I saw a lancaster rifle in 280 eley for sale in magnum magazine. Anyone know what this is?
boet

Yes! It is a rimmed .280 Ross, essentially. If there are any cartridges with it BEWARE! Eley cartridges as against Eley-Kynoch after the two companies merged were notorious for splitting rims.

Cartridge fired a 140 grain .287" diametre bullet BTW. It used to be listed in Cartridges of the World I think.

Try a search under .280 Eley will often throw up a link to the .280 Ross and it often appears mentioned, sometimes as the .280 Flanged or .280 Lancaster.

Is the Lancaster oval bore?

Hope this helps!

Thanks a lot. I have´nt seen the rifle, or any lancaster rifle for that matter. If it does´nt use standard 284 bullets....well I wont enquire any further.
thanks again
boet

I would not write it off totally! I had a friend who had a bespoke...or as the Americans say "custom"...swaging die made to "bump up" standard .284 bullets to .287. And there are custom bullet makers in the USA who do make them.

I must say I tried one companies however and was not impressed with them at all. 3 thou is not a lot and as it is an oval bore it might work with the standard .284.

I should have tried my Ross with .284 but never did...so don't know what results would have been.

But you were in South Africa? And did compulsory military service? In which case you will know that some of "your" (and "our") .303 Enfields ran anything from .311 to .315...and they always seemed to shoot OK.

Just FYI: Woodleigh makes two .287" diameter bullets.

.287"
160gr PP SN
175gr PP SN

http://www.woodleighbullets.com.au/Bullet%20List%203.html

-Bob F.

Thanks for the info. Maybe it is worth another look, even just for fun.
In terms of the 303 being capable of firing slightly oversize bullets, well I could never get my 303 sporter to fire 308 ( undersize ) bullets with any accuracy.
Thanks for the woodleigh tip.
boet

We have a 132gr HV bullet for it as well.

quote:

Originally posted by boet:
Thanks for the info. Maybe it is worth another look, even just for fun.
In terms of the 303 being capable of firing slightly oversize bullets, well I could never get my 303 sporter to fire 308 ( undersize ) bullets with any accuracy.
Thanks for the woodleigh tip.
boet

I, on the other hand, have had very good results shooting .308" bullets in a .303, a 7.65X53, and a 7.62X39......