Different expanders diameters may help

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  • Last Post 14 August 2019
jr460 posted this 14 August 2019

Today I played hooky with a Remington 788 in 30/30 with a new 150 grain soft lead HP .311 diameter.  

The results I found was very interesting and wished to share what was done.

I started out by annealing 200 winchester 30/30 range brass, I then loaded 5 rounds using RCBS FL sizing die,

Lyman 30 caliber short expander die, Forster bench rest seating die and a Forster 30/30 tapper crimp die. 

The load 34 grains of IMR 4350  150 grain .311 hp cast bullet with 20 to 1 lead, hornady gas check lubed with white label bullet lube the commercial version that flows at 104 degrees the bullet with gas check weighs 155 grains.

load produces 2008 fps and expands very well.

Now I thought I really needed to inside neck ream the brass to stop the flyers. With this load I was always seeing flyers. So I looked into my RCBS expanders I had on hand and I settled on a .310 expander and loaded the same 5 rounds stepped outside and fired the 5 with the larger .310 expander. The group was almost 50% smaller, so if you have a load that is almost working try a larger expand may help you as it has help me.

Lyman expander is the same as the rcbs .3065 then .310 on the second step so the expander was to small for a soft .311 bullet.   

    

1000 yards easy

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GBertolet posted this 14 August 2019

I use the RCBS .311 expander plug for the .308, to avoid swaging. Lyman seems to make a one size fits all, caliber specific M expander. Lyman does not know what diameter of bullet you will be using, so it might not be right for all. Does Lyman make a M die for the .303? If so, that might be the ticket for the 30 cal cast bullet. Cast bullets can be easily swaged in the seating process, whether it be rifle or pistol. Your data proves diameter does make a difference.

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jr460 posted this 14 August 2019

I use the RCBS .311 expander plug for the .308, to avoid swaging. Lyman seems to make a one size fits all, caliber specific M expander. Lyman does not know what diameter of bullet you will be using, so it might not be right for all. Does Lyman make a M die for the .303? If so, that might be the ticket for the 30 cal cast bullet. Cast bullets can be easily swaged in the seating process, whether it be rifle or pistol. Your data proves diameter does make a difference.

Yes, the 303 m die does expand to .311 but you lose the neck tension when expanding to .311, this is why I chose the .310 expander on the sizing die. The .001 neck tension seems to be the best for soft lead and will hold the bullet in place in the magazine guns 336 marlin and 94 Winchester.  I have all marlin 336, Winchester  94, Remington 788 and TC encore barrel all in 30/30 with this set up, I can load for all brands with lead bullets. Using the m die seems to be working the brass to much, taking the inside neck from .3065 to .311 with the .310 expander on the resizing die seems to work brass a lot easer. I will take 3 rounds and load them untill I get a split neck and report back how many reloads before case spliting, this will be a fun test.  

 

 

 

 

1000 yards easy

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gnoahhh posted this 14 August 2019

I'm a big believer in RCBS neck expander/"bellers" too. I have every diameter .30 caliber they make, and then some (I have a lathe). I've turned a few for .229" bullets in the .22 High Power, and a few bast*rd sizes for .25 caliber too. I shoot for a heavy .001" smaller than bullet diameter for cast loads that only need to make it from my house to the range.

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gpidaho posted this 14 August 2019

I use the Noe expanders. These fit inside the Lee Universal expander. for the 30caliber rounds I have expanders of .308, .309, 310, .311, .312 and .314.  This covers my needs from 30 carbine through my fat 30s,  303 Brit and 764X54  I'm a big fan of Noe tooling. Gp

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Ken Campbell Iowa posted this 14 August 2019

i use the lee expander, but for brass i am going to load much, i make my own expanders that have a shallower angle than the universal lee.factory units, just need little short ones and just drop them in the die body.

and keeping in mind the earlier discussion here about just taper reaming the necks in the first place .  if i ever decide to load more than 50 of something at a time i will try the taper reaming.

 ken

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