My Thoughts and Experiences Reloading and Shooting .303 British Rifles
My Thoughts and Experiences Reloading and Shooting .303 British Rifles
By Doug Bowser
I want to give you a tip when reloading .303 British cartridges. You may already know this but here it is anyway. The chambers on Enfield and Ross rifles are usually quite over sized. This is no problem for military use but when reloading it will cause case head separations. The head space on the .303 is determined by the rim of the ctg. When a SAAMI sized ctg is fired in a .303 British chamber, it stretches forward to fill the chamber. In some rifles, if you full length re-size the case it overworks the brass and will cause a case head separation immediately or after a few shots. Back the die out of the press (after touching the die to the shell holder) about 1/4" and size a case. Try the case in the rifle and if there is much resistance, turn the die into the press 1/8 turn and re-size the case. Do this until there is no heavy resistance to closing the bolt. This sets the dies to head space on the shoulder of the ctg instead of the rim. If you have more than one rifle, you may have to segregate the cases as the chambers in .303 rifles vary considerably.
The Canadian Ross rifles are greatly relieved in the chambers. They had great difficulty with jamming in the trenches in WW1 and re-chambered the rifles in the field to help this problem. Some Ross fired cases do not even resemble a .303 British unfired ctg. The Ross 1905's bolt cannot be assembled incorrectly but the Model 1910 can be. If the 1910 rifle is fired with a bolt that is incorrectly assembled, the rifle will fire fully out of battery and the bolt will be ejected to the rear with deadly force. If you have a 1910 Ross rifle and want to fire it, be sure you know how to assemble the bolt.
Another problem with the Lee-Enfield and No. 4 rifles is, the actions have more of a springy action than Mauser type rifles. Springy is a term used by my Limey friends. It is much worse in the No 1 Mk III* than the No. 4 rifles. The Spring in the actions is due to the rear locking lugs and the design of the receiver. When the Aussies tried to re-barrel their No 1 Mk III* rifles to 7.62 NATO, the actions were deemed not suitable due to action Spring and locking lug recess setback. The Indian Arsenal at Ishapore made No 2 and 2A (No 1) rifles in 7.62 NATO but the metallurgy in the newly made actions was beefed up to take the additional pressure and bolt lug thrust. The Ishapore No 2 and 2A rifles should not be fired with commercial .308 Winchester ammo.
The No 4 action is much stiffer than the No 1 MkIII*. The Brits routinely convert the No 4 actions to 7.62 NATO. They had a Special Air Services Sniper rifle made with No 4 actions, heavy barrels and match stocks. Also, Fulton's Gunsmith Shop at Bisley Camp will convert a No 4 action to .7.62 NATO in a target configuration called an ENVOY. The triggers are altered, special 28" long heavy barrels (.306" groove diameter and 1 in 14" twist ) installed, glass bedding applied, match stocks used and a sophisticated rear sight and globe front sight by Parker-Hale is installed. They shoot the Envoy rifles from 200-1200 yards with 7.62 Standard NATO 147 gr ammunition supplied by Radway Green each year. All shooters in their Annual Bisley Meeting (National Matches) must shoot this ammo. Radway Green ammunition is usually quite accurate and they select the best lot made in any given year for the Bisley Meeting. I have fired an Envoy rifle at 600 yards with 7.62 LC M118 match ammo and it was quite accurate. We had several Brit shooters come to McComb in 1984 and we fired the US Presidents Match with M1 NM rifles and the 2nd Phase of the Queen's Prize at 500 and 600 yards. It was quite an experience for people from both sides of the great pond. They got to shoot semi-auto rifles in slow fire prone, standing and rapid fire prone and we fired the Brit way, all prone slow fire. Note: No 4 rifles converted to 7.62 NATO should NOT be fired with .308 Winchester commercial ammo.
Reloading for the .303 British is not difficult but remember, you must fit your cases to the chamber or they won't last very long.
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Originally Posted by PhillipM
