Libercontrarian

Crushed between the wheels of capitalism and big government.

Loadings for 8mm Mauser and .303 Brit

Trying two new 8mm mauser loads for my new Yugo M48 - 170 grain Speer Semi-Spitzer soft point on Winchester case, CCI 200 large rifle primer, and 50.8 grains of Varget and 50.0 grains of Accurate Arms 2520 in the same setup.

I had some luck with some oddball Remington 185 grain Pointed Soft Points (they have this wacky cannelure fairly high on the bullet; I think it's designed around hunting 8mm rounds like 8mm-'06). Nevertheless, they were gouping around 2.5 inches with iron sights @ 100 yards last weekend, when the shooter was serious about groups and not just screwing off. I failed to document the powder I used to load them; it was 48.0 grains of something. I checked the loadbooks, and that was a fair piece past max for IMR 4064. I wouldn't make a mistake like that; I probably loaded Varget previously and that would be about correct.

I'll also be loading for the Brit gun - a brand-spankin' new No. 4 Mark 2 Irish Contract SMLE rifle that has an amusing "vertical stringing" problem. Look at this target to see what happened with two different powders (H335 and Win 760) on the same bullet and case, all four rounds aimed dead center @100 yards with iron sights:

Pretty annoying, yet surprisingly consistent, aren't they? Why would the Win 760 shoot to the right like that? From my research, I can tell you that the vertical stringing issue is likely a handguard clearance problem. I have to take the rifle apart to see if the handguards are rubbing, then dremel out a clearance around the barrel. There's also a bedding operation I can do to the stock to make it shoot even more accurately; this is not supposed to be particularly hard to do. Somebody else somewere on the web is saying that it has something to do with the nature of the lubrication in the bolt/breech causing some weird motion of the bolt/round as the round enters the chamber. Since I can't imagine that mere lubricant can't have a great effect in an area where the other forces acting on the bolt would be, by comparison, so great, I doubt this could affect the point of impact.

This may not be what you were looking for when you came to Libercontrarian. I admit that my blogging effort is an inconsistent one - politics one day, gun rights issues the next, a technical post about reloading the day after.

This is the way things are around here - messy. Disorganized. Chaotic. That's OK - it's the way I like it.

posted by: underwhelmed at May 12, 2006 21:32 | link | comments |

Comments: