No4 Savage & L/Branch 2 groove barrels

[Richo]

A question for anybody who owns a US or Canadian No4 with 2 groove rifling.
I recently bought myself a very nice early production No4 Mk1 Savage rifle with 2 groove barrel, after spending hours cleaning out all the copper fouling i finally got to measuring the bore up which reads .3052"-.3053" with pin gauges and slugged the grooves dia at .317"-.318" my question is can you shoot .308" dia bullets in these barrels, i have read on quite a few US/Canadian forums guys doing so with good results so it must work.
My concern is by shoving a 303" .311" bullet down a .305" bore is increased pressure, theres little groove space to take up the .006" of bullet dia and a lot of bore contact to squeeze the bullet through.
I understand these were all feed .311" dia ammo in military wartime service so i suppose it works but if .308" work just as well at a lower pressure surely a better option and less barrel wear.
Any owners out there who have tried doing this.

[waterford103]

I had a Savage No. 4 years ago and had difficulty sourcing .303 bullets . I tried .308 bullets and accuracy fell off dramatically , barrel fouling was awful. I ended up using Russian bullets which measured .311 , the fact that they were steel didn't seem to matter , accuracy was restored .barrel didn't foul either.

[Richo]

Hi
Thanks for the advice, i am going to try some 308"s and 210 gr cast bullets firs i thave an oversize mould for 303" i bought a few years ago, will see how i get on befire trying 311" bullets.
Cheers

[bradaz11]

what was the point in this thread?

op - has any tried 308?
reply - yes, didn't work, bad idea
op - well i'm doing it anyway, im also going to try bullets even bigger dia.