I am planning to use my stock Jungle Carbine for a truck gun this season while hunting moose and deer for nostalgic reasons primarily. I want to use a factory spitzer 180 grain factory ammo. Is there any make that stands out for accuracy and performance? Federal has loads with 180 Federal bullets, 180 Speer Hot Core, and 180 Sierra's. Winchester has the 180 Power Point. I want to use 180's for penetration in case I see a moose but want the bullets to expand on deer also. Any comments would be helpful. Thanks

Steve -



Sounds like a nice idea to me. The .303 under most bush conditions is a pretty good moose gun.



I used to have a friend named Gideon McLeod who lived 83 mi. N of Lac LaRonge, Sask. Gideon spoke no English, only Cree, but he had adopted and used a somewhat worn .303 Mk V to make his subsistence living with. He was a bona fide moose killer of note with it. He & his (then) young son used to hunt from Gideon's 17-foot freighter canoe. The last time I met him, he had managed to acquire another box of Dominion ammo with the big exposed lead "blue-nose" RN bullets and had 15 rounds left...having killed 4 moose and taken 1 sighter shot with the other 5 rounds.



A real man, Gideon. Built his own home of local logs, hauled by hand. Used a one-man idiot whip to cut his winter's wood, and once a year bought a 5-gallon can of #1 diesel for his emergency lantern. What was really interesting to me was his guiding, and what he did with the money.



He'd take out dude moose hunters once in a while when he was lucky enough to run onto somone up there in the bush who needed/wanted his services. That was pretty much hit or miss as he could not read or write English, and had no phone or radio for voice contact. He charged $25 per day, including the use of his canoe, with him doing both the paddling and the portaging solo.



When the hunt was over and he got paid, he'd walk another 50 miles or so north (one way) to the nearest store, to buy things like flour and lard, which he'd carry home on his back. (Gideon never owned a powered vehicle in his life.) The really interesting part was that his son, who was only 10 or 11 at the time, would make the walk with him. Why? Because when they'd get to the store, Gideon would buy his boy an ice cream cone. There and back, that's 100 miles on foot for an ice cream cone!



Both Gideon and his son were two of the politest, nicest, hard working, most honest people I've ever met. Never, ever, heard either one of them swear even once, regardless of provocation.



I don't know about your nostalgic memories related to the .303 but, as you can see, you've certainly awakened mine!!



Thanks



AC

I've killed three deer with the Winchester Power Points (25" barrel on mine). One I hit too far back and had to follow it up. One was hit in the back of the neck (intended, as that was the only shot available) and died instantly. The third was a classic shoulder/heart/lung shot at about 50yds. This last deer stumbled about 5yds, laid down, and died. Bullet performance was very good in all cases. No bullet was recovered.

The neck shot exited with a hole the size of a grapefruit, though obviously penetration was not an issue.

Shoot them over a chronograph and you might be disapointed. They seem to be loaded pretty slow (less than 2200fps). Other brands will probably come closer to the standard 2400-2500fps (out of the rifle, not the carbine). I know the Remingtion 180gr Cor-Locs are faster (but they are not as accurate in my rifle). But the deer didn't seem to notice the slower velocity.

I'm now buying the Remington bullets (180gr RN) and handloading them for better accuracy.

Thank you for sharing that, Albert. roger

Great story Alberta, I met an Indian like him who had lived in a shack on the banks of the Mackenzie River for 40 years at Arctic Red River in the NWT. Very interesting people!! Thanks for the information. I will go down to Cambodian Tire tomorrow and grab a box of WW 180 Power Points. They cost the same as the Remington 174 UMC ammo and hopefully will be as accurate. Anyone had any experience with the Sierra 180 spitzer bullet in handloads? I pulled some 174 military bullets from the Remington loads and just seated the Sierra's. They were very accurate. Thanks again for the information. Steve

AC I spent a winter in Lac La ronge in 70-71. Had some relatives that were working there, it was quite interesting. One of my BIL's ran the local bar, and one night we stopped a knife fight, but then noticed that one of the participants was bleeding like a stuck pig on the outside of his RH calf. Turned out when he had pulled his filleting knife from his boot he had sliced his leg. No doctors in La Ronge at the time, so off we went to a vet who had a lake side cottage there and happened to be in that weekend. He stitched him up, no anesthetic (not that he was feeling any pain). It was an interesting town, no doubt.

Steve, I answered your post in another thread, but will repeat myself. The best factory load for the 303 I ever used was the old Rem 215 gr RN. They don't make it anymore, but you can find it at gun shows and the like. - Dan

Albert...I would like to hear some more about Gideon.

Lac La Ronge was quite an interesting town in those days, all right.



In 1975 or '76 Dept of Northern Sask did recruit a Doctor for the area. He and his wife and very young son moved there. They were there only a few months when some dogs in town killed and partially ate the son. Doc & his wife returned from whence they came. (Seems like it was England, but I may be remembering it wrong...may have been Eastern Canada.)



Aside from the raw savagery of the dogs, one of the other things which always shocked those not from the true North was the size and attitude of the northern Ravens. The local Ravens all figured they owned the Lac La Ronge dump. They would commonly drive away wolves, semi-feral dogs, and even the occasional black bear with their attacks. They were BIG, double tough critters who seemed to think attacking the eyes of their foes was just the right method of preserving property rights.



There's not lots to tell about Gideon. He also made a little money on the side by building log cabins on the many lakes around where he lived. Seems there were lots (8 or 10 pair) of South 48-ers (mostly school teachers) who would come North for the summer to enjoy the fishing. Most were from Kalifornia, BTW. For those who have never been up in the Canadian Shield country, it is possible to go from Alberta to Hudson's Bay by using the rivers, small lakes, and age-old indian portages. They call Minnesota the land of 10,000 lakes? Well, Northern Sakatchewan must be the land of 1,000,000 lakes. (Canada has 1/4 of the world's supply of fresh water.)



Anyway, Gideon would build a cabin on some small lake each winter, using his single-bit ax and crosscut saw, and when summer came he'd rent it to the fisherpeople for $30 or so per month. (No, he didn't use nails. he used pegs to hold the cabins together.) By the time the summer was over, invariably they would want to buy it. So, he'd dicker a bit, and sell it to them. Of course, he had no idea what a land title was, and never had one in his life. I don't believe he ever accepted a cheque,either. What would he have done with it?



I heard a couple of interesting stories about buyers who tried to establish their claim to title for their cabin/lot, but don't know if any of them were true.



Gideon, of course, was NOT trying to fleece those folk. He never charged more than $200 or $300 Canadian for a cabin, and was selling exactly what he said he was...a cabin. They usually WERE trying to fleece Gideon, so I don't feel a terrible large amount of sympathy for them.



They were sturdy cabins, usually only one or two portages from the gravel road which traverses northern Saskatchewan, so they were easy to get to, very private, and really a good buy...so long as one didn't insist on applying the laws of the white man to owning one. Great fishing, too. Many of those little lakes had never seen ANY other fishermen, and were full of either Trout, large Northern Pike, or Walleyes.



As any Canadian knows, trying to establish private title to most Crown Land in the North is a far from easy task, if one wasn't invited by the jurisidictional government to settle there in the first place.



I once tried to obtain title to a quarter section of Crown Land near Ft. Assinaboine, Alberta, to preserve a pristine little valley I had stumbled upon about 40 miles SW, about 1/4-miile north of the banks of the Athabasca River....a valley full of Beavers, Moose, and various other stuff, with no roads, truck trails or seismic lines leading to it. The Alberta government wouldn't even consider the possiblity of letting me obtain it for the purpose of conservation, but WAS willing to let me have it free of charge (and cut a road in to it) if I wanted to use it as a Gravel pit.



Must say, I really miss the North. The Tories' gun laws never reached that area in those days, and only a small number of natives (mainly those right in Lac La Ronge and the other larger northern towns) had become addicted to welfare.



I don't think Gideon ever had, or needed, a huntng license. He was truly free to use his wits, his physical strength, and his moral principles to build a good life for himself, his wife, and their kids. He didn't have a car, electricity, skidoo, indoor plumbing, running water or a formal education.



But he had been taught by his dad and others how to make a living in the bush from what nature provided, and he did have a rifle, an axe, a good knife, a canoe, simple clothes (mostly homemade), a lantern, handmade furniture, a basic cooking kit. He had pretty much everything he needed.



AC

LOL, that brought back some memories. When I lived in Thompson Manitoba we used to call those big black ravens "Thompson turkeys". I've watched them knock over metal garbage cans and chase away sled dogs from "thier" garbage. I miss that country, too many people around here now. - Dan

GREAT stories--many thanks!

I have used the Sierra 180 grain in my No. 1 Mk III with decent results. I wasn't running them real hard, about 2100 FPS--but they did all right downrange, considering my aging eyesight. Ten round groups did no worse than 2" at 100 yards with several powders tried. That sort of performance is deer-capable in my book.

Dan -



Didn't realize you are an Albertan until I looked at your latest post...keep confusing you with Cal Sibley, the Montrealer.



I understand Northern Alberta is full of cut-lines, seismic trails, and all kinds of people these days. Also I understand they are finally starting to make a go of the tar sands up at Ft. Mac. Too bad. I used to fly into Grist Lake on the border over north of Cold Lake, in a Cherokee Six, to fish for the Pike, Trout, and Walleye. In those days the Alberta record for Walleye was 10+ lbs and Grist Lake could have easily broken that. As you probably know, it is really two lakes, with a 3,000-ft. gravel Forestry air strip in between. The northern one of the two was shallow, but very good sized. It has tons of Pike up to about 6' length, and the Walleyes. The southern lake was very deep but only about .75-1.00-mile long. It had trout up to about 30 pounds or maybe a bit more in it.



I liked fishing for the Pike. Was an older local fellow who also fished it...to get the food for his sled dogs. All summer he would be there catching and drying fish, and seemed to have a dog tied to almost every tree around camp. Was great Pike fishing...you got a fish every cast. We kept getting smaller ones...30 inches or so...until we finally put some 3/4 ounce weights on just in front of the Dare-Dev'l (SP?) lures. That would cause them to sink fast enough to get down to the bigger fish before the small ones could grab them.



As the tar sands expand, guess they'll next be putting a road in along the Sask border and all that will disappear too, if it already hasn't.



Also used to shoot ducks and grouse a lot around Vilna. Even then, in the late 60's, they were opening a subdivision of acreages on the north side of the highway just west of Vilna a few miles.



My wife is a Uke, from Bruderheim, though she claims to be from "Edmonchuk". I always used to tease her about being from Smoky Lake.



You lived in Thompson? Were you a miner? One of my crews helped build Grand Cache (another mining town) before the Crown allowed it to be occupied. I got my last moose on the road to Grand Cache, just a few miles north of the native village along the way...can't recall its name at the moment and too lazy to go downstairs and get out my ancient canvas wall map to look it up. Distantly seem to recall it was at one of either Berland River or Wild Hay River crossings.



How about the area up along the Alberta/NWT border...Copper Mine, Ft. Smith, etc., is that all filling up with people too?



I used to like to hunt that north edge of Woods Buffalo National Park. Matter of fact, liked to hike, hunt, and fish the whole Athabasca Delta. May have mentioned here before, I had a hunting buddy who rigged his old Suburban with a winch right up between the front seats (and took all the rest of the seats out). He could winch a buffalo right into the back of the rig.



Would come back in a heart-beat if one could trust either the Grits or the Tories to get rid of those ridiculous gun laws. Saw it all start to happen in '79 and gave up and moved South in '82.



Incidentally, I had a fair number of guns even in those days, but my "truck" guns were two...a Savage M219 with three barrels (.30-30, .22 Hornet, and .410), and a Ross Model 1905 carbine in .303 Brit which I bought at Bud's auction in Red Deer for $13. And my truck was a 2-wheel drive '65 Ford F-250. It went everywhere, on road and off. Places I wouldn't dare go with a 4-wheeler today, but then I was young, strong, and immortal. Always figgered I could walk out of anywhere if need be, given enough time. Never had to, though.



Anyway, that old Ford, a flint & steel, a knife, and the Ross .303 were all a guy needed.



Best wishes to you and all the other Canucks here at AR. Keep the light on for me. One of these days I gotta come home.



AC

I tried mining AC, it really wasn't for me. My step brother took to it like a duck to water; he's working a mine across the strait from Juneau now. I went into railroads and now I run the family construction business in the summer and do contracting for various railroads thru the winter. Last time I was in Ft. Smith was in '76, they still had the northern women's prison there then, we used to watch them go out for thier walks down the road every day, always hoping for good looking gals. I've been out to Bruderheim a time or two, a buddy of mine runs the BigWay store there. We used to stop there on the way to Hairy Hill and Two Hills to shoot gophers in the summer. Still lot's of nice country that way, but yeah, it's filling up. Won't be long now Alberta will have 3 million people. Of course, 2.5 million of them will live in Edmonton, Red Deer, and Calgary, but still. I plan on heading up to Ft. Chip way and hunt the south side of Wood Buffaloe this fall, have a couple friends coming in from overeas, we'll head up to the Wentzal Lake area in the Caribou Mountains. Look for moose and (hopefully) bison. They still don't have a thru' road, but there's a winter road most years. I like it up there, still not too many folks, lot's of good fishing and hunting. Ft. Mac is going insane, there's another oilsands plant going in and the first two are expanding like crazy. Anyone who can't get a job here is either crippled or doesn't want to work. Good coin, but finding a place to live is tough. Grande Cache area, maybe Muskrat Creek? I worked in there in 79, lot's of big elk, but that was before the road was paved and civilised, so it probably isn't the same now. Everything between Edmonton and Jasper is starting to fill up, acreages everywhere, it's kind of depressing really. I don't know where all these folks are coming from. Anyway, take care, and we'll talk again another time. - dan

That .303 title rings a bell, and so does "factory ammo"....

I worked on mineral exploration for Giant Yellowknife Mines for a while back in the '60s, in the Northwest Territories. My partner and I were flown into a lake on the Beaulieu River, about 100 miles NE of Yellowknife, shortly before spring breakup (mid-May), via DeHaviland Beaver on skis. We intended to be there through breakup and have the next supply plane arrive when the ice had cleared off the lakes, several weeks later.

ANYWAY, a black bear fresh from hibernation was plaguing us, and I ended up shooting it one morning from about 24" off the muzzle of my .303 Jungle Carbine. It got a little exciting there, to say the least. I dug two of the bullets out of the hide on the far side and sent them off to Canadian Industries, Ltd., makers of the ammo, asking what they weighed and saying how much I appreciated their performance.

I got a very pleasant letter back some weeks later, thanking me and saying that they were sending me a complimentary box of .303 ammo. Eventually, I forgot all about this.

Late in the fall I was in the exploration office in Yellowknife and got a call from Northern Transportation, the barge folks, saying they had a shipment for me. Went down to the dock, signed about thirty pieces of paper, and then the agent and I walked out into the empty deckhouse of a 100-foot barge at the dock. Waaaaay down in one corner was ....a box of .303 British!!! Imagine! Canadian National Railways from Montreal P.Q. to Edmonton Alberta, thence via Northern Alberta Railways to Waterways, Alberta, head of navigation on the northern rivers, then downstream by barge-and-tug to Great Slave Lake and thence 160 miles across the pond to Yellowknife....all for a "free" box of 20 .303 cartridges!?!?!?

This thread brings back a lot of good .303 memories to me, too. My first high-power rifle, at age 16, was a Parker-Hale sporterized #4 given to me for Christmas by my folks, and it neatly killed every critter I ever needed to kill, for quite a while. I was already strongly prejudiced toward the rifle and cartridge since I'd been using issued #4 Rifles in the Army Cadets for two years by that time.

I don't know for sure, but I have a feeling that Norma loads may be a good bit warmer than US-made ammo. Those old "Dominion" (CIL) loads pushed 180s at over 2500 fps from a #4 Enfield....I chronographed them on my first break-the-screens instrument back in the '70s. VERY good ammunition.

(Somewhat mild, but still forceful military expletives deleted), don'tcherknow. You chaps are givin' me an itch to get hold of one of those surplus Enfields that are goin' around and clean 'er up, make a less honest woman of 'er, in a manner o'speakin'. Already got the .404, feel as though I ought to have a .303, now, what?

Every man should have at least one 303 Ol Sarge, it's a right of passage, really. - dan

Hi Dan

Have been away a day or so...

Anyway, Muskrat Creek rings the right bells. I'm pretty sure you hit it on the head.

Thought I should toss in a piece of advice here for any Yanks that decide to go up to Northern Sask or Northern Alta and fish for Pike. Pike are tough to eat...the flesh is in little cubicles kinda like a honey comb. But they DO taste great.

REMEMBER though....ALWAYS fillet your Pike. Never get into the meat along the dorsal fin. If you look closely at the dorsal fin area with the skin off, in between the verticle spines almost at the backbone you will see a little gray "dot". That "dot" is a tapeworm larva. Pike are a natural host in the life-cycle of those worms, and virtually all the Pike in Northern Sask and Alberta have them. You can kill the larva by cooking the meat well, but why take the chance?

Just eat the fillets and let the bears (which pretty much all may have trichinosis anyway) eat the rest.

There's lots of "free" stuff to eat in the Northern bush, but you Yanks have to KNOW what you're doing, or you can be well-fed to death up there.

AC

Al,

I dunno, this southern Californian never had any trouble with pike. I just fillet them and then cut the upper and lower fillets off the 'y' bones. Where's the problem?



And I definitely agree, they do taste GREAT! I even did a "Dijon" mustard cream sauce over one in a bush camp in Ontario. Nummmm....

Pike are great, I agree, the fillets are the only thing worth keeping, that and the "cheeks". I also really like whitefish and char. Sigh, I think it's just about time for another northern fishing trip. MMMM, whitefish with onion and butter cooked on an open fire. - Dan

Char just might be the absolute best. I've come to the conclusion that eland is the best tasting thing that walks (followed closely by muskox), francolin is the best tasting thing that flies and char is the best tasting thing that swims. Wonderful . . . and I just ate dinner!

I have 12 rifles, and the only one I do not reload for is the SMLE .303. It's a No. 1 Mark 4. Those guns were made to fire in swamps, jungles, you name it. They have very generous sized chambers. My first trip to the range, and I split 3 reloaded rounds in half. I had the gunsmith check it out for headspace, and he said it was right on the money.
Reloading wasn't an option for the Tommies. The Lee-Enfield is a good rifle, but not for the reloader. I use the Federal 150gr. PSP, and it works well for me. Hope you do well with yours. They are still quite popular for moose here in Canada. Best wishes.

Cal - Montreal

PMC sells a .303 load with Sierra 180gr bt's, they shoot great in my Mark 3, along with the Win, and the cheap ammo Century Arms imports, called HotShot.

http://centuryarms.com/Century/pages/hotshots.htm

Cal,
I think that the easiest answer to your reloading problem would be to neck-size only. My .318 seems to have a chamber that it slightly different from the resizing die. When I partial resize it works like a charm. Maybe the reamers weren't quite so standardized back then in the Islands.

Oldsarge - -

My point was simple--

There is NO problem with Pike IF you just eat the fillets (and cheeks, as Dan pointed out).

If, however, one eats the whole fish, and gets it a bit undercooked, there is an excellent opportunity to inadvertently get tapeworm from it. Not immediately fatal, but not an opportunity of which I would like to avail myself. <G>

Stay with those fillets.....

AC