I have a SMLE No. 1 Mk III action that I am thinking of building a .405 Winchester on. Anybody here done this conversion? Tell me about it. The .405 has the same rim dimensions as the .303 and only has about a 0.1-inch longer maximum overall length.

I built mine on a magazine Lee Enfield action butI had to shorten the cartridge a little to fit and feed from the magazine which I made to be a center feed with 5 down and one up.

Have a look through the build thread here. A bit long but but it is all there with a 303 and a 375-303 I built at the same time.

http://castboolits.gunloads.co...ct-rifle-(and-friend)

Wow, nice job! Very cool rifle. And a great thread on CB.

Yeah, nice job...Beautiful wood.

In a word...No...BUT can be done with a little bit of futzing around with things.

If that is a 308 with the 10 round mag I would go with one of the belted or fat body cases...I built a 458 American on my Mk III...6 down, one up the pipe...feeds without a hitch. WSM and 2.25" shortened RUM cases work well.

THE 405 WIN rim might be just right but the case itself at 2.58" trim length is too long(by about 0.360" for a 303 ~2.22" case trim length) to work in a 303 or 308 mag, you are limited to ~3.075" COAL, but you can trim the case down then seat the bullet to max COAL for the mag...takes a bit of trial and error and depends on the bullet you want to use.

Once you pick the bullet and get the case cut to fit the cannelure you will have to start low with load development as you will loose case volume with the shortened case.

You might contact www.35caliber.com, reboring by Jes...He has a 405 Jes that might be just the thing as it is designed for leverguns. Basically it's a 444 Marlin necked to .412". Check it out, might be a lot easier to get done and he has reloading dies for it. There is also the .411 JDJ which has a different profile, sharper shoulder, less taper but still on the 444 M case.

I looked at the 405 Win when I was researching what to do with my SMLE and decided it was too much trouble to deal with. I didn't want to spend the money for a new reamer or custom dies so I went with the 458 American so I could use my 458 WM dies and other mag cases, rented a reamer, and rechambered a cheap Adams and Bennett Midway barrel. Only had to open up the receiver front a little bit so the brass would feed. The upshot was because of the belt on the case and the headspacing I can also shoot 45-70 rounds...work just fin single loading but leaves a bit of a bulge on the cases because the chamber dimensions are now quite the same...

Plenty of minute of deer accuracy with cast and jacketed bullets also.

For ease of doing I would go with the 35-303...simple barrel rebore/rechamber...no messing around with the mags...been around forever.

The SMLE bolt face is amenable to many rimless cases also, the action is very strong, so don't let the rim hold you back unless you have your heart set on a rimmed 40 cal, then you just have to overcome the problem areas and have at it.

Luck

I trim my 405 brass to 2.410 and load to an OAL of 3.015 but then I have a flat point on the 320gn cast bullet I load to get it to feed slickly from the center fed mag. No need for anything other than standard 405 dies.
It is a great cartridge and with a possible 2300fps (even though I dont load to that level for range play) from the 320gn bullet it certainly can make for a decdent load.
I call it the 400 Lee Speed so there is no confusion with the 405 Win.

Von Gruff:
Damn finelooking rifle you have there.
Cal

This forum is dedicated to the Lee Speed.

http://forums.nitroexpress.com....php?Cat=0&Board=lee

I'm the proud owner of a Von Gruff Speed. Just need to get the barrel rebored to .375 Flanged 2 1/2 NE and blued. Garry does wonderful work!

I have made one using the 30-40 brass in 405, and the original Lee Patent one piece stock. Lee designed it with a one piece; it was the British who put the two piece stocks on the Lee. Copied from the Martini for strength in combat.

I take that NO back...looked at it from a different perspective and Alzheimer's grabbed my fa-tazz.

See there it is...more heads, more ideas...wish I had this info when I was doing my "Smelly", but the 308, 10 round mag wasn't amenable to rimed cases...I also checked WSM/RUM cases which would have worked, but again, the high cost of custom reamer/dies put those ideas off.

This rifle has been around for a long time and lots of wildcats have been envisioned and built for it.

SO...this got me to thinking(sometimes a very good thing. )

Why all the mucking about with cutting cases and such...the ONLY thing that is really important is the EFFECTIVE/USABLE CASE VOLUME...this dictates your actual performance parameters and is dictated, in this case by mag COAL of ~3.075".

I ran the standard 303 case through my design program doing nothing but making it a straight walled 0.411" caliber cartridge...called it the 303-405 for want of a name. The CASE VOLUME was 69 gr H20...USABLE CASE VOLUME ended up at 61.6 gr H2O using the Hornady 300 gr SP seated to 3.075"...MAX COAL for the 303 mag...

The 405 Win at standard COAL of 2.583" case volume is ~78 gr H2O...BUT with the same bullet seated to 3.075", the USABLE CASE VOLUME WAS 58 GR H2O...statistically the SAME USABLE CASE VOLUME!!!!

Using THE 30-40 Krag case would give statistically the same USABLE CASE VOLUME.



WHAT I'M SAYING is instead of mucking about with cutting the 405 Win case down, you can arrive at the same results by using either the 303 case as is or the 30-40 case as is and still use 405 Win reloading dies...

I'm guessing you could also rechamber using the 405 Win reamer and use 405 Win cases and not bother to trim...the cases seated bullet's USABLE CASE VOLUME IS STILL THE SAME...then just seat the bullets down another 0.010" to 3.075", or less ...Check out Hornady's 8th ed...some of the data is there for the 300 gr SP...COAL is listed at 3.085".

Jeez, where was my mind when I first looked at this thread...thinking of my AR-10 project.


Luck

The reason I ended up doing mine with trimmed bras was because I am predominately a cast bullet shooter and the bullet mould I had made would have been totally unsuitable in the 303 brass with only the base and part of one band in the case with most of the lube grooves exposed. In the full length 405 case it had the bullet too deep in the case for the load length in the mag. If I was going to just shoot jacketed bulets I may have left the cases full length and loaded to mag length in a full length chamber so a factory cartridge could be single loaded but for the purposes I intended the rifle for it was far more practical to do it this way. The 320gn bullet at 16-1800fps is all that is needed for paper or medium game but if it was cast in a copper balanced alloy it would do for a larger animal at 22-2300fps with performance that would not leave anything to chance.

I understand...had the same problem with trying to come up with a 416 Something for use in a Marlin 336 with cast and jacketed bullets...couldn't get both to come together mostly due to my wants.

There is one nice 416 setup on Beartooth just for cast bullets if your interested.

That looks like an Accurate Molds design I have a few of those in 45 and 50 cal in amongst the others.

I think we shooters forget that all that's needed is enough whack to get the bullet into and through whatever animal we are hunting at the expected range with enough whatever it takes to disrupt the CNS to bring home the steaks.

One of the good things about wildcatting is there are so many ways to get where you want to go.

Now with all this cogitating going on, it might be time to also revisit my 303 Jungle Carbine. I didn't want to mess with it in any way because it's a total refit and not bad looking for a basic military issue. This gives me an idea to do a switch barrel with a barrel nut ala Savage. Very simple to do...as if I need any more projects.

Since I traded away my Ruger 41 Maggie the only 40 cal I have is one lonely 416 Taylor.

Bet you have fun with that one.

Luck

quote:

Originally posted by Bill/Oregon:
I'm the proud owner of a Von Gruff Speed. Just need to get the barrel rebored to .375 Flanged 2 1/2 NE and blued. Garry does wonderful work!

Thanks Bill. I am just starting on another Lee Speed stock for a friend in your neck of the woods. This one will stay as a 303 though. He has found the correct express sight for it and I think he would like to try and trade away my roach belly short magazine (with engraving) for it athough there is not much chance of that.

I built one in 40/60 maynard that is just plain fun.

Did you use a 0.416" barrel or a for real 0.417" and if you did, WHERE did you find the barrel???

That might have worked in my Marlin 336 but I had magnumitise at the time and couldn't see beyond a WSM case.

Very cool tool... Enjoy it.

Luck

I know Lon Paul and I talked about making a 405 on the SMLE and when he set down to built one he decided the 348 was a better fit so built this one as a 348 Win.




I am afraid it may have been one of the many casualities of the forest fire that swept over his place a couple of years ago.

Pics are not showing Phil.

.....weird.....they were this morning

Roger