30BR please advice NEWBIE

[londonhunter]

Hi to all

I have been here seeking for advice for some time. After 02 years I finally received by first BR rifle.

I MUST stress I am NOT a benchrest shooter but have always admired the skilled and knowledge on this forum. I need some help.

Here we go.

The rifle is a tubegun I intend to use it for F Class or McQueens at Bisley in England.

It's a multishot 30BR. reamer is from PAcific Tools 30 Rabinett specification with a 330 neck.

Bluerprinted remington action with a lilja 1 in 15 twist.

My gunsmith did all the initial preps and made me 16 cases.

he started off with 6mm Norma cases which I have a surplus. After a week he discovered that there is 5 grain less capacity as compared to 6mm lapua cases

On his second attempt he used a RCBS mandrel and necked the lub cases to 30 caliber in one pass.

Then firefored the cases with cheap sierra 125 grain projectiles.

I understand he used load data from 6mmBR.com

i.e. H4198 and 34.5 grain of powder seating 0.005 short of the lands to reduce pressure for first firering.

When I recieved the rifle last week used these very SAME cases and started to reload.

Problem 1

I am struggling to get 34.5 grain of powder into the case.

These cases have NOT been trimmed and have been fired only twice previously - standard lapua 6BR brass.

I then changed to a long drop tube and even a tried folding a peice of A4 paper (21.9 inches as compared to american letter format) so I am dropping from about 18 inches in height with extreme caution.

The best I can get is the powder settleling is half way up the neck.

I tried 02 different tubs of powder with 02 different batch numbers and got the same result.

I have not measured the water capacity.

May be this is the next step but the over fill is SIGNIGICANT not a little bit.

I even checked the calibration of my RCBS chargemaster and crossed checked using a mechanical scale to check my charge weight

Problem 2

I used the best setteld powder case and proceed to seat a projectile

This is how how I calculate the neck bushing.

Cases have very uniform neck thicnkness of 0.009 inches all round

Porjectile is 0.3075 in diameter.

0.0090 wall thickness
0.0090 wall thickness
0.3075 projectile
0.3255 TOTAL

I started with 0.325 bush then proceeded to 0.324 hoping this will give me enough grip

I use wilson dies and seaters.

When I withdraw the top of the seater die the vacum sucked the bullet out with the top with withdrawing and there is so much resistance on compression the top rebounced back up!

Obviously this is completely wrong. Can somebody advice my next step

I live in London england and my gunsmith is in scotland.

I really feel like an idiot making some fundemental mistakes

I have gone over my step many many times but cannot see where I am going wrong.

There must be a lot of bench rest shooter out there using 30BR.
Can you advice ?

A shooter friend without 30BR experience suggested a high neck tension. What do you guys think? 323 322 ? What is enough

I can post pictures if it helps

 

[bheadboy]

londonhunter,
good morning, i do not have any experience with 30Br but a lot of experience with custom chambers and forming cases.

dont think you need to use the gr wt of powder the books say, the case capicity, chamber, throat etc. dictate the amount of powder your particular rifle will accept. thus drop the powder charge to the bottom of the neck, and try, also try slightly slower powders, dont think that just because a book or article on this web says use xxx gr, that you need to, drop down and see what your chamber/cases/barrel like,work up slowly and you will find a sweet spot.

the br case is a great case and it will work, good luck

Bob

 

[george]

send the wilson die to the gunsmith tell him to run the reamer in it. that will solve the vacuum trouble then the case should fall out of the die.
it dont hurt a thing to crush the powder as long as it dont push the bullet back out.

 

[londonhunter]

thank you for your feedback

Thiis is the game plan

Firstly I will drop the charge weight from 34.5 grains to 33.0 and work up from there.

Secondly I have ordered 323 bushing to give it more tension however all suppliers in the UK does not have it in stock

Thridlly failing one and 2 I will get the gunsmith to ream the wilson dies to give me a custom fit

Anything else please ?

 

[CentrePunch]

Hi London,
if you get stuck for bushes mate give me a shout, i can make bushes of any size and have one in the post to you next day.
They are not the pretty gold TIN coated jobbies but made from silver steel fully polished and hardened.
You can contact me here or through UKV where i am Vermincinerator.

Ian.

 

[george]

[quote author=gunamonth
Second, it's very unlikely your chamber reamer will do much if anything to the Wilson seater since the seater is most likely bigger than the reamer to start with. Making a custom die from a Wilson blank (a blank hasn't had the cartridge hole reamed) is the way many highly regarded shooters do it. The only negative is the fit is very precise and you'll have more vacuum problems than you do now.

If I were you I'd look for some Norma 200 and some 10 ogive 118 grain BIB's. Makes it a whole lot easier.....
[/quote]
with all do respect ..my gunsmith does it on my 30BR's Robnett reamer after he's done the case's fall out in your hand never need to pry a case out.
and it's a must on ppc cases to
wilson seater die's are tight