......After our peestol shoot last Tuesday we decided to shoot the regular match: 10 rounds offhand, iron sights. So one of the shooters, Dave shows up with a truly superb Smith Corona 03A3 Springfield and 20 rounds of R-P 150gr Core-Lokts? He said he wasn't going to compete in the match. Another Burrito shooter had given Dave a couple hundred cast slugs, all lube sized and ready to go a couple weeks back. Come to find out, Dave didn't own a set of 30-06 dies! I thought everyone was issued a set on their 18th birthday, or some such?

As it was I didn't make such a great start either, as I brought my 2 rifles for experimental stuff along with my daughter's 7x57 sporter and some ammo for fire forming. Since I only live a bit over 4 miles from the range, I hauled butt home and retrived my 03A1 and one box of 100 rounds, and a partial box with 15 left out of 100 for Dave (hopefully).

BTW, this box will represent 600 rnds out of the 'Sprangfield' without cleaning :-). So luckily a round necksized for my rifle DOES chamber in his! The load is the Ly 311284 over 28.0grs of surp IMR4198 + Dacron in PMC cases which recieve a taper crimp.

So I leave the rifle with the chambered round on the bench and say, there ya go. He takes it and stands up. No no! Sit down, shoot it off the bags. We want to test the rifle and ammo, not YOU :-)! 1st shot goes under the backer, so raise it 2 clicks. Now we're into the bottom of the board, so up 2 more. Now we're in the seven ring and need some left, so crank in some left and 2 more 'ups'. Ah! The 9 ring, and good for elevation.

Okay, so stand up and fire the next to see what recoil does. He shoots it off into the 8 ring at 2 o'clock. I suggest he fire and adjust with his 10 match rounds as long as he can call them each time. For the match he scratchs 2 for no score (high right) an 8, and a 7, and a 9. His next 5 rounds are four 10's and a 9! Holy cow :-). His last 6 rounds got him 58 points. I said he couldn't use any of my ammo anymore <VBG>.

I was pretty hot myself, but only at first. My first 7 rounds were three 10's and four 9's. Something happened and my last 3 rounds were all 7's, to finish with an 87-1X. Match winner Glen had a straight 89. When he'd finished I still had the last 3 to go and thought we had us a horse race. Oh well, always next week.

I'd mentioned needing to test out 2 M1909 Argie Cav Carb's. One was more accurate then the other. All my load data says is, "1st rifle", or "2nd rifle". Danged if I could remember which one I'd gotten first :-). So I loaded 40 rounds of the same searies for each rifle. All used the same Ly 314299 Tumble Lubed and then lube-sized @ .312". Charges were 12.0 SR7625, 16.0 2400 + Dacron, 22.0 H4227 + Dacron, and 23.0 H4198 + Dacron. They all got a trip through the Lee Fact Crimp die. The bullets were unscaled visually inspected and fired.



The 4 on the left were from one and ditto the 4 on the right. It did seem odd as the 1st rifle really seems to have the nicer barrel. Possibly it has some bedding issues? All were shot with the issue sights off the bench. The brass was all f/l sized and mixed headstamp. Consistant within each batch of 20 though. All groups were 10 rounds.



The rifle. The other looks exactly the same :-). So anyway, I know which one I'll keep. I hate to mess with the other because if it ends up shooting as good or better then it'd be tough to get rid of it.

.........Buckshot

Buckwhit, that "rifle 1/rifle 2" system was an endless source of confusion for me as well. With 'contract rifles' like your 1909 Argies, when there is no descriptive difference, I now just use the series letter prefix on the serial #, thus "rifle C/rifle R" for example. Works a lot better. BTW, do we have too many toys or what? ---kid---

Galena Kid. We NEVER have too many toys.
Paul B.

WhitShot--

I might very well be out at Inland on Tuesday--is the bill of fare the usual thing?

Check yer E-mail, sent ya an update.

Now I like what the Galena Kid called you buck---->Buckwhit...hahahahahaha too funny. Anyways I was doing some shooting with my CZ 30-06 with 3x9 scope. Normally I shoot the 311284 in my 06's but this time I tried the 311299. Damn..the first three shots went into 1/4 inche, then I pulled the other two to open it to about 3/4 to 1 inch. This was at 100 yds. Looks like this rifle will shoot cast better then condoms. Oh by the way that was with surplus 844 powder. 30 grs and dacron wad. I finally got the Lee mold for the 8x56 Austrian, instead of shooting sized down .338's so we'll see what that baby will do now. It wasn't bad with the .338's. Had the old Krag out too...it shoots the 311284 and 311299 into an inch or less no matter much what powder I use..and that's with the iron sights. Sweet rifles those krags. I'll keep ya posted on the the correct .329 boolits for the Austrian

Joe

........Deputy Al, we're shooting 45-70's for the match Tuesday. Any firearm, it's just gotstabe a 45-70.

.......Starmetal, be interested to hear about the Lee .329" mould. SPecificly what it drops at. My 2 M95's both slug at .316"x.331". Boxer brass availability at Graf now looks to be about a Halloween-ish time frame.

..........Buckshot

Well Buckshot I feel better now. I was told when I got my Austrian that they had a .330 bore and I felt like I got a more wore out one because mine miked the same as yours! Soon as my furnace heats up will be casting some and you can bet I will tell you what they drop from the mold at pardner. I will be using a littler harder then #2 alloy and am dropping into water to quench. Another plus for this correct mold is that it uses the 8mm gaschecks where as I had to use the .338 checks on the other mold and they don't take quite a good squeeze down thru the sizer. Stay tuned.

Joe

Okay Buckshot....just finished casting and here's the results you wanted to know. As they drop from the mold the Austrian boolits mike .3298 on the driving bands and .3201 on the nose. As you can see there was hardly any resistance whatsoever going through the Lee .329 sizer. They weighed 209 grs without gascheck or lube. Next I'll let you know how they shoot. Hoping that they shoot good as they aren't squeezed down as much ast the .338 boolits and they dropped looking real good from the Lee mold.

Joe

Second data point:

They drop from my mould at .3308 on the driving bands, .3199 on the nose. This with old (pre-1970) wheelweights with some tin added. Bullets weight 200 grains +/- 0.2 grains with this mix.

I don't have a Steyr, I bought it for a heavy mould for 8x57. It sizes quite easily to .325, and grouped well in two Yugos and a Persian long rifle.

FWIW.

Resp'y,
Bob S.