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I have a .333okh belted mag that shoots .333 bullets .There is someone who has some .331 bullets should I get these are not .I shoot .410 bullets in my .411 diameter 405 win all the time no problem .I have got to get a bullet swagger to reduce .338 bullets to..333 .I think they should do alright not sure how accurate they will be ! I saw articles about shooting .416 bullets out of a 405 win which is .411 that's the quick way to ruin a gun and your day ! | ||
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I've always held in my reloading to the premise of matching the bullet diameter to the bore! I've read where some say they have had some LUCK shooting .308 bullets in a .310 bore!? ________ Ray | |||
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.002 undersized may or may not keyhole .004 WILL opinions vary band of bubbas and STC hunting Club Information on Ammoguide about the416AR, 458AR, 470AR, 500AR What is an AR round? Case Drawings 416-458-470AR and 500AR. 476AR, http://www.weaponsmith.com | |||
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We have run a test with thec375/404. There was no discernible difference in bullets that were plus or minus 0.003. I have loaded 0.243 bullets in the 244 H&H Magnum, which uses 0.245 bullets. They shot just as well as the factory rounds. A friend has a Blaser rifle in 375 H&H, which shoots best with 0.372 bullets I make for him. I have loaded 0.277 caliber bullets in a 7x64 rifle. It was supposed to make them shoot badly for Walter as a joke. Did not work, as they shot 1.5-2.0 groups!!?? I had to drill some lead from their base, so no two are alike. They started off as 140 grains, and I have taken their weights down to 90 grains! They were Nosler Ballistic Tips. This worked like a charm. He fired three shots at 100 yards. First two hit the target backing separated by about a foot and a half! Third one landed on the ground 50 yards in front of us.  | |||
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And he videoed it  _______________________ | |||
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 Typo? Groove dia.  rogerOld age is a high price to pay for maturity!!! Some never pay and some pay and never reap the reward. Wisdom comes with age! Sometimes age comes alone.. | |||
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I've found zero problems using .223" Hornet bullets in .224" bores (grooves, actually!) That's only a .001" difference, but proportional to your .333 is not too different from a .002" difference in that bore. If a bullet is reasonably soft it will bump up a few thousandths from the gas pressure behind it to completely fill the grooves. | |||
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Another thought.... rifling style. Most U.S. barrels from the '03 Springfield forward seem to use narrow lands and wide grooves. This requires good groove contact in order to support the bullet. In contrast, a lot of European barrels (particularly military and I'm thinking specifically here about the .303) have a land surface area that looks to be around 50% of the bore surface area. These wide lands support the bullet well and don't necessarily need a good groove diameter match in order to shoot reasonably well. Maybe look at the rifling profile then? A good job is sometimes just a series of expertly fixed fark-ups. Let's see.... is it 20 years experience or is it 1 years experience 20 times? And I will have you know that I am not an old fart. I am a curmudgeon. A curmudgeon is an old fart with an extensive vocabulary and a really bad attitude. | |||
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Another aspect of the differences in rifling style is the depth of the grooves, with the grooves in some European calibres being significantly deeper than the American standard. For example, my old 8x56 M1908 Mannlicher-Schoenauer slugged .315" bore diameter, and .328" groove diameter (apparently somewhat common in this calibre), for grooves that are more than 50% deeper than typical American groove depth. Winchester 170 gr. PSPs for the 8x57 are .322", but even though .006" undersized, the .007" of rifling engagement is adequate to stabilize them, though to date best accuracy had been with the slightly larger (.323") Hornady 170 gr. RNSP. Cheers, Al | |||
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 Back in the 60s when I hunted with a 6.5 Carcano I used .264" dia. bullets . peep sights 16"sight radius, never missed a 9" paper plate, off hand, at 100 yd. That military barrel had a grove dia. of .268" rogerOld age is a high price to pay for maturity!!! Some never pay and some pay and never reap the reward. Wisdom comes with age! Sometimes age comes alone.. | |||
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One thousandth plus or minus seems not to be an issue usually. But any more than that can be bad, depending on a lot of factors, which I won't go into now. Like bore volume, throat shape and length, cartridge pressure, bullet hardness, and a lot more things. Ok, I did list some. Now, for lead bullets, then you need .001 over at least. Or soft bullets; many factors which I won't go into here. It was routine for black powder cartridge rifles to use bore diameter bullet and no throat; the BP bumped the bullets up to groove dia. Many factors. | |||
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Lots of conflicting data on milsurps with 7.62 bores shooting .308-.311 bullets. Also with 6.5 Japs converted to 6.5x257 Roberts shooting 257 factory loads just fine. Load em and shoot em to see. befus | |||
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Small point: true for JACKETED bullets. One point is always missed: Test and find out. I prefer 0.357" jacketed bullets in 9x19, 9x21, and .38 super. Others, with different guns, may find something different. If it is safe, run some tests. | |||
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True for LEAD (soft alloy) bullets with black powder to an even greater degree. Remember that many, 19th century black powder cartridges were loaded with BORE diameter bullets and no throat. Seated far out so as to make room for powder. Most Sharp's cartridges are like that. The impulse on the base the bullet from the powder charge upset the bullet to groove diameter and it worked well. Now, with jacketed or hard lead bullets; and smokeless powder that won't work. (usually) Back to the OP's question; I would just try it and see. | |||
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This will tell you why:
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I have a 400 Whelen that shoots .410" or .411" bullets to the same POI and no discernable velocity difference. My personal feelings are that a lot of things can affect accuracy and bullet diameter may or may not have any accuracy bearing in your rifle. Things that may or may NOT affect accuracy are bullet weight, spitzer shape or round nose, velocity, flat base or Boat Tail,What powder, brass or primer you use, seating depth, trim length and I can go on and on. Add bullet diameter to the list and again any of these items may or may not affect accuracy or velocity. | |||
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Dane: Thanks for the info. Knew there had to be a justifiable reason for the common use of "oversize" groove diameters. Cheers, Al | |||
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Did I read somewhere that Greek Mannlicher-Schoenauer 6.5 barrels had grooves two or three thou smaller than .264"? I have noticed that factory RWS 6.5x54 ammo seems to give mild extraction problems and am wondering if their bullets are oversized for my 1927 Breda. | |||
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Years ago, I picked up a couple of 1909 Argies in a pawn shop. Whoever was importing them had run a 30-06 reamer in them and marked them as such. The bores were excellent on them and even though I had bought them for the actions, I decided to see if they would shoot. I reasoned that in an oversized bore, maybe using a long flat based round nose bullet would stabilize better because of the long bearing surface. I used some Hornady 220gr. RN's that shot perfect little 3 shot cloverleafs at 100 yds! The velocity as I recall, was about 2100 fps over my chronograph, from a book load that claimed 2400, I just chalked the lower velocity up to blow-by. I sure hated to pull that barrel but they had hogged the reamer and the neck/shoulder area was grooved up and the brass came out looking pretty sad. I measured the fired necks and they were oversized enough to seat .312 bullets so I got a 303 expander ball and put it in my 06 dies and it shot very well. Sometimes the only way to find out whether something will work is to just give it a try. DRSS(We Band of Bubba's Div.) N.R.A (Life) T.S.R.A (Life) D.S.C. | |||
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I figured this guy measured these bullets wrong or something .I have never heard of .331 diameter bullets .I need .333 bullets .He stuck them in 333Jeffery case bad they were tight .He had a old Sears micrometer that may have been off .I don't what to screw up the throat in this rifle .I think that's too fast and too little of differece to paper patch the bullets too .I am not taking the risk .I wish he would send 5 bullets so I could see if they will work and what real diameter they really are . | |||
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In case anyone cares, I slugged a piece of barrel cut off to shorten it, just by blocking the bore with aluminium foil and pouring hot lead in above. I miked the grooves to be .266" and the bore .2555". | |||
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