Thread: Resurgence of interest in the old "Three Oh"?

I don't think it was the rifle as the other 8 + one I shot after it were Ok but I have shot WAY worse looking ammo than this, it is 1940 & not a patch on your creamy looking ammo @Cordite !

I have shot a heap of WW1 stuff & even 215gr Boer War ammo, all went well no problem, now case seps yes but that is normally too much head space with missed match bolt or such !

25/303 was a great round back in the day, did same work as .243 really & we used a bit of 22/303 on Roo's & Pigs (head shoot Pigs), did the job of 222Rem - 22/250, we went to 222Rem when nicer rifles came along in the form of Tikka & Sako, then 223Rem in Sako & CMC Mountaineer/Howa !

I have had the same failure with adi 223 brass, 1 case in about 1000 fired. The primer what was left of it fell out.
I would say it was a flawed case.
I see the rounds have nickel jackets and the headstamp shows 1946. I thought they stopped using nickel in the 30s.

My bad photo, it's a 1940 head stamp (I have said that twice before) & a few with it are 41 & yes all Nickel.

I have noticed if I shoot a heap of Nickel full metal jackets out of rough bores it seems to help clean them up !

Greetings All,
Hatcher has an illustration of a head crack like that in his book. He found the cause to be an off center primer crimp that over hardened one side of the case head. In other words a manufacturing fault. The neck crack is from what is called season cracking. This is a natural hardening of the brass over time even in unfired cases. CAC cases, even late production sporting cases were prone to it. The case neck was likely cracked when it went in the chamber. Its my understanding that primers to all CAC military ammunition was both mercuric and corrosive. To Scout the apparent improved condition of your bore after firing cupro nickel jacketed projectiles was likely due to copper fouling (incorrectly called nickel fouling) from the jacket. This was a problem with that type of projectile only solved when jackets were changed to gilding metal. The copper needs to be cleaned out periodically with a copper solvent. Sorry about that.
Regards Grandpamac.

Originally Posted by grandpamac

Greetings All,
Hatcher has an illustration of a head crack like that in his book. He found the cause to be an off center primer crimp that over hardened one side of the case head. In other words a manufacturing fault. The neck crack is from what is called season cracking. This is a natural hardening of the brass over time even in unfired cases. CAC cases, even late production sporting cases were prone to it. The case neck was likely cracked when it went in the chamber. Its my understanding that primers to all CAC military ammunition was both mercuric and corrosive. To Scout the apparent improved condition of your bore after firing cupro nickel jacketed projectiles was likely due to copper fouling (incorrectly called nickel fouling) from the jacket. This was a problem with that type of projectile only solved when jackets were changed to gilding metal. The copper needs to be cleaned out periodically with a copper solvent. Sorry about that.
Regards Grandpamac.

Thank you kindly for that info .Seems consistent with what Ive experienced

Lol @grandpamac, thank you for that, yes I think it is the case to, the neck wasn't split until fired but for sure CAC are the worst for that & as you say even later sporting rounds, not normally a danger like a ruptured case head I think ?

On the Nickeling/copper fouling, that sounds good but I have done a bit also & know copper fouling, in these old barrels firing messy old ammo (the other was a 6.5X53R) & folks haven't cleaned them, I have used a bottle of bore cleaner & a few brushes to get the build up of crap out of the bore but found on the 6.5 that the 160gr full patch (ah hell could be steel as a magnet sticks to them) cleaned up the bore a treat & thought these may do the same as in the pass some 215gr slugs helped in a heavily fouled bore !

Originally Posted by Cordite

Yes, the Americans have a thing for "scout rifles". No real NZ equivalent, and "bushpig" does not quite have the same cool factor.

I have already suggested the # 5 as a suitable "scout rifle" and now put forward my second "carbine" as a candidate, the Spanish FR 8 chambered for .308

a video..........https://tinyurl.com/y9rytfvg

Gee guys neither of those Mauser rifles are in the Dreadnought 303 theme Eh ?

like the top 2
second one is a lees speed cavalry model?
The bolt shroud/cover smooths them out nicely
Interested to hear about the cleaning. Always knew about the hot water but after putting only a couple of old military rounds down the barrel thought just a normal clean with collings 90 would suffice. Lucky its not a mint barrel

Originally Posted by Scout

Gee guys neither of those Mauser rifles are in the Dreadnought 303 theme Eh ?

Love the bottom one, that Mannlicher style full wood and nose cap is a beaut, and improves that ugly No 5 forend...

The Spanish FR8 is kinda cool, with the cleaning kit tube looking like a gas port and the CETME flash hider with wire cutting notches (designed to position the muzzle in line with the target wire). Put a 10-round mag on her and you'll get a AOS callout after passing some trampers. But alas, yes, .308, so another thread.

Here's one that could approximate to a .303 "scout" rifle. It's an uugly contraption, including the cobbled stock extender but it works. Screwed a picatinny rail to the left side of the receiver, some filing in the aluminium required, and put offset 1" scope rings on this, resulting in the scope riding just enough off midline to not obstruct charger loading. It is currently dismantled and will instead have a 1x red dot scope in the rings once I'm done with it.



And don't ask about the hole under the barrel. It is quite shot out so may have been a wall hanger.

just spotted the tang safety on the top one-nice. Like the fish belly style mag more than the straight taper

Originally Posted by Scout

Lol @grandpamac, thank you for that, yes I think it is the case to, the neck wasn't split until fired but for sure CAC are the worst for that & as you say even later sporting rounds, not normally a danger like a ruptured case head I think ?

A bit of trivia -

Interesting comments re CAC quality. When I left school I joined a fullbore club. At the time we were using CAC 58 ammo which was excellent for accuracy. Club members paid 18/6 for 75 round which was about 3 pence a shot! This was just pre decimal currency. I recently gave away a part tub of 75 rounds of this vintage and it was still excellent with no splitting issues when shot.

When I was in the fullbore club we had an annual service rifle type shoot. For this the army gave us ex WW2 ammo (this was back in the days when civilian marksmenship was encouraged). I cannot remember exactly the headstamp marking of the ammo (I don’t think it was CAC) but it came in sealed tins and was absolutely terrible accuracy wise. No splits though as the ammo was still quite young (like me then ) at that stage.

A few years ago, when I still had my No 4 Fulton, I bought a lot of milsurp 303 from SAI. It had what appeared to be Arabic markings on the headstamp. My first (and only) outing with it I shot a stunning 5 shot group, then continued on to 10 shots at which point the groups disintegrated. On checking the bore it was plated from one end to the other with Cu. It took me around a day to remove the Cu.

Moving on to around 1968/69 fullbore clubs started to change to 7.62x52. The ammo was manufactured by CAC. To this day the brass alloy they used for cases is still held in high esteem it is also quite weight consistent. I know of a few FTR shooters still using it. I still have a large amount but now use Lapua. May the CAC drag it out and anneal it and use it again.

@zimmer did you shoot at the Waiuku Full Bore Club by chance, I went a few times with my Great Uncle Louis & it was great fun, wish I had kept some of those Card Board tubes the 75rd tubes were in, by a keep sake now ?

Yes that CAC ammo was great, I was thinking it was 56-57 or 58 & hitting the Center Bull at 1000yds with open sights lol !!

Uncle Louis still out shot me easy, even if we had to help him up !

Interestingly; I've never liked Mannlicher stocks! Give me a Jungle Carbine any day ha ha And; being a boring old fart; hate the "bush pig" name..... When i was a kid in the late 70's I used to look at the ads from the surplus store that were in dad's old farm mags and want one of their $26 brand spanking new/in grease Jungle Carbines......

Originally Posted by Scout

@zimmer did you shoot at the Waiuku Full Bore Club by chance, I went a few times with my Great Uncle Louis & it was great fun, wish I had kept some of those Card Board tubes the 75rd tubes were in, by a keep sake now ?

Yes that CAC ammo was great, I was thinking it was 56-57 or 58 & hitting the Center Bull at 1000yds with open sights lol !!

Uncle Louis still out shot me easy, even if we had to help him up !

@Scout the club I joined at the time was the Wanganui Rifle Club. Long since gone due to farm division/sell off, lifestyle blocks encroachment, dieing off of members, negative change in public perception of shooting sports........

Quite strange. I can remember all the "old guys" at the ckub who looking back now were in actual fact much younger than I am.

My first No 4 was purchased from the army. I cannot remember if clubs had a special arrangement but I filled in some forms, bought £5 in money orders and sent off to Linton army camp. Some time later I got notification from my local post office (2 storey brick building of the day, long gone) that they had a parcel due for my collection. Went in, teller passed over parcel heavily wrapped in brown paper. No mistaking the outline. Teller or other customers didn't react like people would today. The rifle was a 2 groove essential brand new except for square bashing damage to the stock.

My new rifle was promptly snaffled away by one of the "old guys" at tge club to be bedded. When I got it back he had also made me a set of different width foresight posts for the different ranges shot. All nicely dovetailed to fit the modified stump of the original foresight.