Am not sure what, if anything, all this means but thought someone other than just me might find it interesting...



Thirty-five years ago when I lived in Edmonton, Alberta, I bought a couple of cases of C.I.L. 170 gr. jacketed bullets with very blunt round noses. I paid the princely sum of less than $20 per case (4,000 bullets per case).



When I tried to use them, I found they were just under .306" in diameter & didn't shoot very well in my .30-bore rifles. Apparently they were already 60 or more years old when I bought them. It also appears they were made for the original .30-30 Winchester barrels, which reputedly had a bore (groove) diameter of .306" rather than the modern .308" specs. Then I understood why I had gotten them so cheap. (The seller never mentioned the non-standard diameter before or after I bought them.)



They sat in my basements in three different provinces, and two different states...too good to throw away, but not good enough to really use.



Last year I finally got around to working with those bullets. I took a .308" bullet-pointing die I had obtained very cheaply because it had no "ram" or "base punch" and only a soft piece of wire for an ejector pin, and made a base punch for it, to fit in the shell-holder slot of my RCBS A-3 press. Then I made an ejector pin to knock completed bullets from the die.



With these two new parts, I could put one of the C.I.L. bullets on the base punch, run the bullet up into the die, and re-shape and re-size it (bump it up in diameter). On emerging from the die the bullets are now .3079" diameter with a nose about like the Hornady .30 spire points.



The really neat part is how they shoot. I have now experimented with them in several .30 rifles, including the Musgrave I used when a member of the 1979 Palma team. In both .308 and .30-06 chambered rifles, they shoot BETTER than either Sierra 168 gr. Match-Kings, or McCracken 168 gr. custom benchrest bullets.



Needless to say, I have re-shaped about 7,500 of them for future use. I kept about 300 in the orginal shape & diameter, "just because".





Talk about coming out smelling like a rose.....wish I had also bought a lottery ticket the same day.



AC

That's cool, AC!

I was wondering if the originals could've been paper-patched to shoot in a larger-bored .303 British, 7.62x54mm, or 7.7mm Japanese? Imagine that, paper patching over a jacket.

WOW!!! VERY GOOD ALBERTA C.!! THATS ABOUT AS GOOD AS WHEN I FOUND A PRINTSHOP THAT WOULD PART WITH HUGE BARS OF LINOTYPE LEAD IF I WANTED TO TAKE IT! EVERY ONCE AND AGAIN THOSE GOOD THINGS HAPPEN TO US.


THE 2ND AMENDMENT PROTECTS US ALL.....

It'd have to be pretty thin paper to paper-patch bullets for a .311 or .313 bore. Bet It would be possible for a .318 bore, though, or even a .323.

If I was going to do that, I'd first make a little punch set-up to "concave" the base a bit...to give me somewhere to tuck the tail of the paper-patch into, at least a little.

Probably would never do it, though. They shoot well enough as re-shaped.

Other neat things about this nice happenstance are

Found that I was not re-shaping the bullets enough to require lube on the bullets...thus no potential problems with lube dents.

Bullets were bumped up, not sized down, so there was no real or even theoretical danger of the jackets coming loose.

Bullets are still soft-nosed, so while more accurate than Match-Kings in my rifles (at least out to 200 yards, which is far as I have shot these bullets), they are still useable for hunting.

Since I've ben retired 13 years, it was a fun and definitely non-costly use of my time.

AC

Do you think this could be done with a nose forming punch in .328/9 and .323 bullets? I'd like to "convert" regular 8mm bullets to ones that will work in my 8x56r straight pull. I would think, if this works, it would be better than casting since any bullet weight can be used, provided the points are similar.

Hey, AC: Teflon tape?

From this experience, Alberta, do you have any idea what equipment would be needed to "bump" up .308 bullets to .312 or .313? Could this be done without huge investments in hardware?

Any insight from you would be greatly appreciated.

I have not checked with them, but the first place I would call would probably be C-H/4D. They seem willing to make just about anything.



It doesn't take much of a die. There is so little force required to bump a bullet .002" in diameter, it takes noticeably less loading press lever pressure than re-sizing many fired rifle cases.



If you have a buddy with a lathe and a little skill, he could make a couple of small "boring bars" to cut the cavity you'd need in a 7/8ths threaded die blank. One would probably be just for roughing out the interior cavity...the other sort of "spoon" shaped (actually half a "spoon") for the final pass or two on the sides and to cut the point. I would "polish" the inside of the die with some sort of "lap" after I was through with the cutting tool.



Personally I just use a slotted Delrin rod with very fine grit crocus cloth, then follow with a Dremel felt bob on a long home-made arbor in the tailstock. Being cheap, I use abrasives from a NECO fire-lapping kit I won at a benchrest match some years ago, on the felt bob. (My wife says "cheap", I say "frugal" or "thrifty".)



You won't need the fine details like a bleed-hole in the die, as you are not likely to bleed any lead away, just re-shape the point and you sure won't be bleeding any lead sideways through the jacket <G>. It takes some fine adjustment to get it in the press the right depth for the specific bullet you are going to alter, but once set correctly, just cinch the locking ring down and you're there. Any tiny bit of bleeding lead will go up the very small hole for the knock-out punch (ejector pin) and can either be cut off, or peeled away with your thumbnail when the bullet comes out of the die.



Personally, I just adjust mine so there is no bleed. The point is not going to be perfectly sharp anyway, as there will be a tiny meplat where the hole for the ejector pin is.



I know it sounds complex, but if you/he have a little time, you can fool with it until you get it right. You don't even need to buy die blanks. For this little pressure, you could probably just make them out of 7/8" cold-rolled rod. Certainly I've done that for regular rifle-brass sizing dies.



If cold rolled isn't hard enough for you, use some good quality 7/8ths drill rod. You can harden that pretty danged hard.



Doubtless, this approach wouldn't work for making production tools for a bullet business, but for having fun "improving" cheap 30/30 bullets, it seems to work just fine for me.



Best wishes,



AC

AC - Have you shot enough of these converted bullets to have any idea about the "jacket strength" of the bullets? I'm wondering if bulging the bullets slightly has had any weakening on the jacket walls and possibly made the bullets a little more prone to come apart on impact?

My guess is NO, considering the slight adjustment you have actually made in the bullet. But just a passing thought.

I think many shooters don't really appreciate how maleable and shapeable such things as brass, lead and jacket material really are. Once I started making wild case conversions and forming bullets years ago I started thinking of these materials almost like bubble gum in a powerful press. Amazing stuff can be done.

Good move on these bullets.

Pecos -

I can pretty much read between the lines of your post that you do understand that these bullets ae probably not very strong jacketed to start with.

One of the reasons they are very easy to reform is that the jackets are thin and relatively soft, and the lead cores seem to be about Brinnell 8 or so...just a little alloying away from pure lead.

I have not yet tested them in either artificial media or game for expansion. But as they were originally designed to expand at early day 30/30 velocities, they would probably be sudden death on whitetails shot through the chest in profile. Used otherwise, they might well be too fragile to do well on heavier animals.

I suspect that from something on the lines of a .30-06, or even a moderately stiff loaded .308, they'd probably work a lot like a Hornady 130 grain at about 3,150 from a .270.

They shold be just the ticket for Cascade Blacktails at about 2,400 fps from my .30 BR.

Mostly, though, as accurate as they have turned out to be, I'll likely just have a lot of fun killing rocks, and pine cones, and that sort of thing with them. And God help the odd feral dog I find chasing horses in my pasture....

Best wishes, eh?

AC

AC - Please don't let me rain on your parade about these bullets! I think you did a clever thing with them and are now being rewarded with some good bullets for your trouble. I did want to put the idea in your mind that they may be very explosive bullets...but you already suspected as much yourself.

I have shot the flat nose 30/30 bullets, 150gr, loaded up hot in 30/06. They seemed to shoot plenty accurate enough for hunting and on varmits they were TERRIBLE to behold. That's all I ever did with them and they were plenty explosive.

They will be fine for plinking and shooting critters you don't care about having much left.

Good Hunting
Jim

Pecos -

Absolutely no offense taken by me from your posts. You're bang-on (pun intentional). Thanks for the good wishes.

Sorry I'm so late replying. Der Oberhausfuhrer is down in Florida dong some "horsey" thing and I've been pretty busy without her help.

AC