Russian collusion
Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2017 10:38 pm
I admit, I did it, through the British. The .303 British that is. I purchased 100rds of Wolf Performance .303 British to try out, just for the heck of it. The ammo is Russian made. Shot 20 of them out of my cutdown Krag. The cases are copper coated steel. The neck and shoulder had been annealed, so with a bit of extra effort one can chamber them in a Krag. Immediately, I noticed a delay in ignition. I've been this route before, I think they have been primed with a DDNP priming mixture. I accidentally bought 5000 of Wolf's KVB-7E DDNP LR primers once, I still have 4975 of them to do something with! I used 10 to get on target then shot the attached group. Not bad, considering the delay in ignition, which sometime happens, sometimes doesn't. Enfield shooters are reporting misfires. The bullet is a 173gr FMJBT, steel jacketed with a supposedly .005 thick copper coating. Bullets mic .3105", but only back where the boat tail starts. I'm in the process of pulling down the remaining 80. Bullet weight is fairly consistent with a majority being 173.5 +/- .5gr. 24/60 are either side of the range. They are 1.25" long. I'm going to reduce the charge at least 1.5gr to start, the mildest of US primers produce about double the pressure of the DDNP primers. Powder charges are averaging 39.5gr with some deviation, a high of 39.8, low of oops, 37.7gr. I'll load some Krag cases using the US primers and report back. I'd thought to make some Mexican match rounds using Russian components, the Wolf ammo is presently only $7 a box. I'm not recommending you fire .303 in your Krag, though mine, with a .310 groove diameter showed no damage. This was off the bench at 100yds, my rifle has an old Weaver 6x on it. I don't know if the high ones were from the delay or the fact that the ocular bell was out of adjustment for my eye. Up and down double of the elevation wire, and the lock ring was froze.
