The firearm thread

**Mr Merde** · 2nd February 2010, 07:52

Off ill today. Nothing major just old age setting in.

Thinking what I can do here all by myself. Decided that all my firearms need a strip down and clean, oil and grease.

Thats 2 hours acounted for. Thinking od getting out the melting pot and rendering down all the lead I have stored. I am thinking that I need to make some .44 projectiles. There is the afternoon taken care of.

I have about 1000 .44 spl and .44 mag cases that are ready to add powder and bullet. Will need something to shoot at the next meeting of the Onewhero Gun Club, might as well be .44 carbine. I have a few hundred .223 ready. .30 M1 is turning out a little harder. Not sure what is going on but not all the rounds are chambering properly. The bolt doesnt close completely. All heads have been sized to the right diameter. Could possibly be seating but if that is so then all rounds wouldnt chamber. Experiment time. 21 gns of 2207 is max load and is still soft to shoot.

I have loaded all my 45-70 brass. 47 rounds. This time I have dropped the powder down to 55 gns FFg Goex under a 530 gn bore riding bullet. Compression is heavy, about 5/16ths of an inch. Case is crimped over the driving band. Hopefully this should work better with the front sight height as the rifle was designed to use the carbine load ( 55 gns under a 405 HB bullet).

Chris

**The Pastor** · 2nd February 2010, 09:15

can i load pointy projectiles with those 30 30 dies you gave indy and I chris?

**jono035** · 2nd February 2010, 09:51

Originally Posted by renegade master

can i load pointy projectiles with those 30 30 dies you gave indy and I chris?

The seating/crimping dies for mine can be stripped down and the seating insert removed. If you can do that (or just look up inside it) see where it will contact the bullet. As long as it is pressing on the sides of the bullet and not on the nose, you should be fine.

Failing that, seat a few and then spin the rounds in a drill to make sure the bullets are seated concentric with the neck.

Chris: Odd about the .30 carbine not chambering fully. Does it only do this when self-loading or when manually pulling the bolt back? Could be short-stroking if the gas system is a bit gunked? Maybe try get a few that chambered ok and pull them out before firing in order to compare with the ones that aren't chambering properly. Could be a resizing issue, not going right into the die and leaving a bulge at the base of the case? Could also be some lead buildup at the edge of the chamber that the cartridge headspaces off?

I had a bit of a weird issue at the range on friday as well. Let 100 rounds off through the .44 magnum and most of them were tumbling when they hit the target. Perfect rectangular holes with the semi-wadcutter shoulder, the cannellure and the grease groove and gas check rebate all visible in the lead that had rubbed off on the paper. I figure the options are that the lead is too soft and is stripping out in the rifling or that the bullets (which I know to be a little undersized) aren't engaging the rifling deep enough. These were also slightly lower power rounds (8 grains instead of the 10.2 max) so it's possible they don't have enough pressure to be obturating the bullet...

First test will be to crank up the power a little bit and see if the problem goes away. If this works then that will be quite unfortunate. I was trying to find a lower power load so that I could co-exist a little more peacefully with the others at the range!

**Mr Merde** · 2nd February 2010, 11:51

Originally Posted by jono035

...............

Chris: Odd about the .30 carbine not chambering fully. Does it only do this when self-loading or when manually pulling the bolt back? Could be short-stroking if the gas system is a bit gunked? Maybe try get a few that chambered ok and pull them out before firing in order to compare with the ones that aren't chambering properly. Could be a resizing issue, not going right into the die and leaving a bulge at the base of the case? Could also be some lead buildup at the edge of the chamber that the cartridge headspaces off?

I had a bit of a weird issue at the range on friday as well. Let 100 rounds off through the .44 magnum and most of them were tumbling when they hit the target. Perfect rectangular holes with the semi-wadcutter shoulder, the cannellure and the grease groove and gas check rebate all visible in the lead that had rubbed off on the paper. I figure the options are that the lead is too soft and is stripping out in the rifling or that the bullets (which I know to be a little undersized) aren't engaging the rifling deep enough. These were also slightly lower power rounds (8 grains instead of the 10.2 max) so it's possible they don't have enough pressure to be obturating the bullet...

First test will be to crank up the power a little bit and see if the problem goes away. If this works then that will be quite unfortunate. I was trying to find a lower power load so that I could co-exist a little more peacefully with the others at the range!

What diameter bullet are you using? What powder? How soft are the bullets?

What is the diameter of the bullet? I shoot mine as cast. This is a 200 gn bullet at .430. The die is for the 44-40 (.428) but as cast they throw fatter. I have put them through a .429 resizing die but there seems to be little difference in the shooting.

A pure lead or a very soft bullet should bump up to ride the bore and engage the rifling. If this isnt happening then look to the powder. You may need gas checks for this particular combination. Gas escaping around the bullet whilst in the bore and especially at the muzzle can cause a number of problems including keyholing.

One of the beautiful things about soft lead and BP is this bumping up.

Try a different powder for your soft loads. I use 5.5 gns of AS30N under the 200 gn bullet. Recoil is very mild (as you should remember). I use 4.5 gns in my 44 spl rounds.

If you are trying to load a milder round why dont you think about shooting .44spl. It would be like shooting 38spl in a .357 revolver. the .38 spl shot in such is a very accurate combination and the .44spl was designed as a very accurate target round. I can gi ve you a couple of hundred spl cases if you want to try.

In the UK I shot my 686 with .38 spl rounds for target and .357 mag for long range. in .38 I shot a 158 gn wadcutter bullet on top of 2.8-3.8 gns of bullseye. In .357 I used a 180 gns bullet with 15 gns of vhitivouri N110 (bloody fierce but it shot accurate groups at 100 yards).

Elmer Keith swore by the .44spl. I shot a Chater Arms Bulldog ( 5 shot, 3 " barrel, 19 oz ) pistol in .44 spl. Kicked like a mule but placed its shots very accurately.

I've been thiunking about the M1 .30 carbine round. All cases are the same load, all using the same bullets, all have the same seating and crimp and all the bullets have been passed threough a .309 sizing die. What I havent checked is the case length. I'll try some cases on the micrometer this afternoon.

Its only the very last movement of the bolt that fails to engage. The locking lug doesnt go completely sideways. It needs me to tap the bolt forward to fully engage the bolt.

I want to get this sorted so I can load the whole 800 cases I have preped. Then I can have a very enjoyable shoot one afternoon and not worry about running out of rounds. I also want to beat theis problem as I want to fool around with loads. I have heard that the M1 is perfectly capable of making a tin can dance at 100 metre and respectable groups to 150 metres. Its a nice rifle to carry and I would like to make more use of it before passing it along to its next owner.

Strangely I dont seem to have any problems when using jacketed bullets. This is why I have been concentrating on the bullet instead of the whole round.

Have you read the reply in NSA about the murmer?

Chris

**Mr Merde** · 2nd February 2010, 12:23

Jono,

Another thought on the tumbling bullets.

What is the crown of the pistol like? Damage can cause bullets to tumble.

Check the forcing cone also. Lead spitting off can have an affect on bullets flight also.

It was always the hardest part of cleaning my 686. Getting rid of the lead build up.

Really scrub the bore. There may be lead build up there. A good long soak with a lead remover and a lot of scrubbing with a bronze brush.

Chris

**Drunken Monkey** · 2nd February 2010, 12:40

Hard core NATO spec ammo pr0n:

http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/btb.pdf

Interesting read. Stuff we've probably all heard about, but in detail.

**Swoop** · 2nd February 2010, 12:59

Some "bling" for the thread...

**jono035** · 2nd February 2010, 13:24

Chris:

The revolver has a false muzzle that houses the porting holes, the actual crown is about 20mm back from the tip of the barrel which makes it pretty much impossible to inspect the crown. I didn't notice any of these issues with the jacketed ammo, though, so I'm assuming that it is purely a problem with the cast rounds.

I'll give the barrel a good scrubbing out although I don't have any lead remover to soak it in... May have to get hold of some...

The soft loads aren't really that soft, should still be around 1000 fps with a 240gr slug, although I'll take a bit of a look at them later in QuickLoad and see what I can see.

The groove diameter is a little difficult to measure given that it is a 5 groove barrel (from memory) but at a guess it was about .0005 larger than the bullet diameter. The throats of the chambers are slightly smaller than the bullet diameter, as well, so they will be swaging the bullet down anyway. The bullets are using a similar formula to what many other people on the cast bullet forums have been suggesting for handgun loads, the half and half pure lead/clip-on wheel weights with an extra couple of % of tin. They were also air-cooled so may well have ended up being quite soft. Trying a few that are water-dropped could also be a useful comparison.

In terms of .44 mag or .44 special, for me there is no major reason to be loading specifically to .44 special. The cases aren't enough smaller to give any extra efficiency in powder use and I'm really going for something that is a minor step down to the point where it is comfortable to fire on an indoor range without having to wear ear plugs as well as ear muffs. Mostly I want to be able to shoot it with as much power in the load as possible without pissing people off. The latest loads were a lot better than full house loads but were still way above a .44 special max load. (.44 spl max is 5.6 grains, mine was 8 grains, .44 mag max was 10.2 grains). Once I'm a bit more familiar with it I will think about putting together a purely target load, but for the moment I'm enjoying the challenge of the higher power loads.

For a rifle like that M1 carbine, I'd think that the bullet seating depth wouldn't matter too much, it should have a quite long lead-up to the rifling anyway? I'd be interested to know if you find anything in terms of variations in case diameter at the head, it could be that your sizing die isn't sizing them along the full length?

I did notice that comment on the NSA forums. I found this:
http://www.huntingandshooting.com/in...id=8&Itemid=30
At the bottom it talks about their custom rifle service, the .308 murmur (necked up .221 fireball case, basically a renamed .300 whisper) and the .338 murmur (.308 bolt face using the remington BR case as a parent). Interesting.

**golfmade** · 5th February 2010, 03:59

Don't own a piece, would like one but not legal here.

That said if zombie apocalypse hit and I was stuck here in Taiwan I'd hope I could find suitable weapons somewhere...

**Toaster** · 5th February 2010, 13:22

Originally Posted by golfmade

Don't own a piece, would like one but not legal here.

That said if zombie apocalypse hit and I was stuck here in Taiwan I'd hope I could find suitable weapons somewhere...

Well I hear they have been buyingup a storm from the US military toys. You should be able to access something!!

**golfmade** · 5th February 2010, 13:29

Originally Posted by Toaster

Well I hear they have been buyingup a storm from the US military toys. You should be able to access something!!

Yeah, mostly older junk at that, none of the fancy new shiny toys my American tax dollars have been paying for.

**Indiana_Jones** · 5th February 2010, 22:18

Oh dear, what a piece of.....

-Indy

**Drunken Monkey** · 6th February 2010, 18:34

You driving that down next time so we've got something to shoot at Indy?

**The Pastor** · 7th February 2010, 19:59

just got back from a weekend of guns and fishing,

shot some turkeys - not sure how to aim my side by side when shooting flat / downhill.

shot some clays - pretty average sucess rate

shot a hare with my .22 - i think its my favourite gun well a toss up between that and my sidebyside

went fishing caught crabs (but i already have tons of them)