The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

Having recently seen more usage of the venerable No. 4 .303 I was wondering if any UKer's regularly used 'reduced loads'?
I believe there are recipies for cast lead gas checked bullets, hereafter known as boolits I believe, and the old pistol powders ie Unique and Bullseye. The use would be 100yds plinking and perhaps to 300yd max.
I would be interested in any comments please.
Thank you
John G :cornwall:

Trust me, it's a long road to hoe!!!

I really liked the idea. Gone through almost 200 rounds in "load development" and the best I can muster is 5 inches at 100. Granted, not a .303 though.....

I like VV N120 for cast boolit shooting.

24-28 gns will give velocities from around 1800 - 2000 fps with a 200 gn boolit in the .303".

20 gns will give around 1600 fps, still good for target work out to 300yards.

Remember boolit fit to chamber throat/bore/groove diameters for the rifle to be used is key to good cast boolit shooting. Also don't use hard cast boolits a BHN of 12 is more than sufficient if you have good boolit fit, hard boolits will not compensate for good boolit fit and will lead very badly.

The seminal writing on this is Ed Harris's "Cast Bullets In Military Rifles" based on Mattern's far earlier works.

We have a copy here in our library: http://www.full-bore.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=810

Sim G wrote:Trust me, it's a long road to hoe!!!

I really liked the idea. Gone through almost 200 rounds in "load development" and the best I can muster is 5 inches at 100. Granted, not a .303 though.....

What is it Simon?

get a lyman manual and try some of their reduced loads or cast loads , very useful.

i used the cast bullet data to develop a subsonic load for my 308 which eventually hovered around an inch at 100m.

my next project will be to try the new high volume low energy powders like trail boss to see if i can get better consistency than i did with unique (my final powder of choice)

oh and i found short flat ballistically challenged bullets like a 180g flat based round nose to work best with subsonic for me ?

Thanks guys. You know what this means - more range time - Yesssssss!
JohnG

Don't know if it's of any use but I shoot a reduced sub-sonic .308 load,

150gr cast lead round nose flat point

10gr Trail Boss

Approx: 1080fps

Very quiet and no recoil

115gr cast boolit (either RN or RNFP) and 4gr Viht 310 - excellent indoor plinker.

A readily available mould i turn to regularly is the Lyman 314299 combined with Unique or 2400 provides very suitable loads in all my .303's. Refer to Dromia's link to Ed Harris writings.

+1 on Dodgy Rog's indoor plinker load, they make excellent economical shooting.

Joe