Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Kills with the 303 British?

Ingwe.
Do you happen to know the groove to groove measurement on your Lee?

I have a Green Mountain barrel in both of these 2 Lees I am working on and they have a 302 land to land and a 310" groove to groove. If you are getting good accuracy from 308 bullets, and if my bore is a bit tighter I may just give up all together on 311"s and go to 180 grain 308s.
I can use 180 gr cup and core bullets to zero with, practice with and kill deer and antelope with, and 180 gr Partitions or Accu-Bonds for elk and bear and that would "cover a multitude of sins" I am sure.

The more I think of this, the more I am leaning toward just using 308 bullets.

I am not sure of the groove diameter on that rifle but JB and I have a theory.....because of the construction ( open base) of the NPT we think it might obdurate more easily to fill the grooves. I dunno, but it was an accurate bullet for sure in my rifle...

Here is my Irish Lee "Speed-ish" rifle so far.
I still have to fit the screws on the butt plate and cap and blue them as well as the rear swivel stud. I also need to get the checkering done, but it may be a few months before I can get to that.

I am ready to zero the sights now. One standing blade and 3 folding leafs,
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA by Steve Zihn, on Flickr
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA by Steve Zihn, on Flickr
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA by Steve Zihn, on Flickr
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA by Steve Zihn, on Flickr
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA by Steve Zihn, on Flickr
L Side Irish close up by Steve Zihn, on Flickr

Both rifles have turned out as I thought they would using your hands to sculpture both wood and steel. Impressive....

Beautiful rifles!!

What a beauty.

Thanks guys.
I am keeping that one I think. The next one is going to be for sale.
Probably be about 2 months before I get it done.

awesome rifle!!!!!

It's one cartridge I never loaded for. We took quite a few deer with ours and my son took his biggest buck to date. We always used the winchester 180s...

"Kills with the 303 British"
Probably the most famous would be the Red Baron being shot by a lone 303 from ground fire during a low level dog fight April 31 1918.

Salivating over these. Been some time since I've had one. They always seemed to get away. I too had a No. 1 that shot .308s better. Strange happenings.

I used a #4 with 180 grain Sierra bullets. My powder was IMR 4831 and I used fire formed Greek surplus brass. The velocity was down with that but it was very accurate.

Two West Virginia deer in 1988. A buck of about 150 pounds broadside at 125 yards. One round through the low chest and two hops then down. The bullet exited.

Second was a doe about the same size 1/4 towards also at 125 yards. . She went about 30 yards and down. Bullet found under the last far side rib.

FWIW, a Ruger No1 in 303 shoots the 308 180 Partition very well.

OK Guys, I did the .308" bullet test.
When I chambered these 2 rifles I made the camber to headspace on the shoulder instead of the rim. The Military chambers had the shoulders of the chambers .020" forward of the shoulder of the case and you can easily see the shoulder move forward on fired cases if you simply hold them alongside an unfired cartridge.
There is really nothing wrong with out the Brits did it but it does make case life a bit shorter if you don't neck size them after the 1st firing. Because I am supplying the dies and the load zeroed for the irons with the rifles I make, I took another approach.
I chambered the barrels so the cartridge will headspace on the shoulder with .002" clearance, and that moves the shoulder back .022". The down side is it also moves the case mouth/throat juncture back .022" so I have to trim my brass it 2.200 instead of the spec 2.222". However I found this is a cool way to dramatically increase brass life and still be able to size the case body a bit, so it enters the chamber effortlessly.

My other dilemma was the question: "What bullet should I use?"

Because these are fully custom rifles with iron sights set to 100, 200, 300 and 400 yards I need to file each sight blade to perfection, and that means I should have an accurate load capable of doing the job on any game that the rifle would be used against so the customer can duplicate that load for the life of the owner.

My 1st choice would be Woodleigh bonded bullets but they are very expensive and I do not trust the availability of them over time, because of the anti-gun politics of Australia and the looming danger of our own government shutting down importation of things "gun-related". So unless I could supply a lifetime's worth of bullets with the gun at the time of the sale (about 2000 bullets for a life time is a good guess, but there is no way I can afford to buy 2000 of them and hope someone will then buy the gun from me later.) I didn't want to zero with them and have an owner later not be able to duplicate that load.

As you all are probably aware I was asking for reports on bullet performance so I could make a decision about what bullet to load and zero with.

Problem solved!
I used .310" groove to groove barrels in this gun instead of .312. So I thought I should just try some 308" bullets and see if the metal flow from lands compressing the copper into the grooves would make a good gas seal and stay concentric. I was hoping for the best... but I knew there was no way to be sure other then to try it.

I loaded 40.3 Gr of IMR4064 with a 180 grain .308 Remington Core-Lokt in WW cases. It goes 2380 FPS. Here is how the first 3 shots printed at 100 yards.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA by Steve Zihn, on Flickr

The group was as good as I can shoot with my old eyes, and also about 7" high.
So I lowered the rear sight (flied to the correct height) and made a windage correction. (went a bit too much)

The next 3 shots are the ones in this groups making the triangle farthest to the left.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA by Steve Zihn, on Flickr

So I went back just a little bit right, and fired the next 3, one of which hit the spot and 2 are so close I don't think I can correct for it at 100 with open sights. Those 3 are the smallest triangle you see, just slightly to the left, maybe about 1/2" to 5/8" from mean center of group to the center of the spot.

So I think I will go with .308s and zero the 200,300 and 400 yards blades with them.

I modified the dies to have a .307 expander instead of a .310" and it makes the cases hold the .308 bullets perfectly.
In the "180 grain 308" bullet world" there are LOTS of choices from very 'soft' bullets like Sierras BTs to tough deep penetrators like Nosler Partition and various bonded bullets, and I am sure all will be close to the right point of impact if the owners use 40.3GR of 4064.
I think my bullet problem is behind me now.

That's some slick work, my friend.

I'm no judge whatsoever of gnu heads, but that one looks like a real buster to me! Dang.

Poor man's buffalo for certain.

I haven't used the 303 Br for quite a while, so this info may be somewhat dated. My best bullet performance was with the old CIL 180 gr round nose. Seemed to be the right construction for 303 velocities. I had a friend who was the head RCMP armourer and he said the in his opinion most 303 bullets were too hard for the 303 velocities. I was in a coffee shop during deer season and a friend of the fellow i was hunting with came in they had got a fairly large buck, and had shot it with a 303 and 180 gr remington round nose that hadn't opened, (about 100 to 125 yards) he showed it to me. His hunting partner had brought it down with a 270. I don't know what you intend to hunt, but I would look seriously at the 180 gr speer round nose, I know the 150 gr speer always seems to work well.

Shot my second deer with one. It died.

OK, I made a bit more progress on the other gun. This one is made on a Lithgow action from 1941. I don't know if any real "Speeds" were made on SMLEs, so I'll call this a 'Speedish" 303.

I have the wood sealed and ready for final finish. I did the engraving on the magazine and trigger guard. The express sights in made and installed and I used an extremely high front sight and front sight base so I know the rifle will shoot very low. Now I can work up a load that shoot well and then lower the top of the front sight base and maybe change out the sight itself for the final zero. I am wondering if I should use 220 or 180 grain bullets. Maybe I'll split the difference and go with 200 grain spitzers.

After all the metal work is done and the rifle is perfectly zeroed I'll take it all apart one last time and rust blue the steel as I do the final finishing on the wood. Then its time for checkering and after that, the final assembly.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA by Steve Zihn, on Flickr

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA by Steve Zihn, on Flickr

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA by Steve Zihn, on Flickr

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA by Steve Zihn, on Flickr

Very nice work...