rook rifle forhand h&a hammerless

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jonskorepa posted this 30 August 2008

fast twist 22 barrel 22-15-60 or 22hornet blk powder or ? pls give me some of your insite ideas ect. thank you    jon

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Ed Harris posted this 02 September 2008

If you want to make a CF .22 cal. I'd recommend sticking with smokeless powder and something OTHER THAN a .22 LR type soft mild steel 16” twist barrel.  A slow twist is necessary to minimize fouling with blackpowder, but essentially limits you to 38-45 grain bullets.  In a smokeless .22 a faster twist such as 14” or 12” enables you to use heavier bullets.  If your action is an older blackpowder type you can work up light smokeless loads which approximate .22 LR or .22 WRF velocities.

My own preferences lean to using a common, inexpensive .30 cal. barrel chambered for an easy to get, small capacity case, such as the .32 H&R Magnum or .32 S&W Long.  Successful .32 “Bunny Gun” parameters are well known. It is easy to get good results without the need for much experimentation.

Any good quality .30, .303 or .32-20 type barrel works fine.  Neither bore and groove dimensions nor twist rate are critical.  Just get a good quality barrel and a bullet which “fits."  I'd suggest staying with subsonic loads, soft bullets work fine, and 2 to 2.5 grs. of any fast burning pistol or shotgun powder works great in the .32 S&W Long, or 3 to 3.5 grs. in the .32 H&R Magnum, with any bullet which fits the barrel from 80 to 130 grs.

You can buy everything in common, off-the-shelf items.   If you have an older blackpowder gun with poor bore, install a Brownell 16-twist .32-20 liner and chamber it for the .32 H&R Magnum.  Buy one of the RCBS .32-90CM Cowboy moulds, some Starline brass a a set of dies and have fun right away.  There is lots of info in the .32 Bunny Gun threads.  This project is real easy to do and works very well.

If you really WANT to shoot blackpowder, the 16-inch twist of the .32-20 Brownell liner will work just fine.  The RCBS Cowboy bullet has a generous grease groove to hold enough soft lube such as 50-50 Crisco and beeswax.  Keep the bullet alloy soft, no harder than 10 BHN.  The .32 HRM case holds 13 grs. of 3Fg compressed if you use a long drop tube to fill the case, then push a Walter's Wad set in the case mouth against the powder using the short expander button of an RCBS .32 ACP expander die. Final positioning the wad is done by the base of the bullet as you seat and crimp. Velocity with the 98-gr. Cowboy bullet will be subsonic in a 26 inch barrel, which is perfect for the Rook Rifle concept.

Yes I fooled with black powder in mine, “just for the hell of it” but it's a mess to clean afterwards. I get the same velocity with 2.5 grs. of Bullseye with less trouble and the smokeless is more accurate. 

73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia

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Mark Wakefield posted this 17 September 2008

Hi;        I have a BSA Martini from the good old Queens land of Australia it was chambered in 310 cadet. Q         I would like to know if this BSA Martini barrel has a 10 to 1 spin on the bullet? I would think the 310-heeled bullet being a light one could have a 9 or 10 to one spin on the bullet?         If this barrel was made for black powder, OH I don't know what kind of spin on the black powder bullet was intended.         But I would like to know what bullet weights will work in this barrel and what bullet weights will not work in this gun. I'm now thinking that my 170g gas checked bullets may never stabilize well in my bore.         I have RE chambered this barrel to a common 30x30 Winchester. I have no problem doing this because the bore slugged out a .311 maximum groove diameter. My Winchester lever action at home has a .311 maximum groove diameter as well. After all of this was done I started to find out the first barrels made for the BSA Martini were for black power and commonly a had 32 caliber bore diameter.

                 Maybe I should stick to using my lighter bullets.

Mark

 

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Ed Harris posted this 17 September 2008

Mark Wakefield wrote:  I have a BSA Martini ...chambered in 310 cadet... I would like to know if this BSA Martini barrel has a 10 to 1 spin on the bullet? ...I would like to know what bullet weights will work in this barrel and what bullet weights will not work in this gun. I'm now thinking that my 170g gas checked bullets may never stabilize well in my bore...  I have RE chambered this barrel to a common 30-30 Winchester. I have no problem doing this because the bore slugged out a .311 maximum groove diameter...

Martini Cadet barrels have a slow twist of about one turn in 24 inches and work best with blunt, flatbased bullets from 120-140 grs.  Their 5-groove Enfield type rifling is difficult to measure accurately without a V-anvil micrometer. These are essentially a “loose .303” or “tight 8mm” being nominally .305x.318." 

The driving band of the 120-gr. Cadet bullet is .320 and its heel is .311 to be a friction fit in the case.  The correct charge for use in the original .310 Greener case is 4 grs. of Unique using soft bullets cast 1:25

The .331-.332 diameter chamber neck diameter of the .30-30 only permits use of a .310 bullet while maintaining safe neck clearance.  That is quite undersized for bullets you need to fit this barrel.   Also,   the .30-30 throat is very short and has no ball seat. 

I would suggest using a .30-'06 neck and throater to enlarge the chamber neck diameter to .340+, which would permit use of a .318 bullet, if you turn case necks to 0.011, while providing enough of throat to enable seating bullets out some.  Try 14 grs. of 4227 with a 120-140 gr. soft plabased bullet.    With the rifle in its present condition try the RCBS or NEI 120-gr. Cadet heeled bullets, as-cast and unsized, lightly lubricated with Lee Liquix Alox, with 6 grs. of Unique, 7625 or PB, IF they will chamber. .>     

73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia

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Mark Wakefield posted this 19 September 2008

Ed Harris; Q    Ed Harris    “Martini Cadet barrels have a slow twist of about one turn in 24 inches.â€? 

                  So your thinking this Martini Cadet is a black powder bore? I asked the gun smith if this should be chambered in 32x30 winchester insted of 30x30 Winchester. He looked at it and said 30x 30 Winchester would be best. He wanted to put the Martini Cadet in 25x30 Winchester. He said he saw one Martini Cadet some one had put a Martini Cadet in .243x51. He didn't say who did the work at all. He said after some 20 years and just 1,000 and 1,000 of sport shooting rounds later there was this small hair line crack in it near a corner.

                  My 45 70 had one turn in 22 inches I think. I was told that many of the old black powder guns were reworked down under for WW II. If there ever was a time to turn to a bore usage to matching the 303 Brit. bores. I would think it would have been then in the 1940's.             My gun has been re barreled the barrel on there is deep blue in color. This rework could have been in the 1940's but I don't know fore sure. The Martini Cadet receiver shows a lot of black powder usage! I saw so much of this black powder usage on the old 45 70's all the bluing is just gone”¦. way to fast. Black powder usage just sets in such a brown patina all of its own.             I also have the Lyman # 311241 round nose plane base bullet mold in 125g and also in the 155g-cast bullet. I just scrape off the bullet lube at a .313 DIA.    Q         What kind of bullet speed should we try on this 115g or the 125g cast bullets? I would think that 1300 to 1500 feet per second would be a good speed for that 311241 RN GC cast bullet knocked out at 125g and sized to a .313 DIA.        I have the Lyman # 311359 Bullet Mold 115g the POINTY NOSE bullet that casts a .313 to .315 DIA gas checked bullet. Maybe this one is soon my best try.         I know 200g Cast bullets shot thru the Martini Cadet  key hole out there no mater how fast I wack them out there as of yet. :( Q          About cast bullet speed;                                           Should we pull a Chuck Yeager and ride the sky rocket ya know! Push the envelope a little by go'n real fast?????        My old 45 70 with 9.2g of Unique and a 330g plane base would shoot so well at 1350 feet per second. The bullet hole would just hold hands out there with the other bullet holes. The 5 shot group would = 2x the bullet DIA at the 100 yard mark!

        It's been real fun yack'n with you.

   Mark

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Ed Harris posted this 19 September 2008

The .310 Greener has always been a smokeless cartridge, so far as I know. At least I've never seen any blackpowder original rounds.  According to AU and UK references this was loaded with a 120-gr. heeled RN bullet and a charge of 5 grs. of Cadet Neonite which is a single-based tubular powder similar in burning rate to SR4759.  During WWII an FMJ cartridge was produced in some quantity for cadet and home guard use, so I am told.

If you look carefully through the barrel you can determine that it has approximately one turn over its length.   If you put a tight patch or brush on your cleaning rod, mark a reference point on it with a felt tip marker and draw it back & forth through the bore several times, you will confirm this.

If you use a Greenhill constant = 150 a 24-inch twist in .310 caliber can stabilize a bullet 0.60” long.  This is a conservative figure, but agrees with the original bullet design.  If you want to use quiet, subsonic, small game loads and have them usefully stable and accurate this is a good figure.

If you intend to enlarge your chamber neck to .340+ to enable using a bullet of .318 or so to properly fill the grooves of your 5-groove barrel, and work up loads approaching the maximum velocity you can reasonably get from a .30-30 case using a properly designed GC bullet in this  slow twist, driving it above 1600 f.p.s., then  a Greenhill constant of 200 would work and suggests a maximum bullet length of 0.80

If limiting yourslef to heeled or plainbased bullets without a GC you are effectively limited to about 1450 f.p.s. and I would not exceed a Greenhill constant of 180 which implies a maximum bullet length of 0.72 to expect adequate stability and good accuracy under all conditions.

73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia

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Mark Wakefield posted this 19 September 2008

Thank's Ed;                     The Lyman # 311359 mold of 115g with the pointy nose that casts a .315 DIA gas checked bullet is soon to be my best try. I have wacked some out as big as .315 from some thing as hard as linotype. Ed;    “If you use a Greenhill constant = 150 a 24-inch twist in .310 caliber can stabilize a bullet 0.60” long.  This is a conservative figure, but agrees with the original bullet design.â€? Me;        I know there is a bullet ballistic coefficient that does match the barrel and the bullets used in that barrel must match that rate of turn for stability or the bullet will just key hole.             I want to be very sure I don't reinvent the wheel and spend precious time in this life trying to out think the original engineering that was put in the careful design of the gun and its barrel. Ed;      “Intend to enlarge your chamber neck to .340+ to enable using a bullet of .318 or so to properly fill the grooves of your 5-groove barrel.â€? Me;        I will have to sit on the hope of enlarging my chamber on the barrel for a just a little wile because it's time to go'a shooting.        I'll dip dunk some Lyman # 311359 bullets of 115g soon I know they do fall out at .315 DIA.

  Then we shall see if the .315 DIA 311359 bullets do chamber?

      :0) Oh BOY        I got to tell you I have not been so lucky with my 1895 Ger. 7mm Mauser cast bullet chamberings :(

Mark

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Ken Campbell Iowa posted this 19 September 2008

"  I know 200g Cast bullets shot thru the Martini Cadet  key hole out there no mater how fast I wack them out there as of yet. :( "'

For the most part,  velocity has not nearly the effect as twist rate in stabilizing bullets.


Please keep reporting your results/thoughts on the Cadet... this is now one of my own projects ... thanks to Mr. Ken Mollohan....  a very shiny bore ...  but what an ugly chamber .... hmmm ... now to apply 30 years of CBA common knowledge.  ( g ) ....

Easy Answer #1::   uh oh, I forgot the question already ...

regards, ken campbell, iowa

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Mark Wakefield posted this 20 September 2008

The .314 DIA 311359 bullets do chamber!         I cast some Lyman # 311359 bullets of 115g they fell out at .314 to .315 DIA. I shot lube grease in to the first grove only crimping on a gas check. Then measured the cast bullet DIA. Five of them yielded a .314 cast bullet DIA.                 I loaded them. Then fought to chamber them in to the BSA Martini Cadet 310. The M expansion bell flared out the brass too much. So I ran back in and kissed of to loadings with the bullet setter and crimped them to crimp grove. “Well no dancing around now” said I! Off to the gun, Well all the rounds tryed chambered now and with out fail. At last .314 +.012+.012+ .338. The chamber must be a .340 DIA as you said I would need?

                I had a look at a 90g cowboy cast bullet the finished size looked to be .314, DIA. Do think it could cast a .315 DIA and scrap down to a .314.

         So I think what I got  for a cast bullet should work.

          I was looking on the old gun barrel it was stamped at the rear 310  12  120. 

          I think it could mean BSA Martini Cadet 310 with a 120g bullet of some kind.

          Yes the barrel seams to have some real slow turn on the bullet moving down the run of the barrel. NOW...  I have to learn to live with it!

           I do remember telling my gunsmith my lubesizer is .313 and I want to be able to chamber a cast bullet that large. Maybe that ream should be made as a custom cut on the neck. He said no custom I'll just order it right. 

Well now for some stylish wack'n of some kind.

I'm off for a road trip.

Mark

 

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Mark Wakefield posted this 21 September 2008

    Coming around full circle!

            About 30 years ago I bought a 310 BSA Martini Cadet, my buddy called it the Kangaroo gun. He said he got the gun when he was such a tender child he didn't care to think of those formatively years of growth. There were just tears in his eyes.              I liked the slick look of the peashooter. I had no way to fine some cartridge that would shoot in this gun. There were no Internet search engines to help us as we have today. I had the gun for 27 years and just recently I figured was the time to make this old gun count on the gun rack.              When I first brought the gun to the gunsmith. My hopes were to get the gun to shoot the 7.62x 39 cartridges. Isn't funny now by necessity I fine my self driven to shoot a lighter bullet of the 120g range! So I see my self-coming around full circle in thinking. The need to shoot the lighter bullets is defiantly needed.                 The history that surrounds this 7.62x 39 cartridge is well known. I will not talk this up at all. The 7.62x 39 cartridge was my choice because the barrel bore was similar to the 310 BSA Martini Cadet and the bullet weight in use in each gun was not that far off either. I liked the fast taper of the 7.62x 39 case as well this made for a fast break away from the chamber.                I could not get a 7.62x 39 cartridge to extract real easy from the 310 BSA Martini Cadet. The old toggle block wanted a rimed cartridge to sweep out of the chamber and that was that. I set down and drew up an extractor that could work for non-rimed cartridge. This thing had a operation knock out lever like a 30 carbine. I didn't want the firing pin sitting on the primer of the of the 7.62x 39 cartridge I wove in a spring rebound system that held off the firing pin from the primer surface now this was strictly Ruben Goldberg move over and give way to new minds designing. Well the cutting it in metal was to be some thing incredible. The gunsmith said I could do this for you but why don't you first just go and get the patent!                Finely I chose the 30x30 Winchester round because it's a rimmed cartridge and at the time brass was cheep. If I should have to improve the thought of the chamber I may make it the 40' degree Ackley improved then the gun will perform like the old 30x40 Krag the sight ladders distances gradations could very well match the old 30x40 Krag carbine rear sight that I will want to add on.                  Well this 310 BSA Martini Cadet peashooter has got some distance and time to grow up in. I think all I got to do is nurture it. Who knows what this gun could become in the next 30 years of ownership.

Mark

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Mark Wakefield posted this 14 May 2010

Ed Harris wrote: The .310 Greener has always been a smokeless cartridge, so far as I know. At least I've never seen any blackpowder original rounds.  According to AU and UK references this was loaded with a 120-gr. heeled RN bullet and a charge of 5 grs. of Cadet Neonite which is a single-based tubular powder similar in burning rate to SR4759.  During WWII an FMJ cartridge was produced in some quantity for cadet and home guard use, so I am told.

If you look carefully through the barrel you can determine that it has approximately one turn over its length.   If you put a tight patch or brush on your cleaning rod, mark a reference point on it with a felt tip marker and draw it back & forth through the bore several times, you will confirm this.

If you use a Greenhill constant = 150 a 24-inch twist in .310 caliber can stabilize a bullet 0.60” long.  This is a conservative figure, but agrees with the original bullet design.  If you want to use quiet, subsonic, small game loads and have them usefully stable and accurate this is a good figure.

If you intend to enlarge your chamber neck to .340+ to enable using a bullet of .318 or so to properly fill the grooves of your 5-groove barrel, and work up loads approaching the maximum velocity you can reasonably get from a .30-30 case using a properly designed GC bullet in this  slow twist, driving it above 1600 f.p.s., then  a Greenhill constant of 200 would work and suggests a maximum bullet length of 0.80

If limiting yourself to heeled or plain-based bullets without a GC you are effectively limited to about 1450 f.p.s. and I would not exceed a Greenhill constant of 180 which implies a maximum bullet length of 0.72 to expect adequate stability and good accuracy under all conditions.    Yes Ed I think I have painted my self in to the corner. A .315 cast bullet is to small in my bore. I shot some .317 DIA cast bullets in the summer of 2008. Well I only had 25 of those.317's. They cut some thing like a 2 inch whole out there under the barrel on paper. Yes I would think I have 5 grove 24-inch twist in the .310 BSA Greener barrel.

” If you intend to enlarge your chamber neck to .340+ to enable using a bullet of .318 or so to properly fill the grooves of your 5-groove barrel, and work up loads approaching the maximum velocity you can reasonably get from a .30-30 case using a properly designed GC bullet in this slow twist, driving it above 1600 f.p.s., then  a Greenhill constant of 200 would work and suggests a maximum bullet length of 0.80"

So I had a custom cast bullet sizing tool made for me at .318 DIA. Now I can't get the the brass case thickness + .318 DIA. to chamber. Ha Ha ..... I'm now thinking of a cutting ream to pull thru and cut the neck over size about .344 DIA. and the next pull thru cutting ream will be for the throat.

Yes I had a custom cast bullet sizing tool made for me at .318 DIA. I have been carving down about a 8mm cast bullet. This 160gr lovern stile (323470) has a gas check the total length of this 8mm cast bullet is a cute 0.90 of the inch. You have asked for a total length of 0.80. I hammer out my own gas checks out of AL drink cans so the gas check is only about .007th thick.

 I cut the max 8mm cast bullet DIA down in two strokes first stroke .325 is cut to .321 next stroke the cast bullet is cut down to .319 DIA.

"using a properly designed GC bullet in this slow twist, driving it above 1600 f.p.s.,"

I don't know what the maximum velocity I can reasonably get from a .30-30 case with a (323470) 160gr lovern stile gas checked bullet. But I was going to start with 55 % of case volume with a 4859 load. Such a load with 55 % of case volume I would think could have a starting speed of about 1600 to 1700 FPS.  Well I'm out of here ... Wish us all luck!!! BY BY Buddy Mark

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larryfisher posted this 14 May 2010

i .. always thought the cadet action was too small to safely handle a case the dimeter of a 30/30

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raytear posted this 14 May 2010

Before making any chamber alterations, etc. you might want to check Ross Seyfried's article in the January, 2002, #199 issue of Rifle magazine. The article is titled “Little Rifles, Long Range!", and found on page 38.

If you don't have that issue, let me know via PM, I can copy it for you and send it along. It has specific bullet moulds and loads that worked in Ross' loading and shooting preparation for the article in which he shot 2 different .31-something rifles.

I will be out of town after Monday, 5-17, so get to me before Monday if you need the article.

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Mark Wakefield posted this 14 May 2010

The gun smith who re-chambered my BSA 310 cadet use to have a BSA he chambered in .243 x oh about 51? See photos. He shot his 243 thousands and thousands of of times.

The NRA said the BSA 310 cadet action was good to hold OH about 60,000 CPU!

The gun smith wanted to chamber my BSA 310 cadet in .25 cal> in the necked down 30x30 Win. Brass case. Or the 25x30 or the 25 Win.

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NoDakJak posted this 16 May 2010

303 Brit run through 7.62x39 full length size die and then trimmed and neck reamed = 7.62x39R. Chamber barrel with standard 7.62x39 reamer and then cut for rim seperately. The little martini will handle factory 30.30 pressures but I would advise against stepping up pressures as the barrel only has a 3/4” tenon which doesn't leave much meat over the chamber. I love these little actions and cringe at the thought of someone jugging the chamber and stretching the reciever ring, thereby ruining the action. I have not seen one of these actions fail but I have seen several with jugged chambers. These little actions are some of the finest to come out of the factories. Just don't try to use them for cartridges larger than they were designed for. neil

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