemblies with fired brass--or maybe just see if brass sized without expander in the .303 die os about right.

The 180 Partitions grouped 3 shots into 1.5-2", not bad for a starting load that might be a little on the low side. Velocity as around 2450, about like factory loads, but that doesn't mean much in this instance. I started with 48 grains of H4350, as that's worked real well with 180's in several .30-40 Krags, and will bump it up a little, or try a little faster powder.

The 150 Sierra ProHunters shot real well, under 1.5" for 3 shots. Powder charge was 50 grains of Big Game for 2800 or so. That pretty much ends load development. Barnes makes a 150 TSX .303 bullet and some are on the way.

Some 180-grain Remiongton .303 Core-Lokt roundnoses also shot well, but the powder/charge was wrong so will try again with something else.

But as fas as I'm concerned the rifle is ready to go hunting.

Ingwe,

It was new Winchester brass so I just ran them over the expander ball in a .308 Winchester die. Will switch out expander/decapping assembly on fired brass, or just see if running them into the .303 FL die is about right.

The 180 Partitions shot into 1.5-2", which will obviously work fine. Velocity is around 2450, about like factory loads, so will bump up the powder charge and see if that affects anything.

I also loaded some .308 180 Speer DeepCurls with the same load but didn't get a chance to shoot them as a thunderstorm was coming up. The concave base might help them to bump up.

Some 180 Remington Core-Lokt .303 roundnoses shot OK but strung vertically due to the wrong powder and charge. Will retry with the same load used with the Partitions.

The 150 Sierra ProHunters shot into less than 1.5" at 2800 (50 grains of Ramshot Big Game) so are good to go.

You mean to say that you purchased a rifle, completed load development, and are ready to hunting in less than three days? Isn't load development meant to be an arduous journey culminating in the "perfect load" only after several weeks of hand-wringing and scope-blaming and bullet manufacturer bad-mouthing?

JB: try a little 4895 in it, thats what I was using when we went to Africa...as for the expander ball, I just screwed a .308 ball on to the rod in the .303 sizer, and called it a day. Thats good speed from a .308 diameter boolit,so something must be working without too much gas getting by...

Ingwe

JB, I've used R15 with 200 and 220 Partitions with the first attempts printing into 1" out of a 100 yr old W.R.
36gr/220 gave 2046 f/s which is close enough to the original 215 @ 2050 for gov't work!

Pete

MD,

Could you elaborate on your statement about vertical stringing due to wrong powder/charge?

They were some leftover loads from some trials with my Lee-Enfield, using 40 grains of Ramshot TAC.

TAC is a great powder, but generally needs to be loaded to at least 55,000 psi to perform consistently. This charge was too low, and velocites varied around 175 fps. I may or may not try heavier charges, as my suspicion is that Big Game will work better.

Have you run a patch down the barrel yet? If so,did it feel any smoother that #1's of times past..My .300HH does...

I have some .312/215RN already cast if you want to try some....rifle

Yeah, I ran a patch down it when I slugged the bore. Also looked at it in the bore-scope. It's very smooth. In my experience all Ruger barrels have been very smooth for at least the last decade or so.

Thanks for the offer of the cast bullets, but a friend already gave me some.

I might even try this rifle with black powder, as the .303 started out as a BP cartridge--though it didn't stay that way long.

Don't forget your pith helmet! d:^)

Not all those who carried the 303 wore pith helmets, there were quite a few who had to wear long johns under their putties. The .577 snieder would more favourably represent the pith helmet.
Randy

Tried it again today, both with a couple more grains of H4350 and the IMR4895 that Ingwe suggested. I tried 43.0 grains of 4895, two grains over the max listed by Sierra. Also tried some Speer DeepCurl loads left over from yesterday, with 48.0 H4350.

The winner is looking to be the 50.0 H4350 load, which group into around 1-1/4" at 2600 fps. The other two would work as well, but are around 2500 fps and group around 1-3/4" to 2". I'll have to shoot the 50/H4350 load some more to make sure, of course, but it looks real good so far.

Thank you for your info, that answered my question.