LeftHandGuy
Well-Known Member
This thread is something of a continuation/digression of @Stalker1962 's thread lead for slugging rifle barrels as I had a very clear vision of him approaching the very same rabbit hole that I am just now emerging from.
Ok, well, first things first, for the Mosin you really shouldn't need a slug if you can get a fishing weight/sinker, I just squashed one slightly in a metalworking vice and got a decent reading (.3095 as it happens, well in spec for an M39 with a Finnish replacement barrel). That was in 2016.
Naturally of course I now think this is a skill that I have, something I can carelessly and confidently discuss with my gun-o-phile friends, which is essentially all (both) of them.
So, last summer I decided to scratch an long standing itch and buy a Martini action rifle. I have a deep and emotional connection to these for reasons that are only tangentially relevant. Now, the United States in it's wisdom requires that firearms purchased out of state, or in any other way not face to face must go via an FFL (think RFD) holder. They then perform any background check and record the transaction, typically charging between $30-50 for the service. Interestingly, there is a class of FFL geared towards collectors called the Curio and Relic FFL. The cost of acquisition is either $35 or $30, but is lower than the cost of a transfer, and the only strictures are essentially that the firearms covered must be a minimum of 50 years old, or otherwise specially recognized by the ATF as being Curios or Relics, and I cannot be practicing as a business. So I figured what the hell, if I only use it once it's evens, and it's pretty cool to be able to have guns shipped right to my doorstep legally...
So I sent off the form and began to browse GunBroker. I saw a Martini Cadet that had been rechambered to 32 Win Spl. Further research lead me to discover that this was actually quit a common fate for Aussie Martinis imported to the US, frequently all that was done is the extractor was relieved to accommodate the wider rim, and the new chamber reamed. One source suggested this was sometime simply done with a drill(!), although I am not sure if this was meant to be hyperbolic... Anyway, I figured that, so long as the price stayed low then it was worth a punt, and if the barrel/chamber was shagged then I could get it bored out to 35 (to make a 35/30-30), or bored and sleeved to become a 30-30, cost of that exercise looks to be about $250 either way, and would result in a rifle I could use to hunt with and indulge my Zulu War fantasies at the same time.
So I bid, I apply for my FFL, and I wait! Amazingly the stars align and I received confirmation that I have my C&R on the same day as the auction times out and I discover that I have won. Even betterer is that the dealer, somewhere in Arizona I think, is cool with my new FFL. Long story short I have my rifle, but my internet research has revealed that these 32 Win Spl conversions are awful spiteful guns with violent recoil and indifferent triggers.
Well, OK, I am going to reload for it anyway, factory 32 Win Spl might just as well come packaged in mermaids stockings for all the availability of it in September last year.
First order of business, is slug the barrel, obviously I need to know what size of bullet I can work with, and these cadets have a laughably wide reported bore/rifling diameter. So out come the trusty fishing weights and dowels. Once again I squeeze a fishing weight that began life as a roughy .30 cal oval, lube the barrel, lube the weight and begin tapping. This doesn't go so well as last time. The weight neatly caps and plugs the muzzle. So, I think, well, no bother, I wanted to test these new Ginex primers anyway, so I prime an empty 30-30 case (which chambers and extracts perfectly), step out on to the patio, level rifle at a clump of weeds and press the trigger. A report like childrens' capgun is heard, and the foul obstruction is moved not at all. Thankfully, as a fishing weight, it still has a hole through it, into which I am able to screw a steel screw and lever the mess out without further incident.
Next, less aggressively flatten the next weight, with a little trial and error this is now driven through with enough friction to lead me to think I may get a decent impression of the rifling. However, unlike last time, the caliper readings are all over the place ranging from .312 to .3205... My confidence is further knocked.... Can such a massive variation be correct? I go back check the weight I slugged my Mosin with. Perhaps I arsed it up 6 years ago? But no, it's fine, so scratch head and remember that I have a jar of 00 buckshot from 12g shell I found at the range. They mic out at .330, so I regrease the barrel and start pounding that down through. Exactly the same result.
(buckshot ball on the left, sinker on the right)
So I go to see Skip my tame gunsmith. He mics my "slugs" and agrees that they are a little odd and conjectures that perhaps they are rocking as I drive them down the barrel. He chips off a lump of cerosafe and suggests that I intentionally plug the barrel and take my own miniature cast. Probably I should have tried that. Also, helpfully, he has a box factory 32 Spl at his house surplus to his needs that I may have for the nominal sum $25. This is a no-brainer, so I follow his directions and we conduct a private transaction on his porch steps...
(closer inspection reveals 19 x Winchester and 1 x Remington. The Rem is immediately disassembled to make a dummy/drill round as I figure a single round really isn't much use to me, in addition I get to weight and measure the various components. For all the good that did me...)
Later, I have a brainwave, surely, a soft cast 8mm bullet wouldn't be able to "rock" down the barrel? Then I don't need to arse about trying to pour liquid metal into my long lusted for antique. I ask around a bit, nobody has anything, I ask Andy Muir, our own @Muir and he promises to pick over his empire of cast bullet leftovers and mail me something if he has it, but alas comms go quiet and I don't want to become a whiney PITA so I stop bugging him.
In the meanwhile I figure, I have some factory ammo now, I could shoot it. Skip has given the rifle an otherwise clean bill of health and made me promise to consider him should I ever think of parting with it. I take it to the range. Shooting it is indeed unpleasant, but the cases extract fine and show no alarming signs of high pressure or bad headspacing. And to me the trigger is fine, although I am something of a clumsy oaf so that doesn't necessarily indicate much.
Second brainwave, I am surely on the path to casting for this thing, so why don't I gear up and cast my own 8mm slug in soft lead? So I buy a little Lee furnace, and their 8mm mold. And I cast my first couple of bullets (using some surplus to requirements .715 round balls I bought to shoot in a reproduction Brown Bess). It's interesting, it's fun. Newly cast bullets are awfully shiny!
Barely are they cool when I take one and attempt to get that metric again. The corona of shaved lead left at the muzzle should have told me to stop, but I reasoned, it had been removed, and now soft slug fit perfectly! Oh yes! I got it another 4" or 5" and came to a dead stop. The dowels simply started to splinter. I suppose I could have used brass rods and continued trying to smash it down. But I didn't want to do that, I had a horrible feeling I would end up cracking the stock, or something equally stupid. Stop. Everything is lubed up, lead in the barrel isn't going to hurt anything, just stop. I need to prepare for hunting season and I am clearly not going to be using this rifle. I have others. Stop now, hang it up and load some ammo for a rifle that you haven't just ****ed up.
So I did, and brooded on the fact that, I had obscured the barrel of my new gun, and that that blockage would surely give me the reading I needed if I could just get it free again....
I got it clear though, just over a week ago, I followed a guide from a chap on YouTube explaining how to use water in the barrel and a wax capped blank round with a low charge to safely and reliably remove a stuck bullet. It worked beautifully. 3 grains of unique and a wax plug in the case mouth, strap the rifle upside down to a frame (I used the children's climbing frame in the garden) fill the barrel with water (I squirted it in with a drinking straw), and operate the trigger with a lanyard from a safe distance (placing a 5' trunk oak tree between me and it). I also placed a wet towel under the muzzle in the hopes of catching the bullet.
And amazingly enough, it worked brilliantly. I even captured the wax plug so I can do the whole thing over if I need to!
(the eagle eyed may note that the "wax plug" is in fact a lump of Carnuba Red bullet lube - the blue smear is the reflection of some or other LED on my desk)
So I measured the bullet. Same bloody measurements as the first stinking two! So at least I know now, and I am developing a load based on sized down PPU 8mm bullets, 139 grain SP, the cheap Lee bullet sizers really does turn them from .323 to .321, but that whole process I intend to write up for the site at point, complete with photographs. Indeed there is the tiniest margin of possibility that I might be able to kill a deer with it before the end of the season...
Ok, well, first things first, for the Mosin you really shouldn't need a slug if you can get a fishing weight/sinker, I just squashed one slightly in a metalworking vice and got a decent reading (.3095 as it happens, well in spec for an M39 with a Finnish replacement barrel). That was in 2016.
Naturally of course I now think this is a skill that I have, something I can carelessly and confidently discuss with my gun-o-phile friends, which is essentially all (both) of them.
So, last summer I decided to scratch an long standing itch and buy a Martini action rifle. I have a deep and emotional connection to these for reasons that are only tangentially relevant. Now, the United States in it's wisdom requires that firearms purchased out of state, or in any other way not face to face must go via an FFL (think RFD) holder. They then perform any background check and record the transaction, typically charging between $30-50 for the service. Interestingly, there is a class of FFL geared towards collectors called the Curio and Relic FFL. The cost of acquisition is either $35 or $30, but is lower than the cost of a transfer, and the only strictures are essentially that the firearms covered must be a minimum of 50 years old, or otherwise specially recognized by the ATF as being Curios or Relics, and I cannot be practicing as a business. So I figured what the hell, if I only use it once it's evens, and it's pretty cool to be able to have guns shipped right to my doorstep legally...
So I sent off the form and began to browse GunBroker. I saw a Martini Cadet that had been rechambered to 32 Win Spl. Further research lead me to discover that this was actually quit a common fate for Aussie Martinis imported to the US, frequently all that was done is the extractor was relieved to accommodate the wider rim, and the new chamber reamed. One source suggested this was sometime simply done with a drill(!), although I am not sure if this was meant to be hyperbolic... Anyway, I figured that, so long as the price stayed low then it was worth a punt, and if the barrel/chamber was shagged then I could get it bored out to 35 (to make a 35/30-30), or bored and sleeved to become a 30-30, cost of that exercise looks to be about $250 either way, and would result in a rifle I could use to hunt with and indulge my Zulu War fantasies at the same time.
So I bid, I apply for my FFL, and I wait! Amazingly the stars align and I received confirmation that I have my C&R on the same day as the auction times out and I discover that I have won. Even betterer is that the dealer, somewhere in Arizona I think, is cool with my new FFL. Long story short I have my rifle, but my internet research has revealed that these 32 Win Spl conversions are awful spiteful guns with violent recoil and indifferent triggers.
Well, OK, I am going to reload for it anyway, factory 32 Win Spl might just as well come packaged in mermaids stockings for all the availability of it in September last year.
First order of business, is slug the barrel, obviously I need to know what size of bullet I can work with, and these cadets have a laughably wide reported bore/rifling diameter. So out come the trusty fishing weights and dowels. Once again I squeeze a fishing weight that began life as a roughy .30 cal oval, lube the barrel, lube the weight and begin tapping. This doesn't go so well as last time. The weight neatly caps and plugs the muzzle. So, I think, well, no bother, I wanted to test these new Ginex primers anyway, so I prime an empty 30-30 case (which chambers and extracts perfectly), step out on to the patio, level rifle at a clump of weeds and press the trigger. A report like childrens' capgun is heard, and the foul obstruction is moved not at all. Thankfully, as a fishing weight, it still has a hole through it, into which I am able to screw a steel screw and lever the mess out without further incident.
Next, less aggressively flatten the next weight, with a little trial and error this is now driven through with enough friction to lead me to think I may get a decent impression of the rifling. However, unlike last time, the caliper readings are all over the place ranging from .312 to .3205... My confidence is further knocked.... Can such a massive variation be correct? I go back check the weight I slugged my Mosin with. Perhaps I arsed it up 6 years ago? But no, it's fine, so scratch head and remember that I have a jar of 00 buckshot from 12g shell I found at the range. They mic out at .330, so I regrease the barrel and start pounding that down through. Exactly the same result.
(buckshot ball on the left, sinker on the right)So I go to see Skip my tame gunsmith. He mics my "slugs" and agrees that they are a little odd and conjectures that perhaps they are rocking as I drive them down the barrel. He chips off a lump of cerosafe and suggests that I intentionally plug the barrel and take my own miniature cast. Probably I should have tried that. Also, helpfully, he has a box factory 32 Spl at his house surplus to his needs that I may have for the nominal sum $25. This is a no-brainer, so I follow his directions and we conduct a private transaction on his porch steps...
(closer inspection reveals 19 x Winchester and 1 x Remington. The Rem is immediately disassembled to make a dummy/drill round as I figure a single round really isn't much use to me, in addition I get to weight and measure the various components. For all the good that did me...)Later, I have a brainwave, surely, a soft cast 8mm bullet wouldn't be able to "rock" down the barrel? Then I don't need to arse about trying to pour liquid metal into my long lusted for antique. I ask around a bit, nobody has anything, I ask Andy Muir, our own @Muir and he promises to pick over his empire of cast bullet leftovers and mail me something if he has it, but alas comms go quiet and I don't want to become a whiney PITA so I stop bugging him.
In the meanwhile I figure, I have some factory ammo now, I could shoot it. Skip has given the rifle an otherwise clean bill of health and made me promise to consider him should I ever think of parting with it. I take it to the range. Shooting it is indeed unpleasant, but the cases extract fine and show no alarming signs of high pressure or bad headspacing. And to me the trigger is fine, although I am something of a clumsy oaf so that doesn't necessarily indicate much.
Second brainwave, I am surely on the path to casting for this thing, so why don't I gear up and cast my own 8mm slug in soft lead? So I buy a little Lee furnace, and their 8mm mold. And I cast my first couple of bullets (using some surplus to requirements .715 round balls I bought to shoot in a reproduction Brown Bess). It's interesting, it's fun. Newly cast bullets are awfully shiny!
Barely are they cool when I take one and attempt to get that metric again. The corona of shaved lead left at the muzzle should have told me to stop, but I reasoned, it had been removed, and now soft slug fit perfectly! Oh yes! I got it another 4" or 5" and came to a dead stop. The dowels simply started to splinter. I suppose I could have used brass rods and continued trying to smash it down. But I didn't want to do that, I had a horrible feeling I would end up cracking the stock, or something equally stupid. Stop. Everything is lubed up, lead in the barrel isn't going to hurt anything, just stop. I need to prepare for hunting season and I am clearly not going to be using this rifle. I have others. Stop now, hang it up and load some ammo for a rifle that you haven't just ****ed up.
So I did, and brooded on the fact that, I had obscured the barrel of my new gun, and that that blockage would surely give me the reading I needed if I could just get it free again....
I got it clear though, just over a week ago, I followed a guide from a chap on YouTube explaining how to use water in the barrel and a wax capped blank round with a low charge to safely and reliably remove a stuck bullet. It worked beautifully. 3 grains of unique and a wax plug in the case mouth, strap the rifle upside down to a frame (I used the children's climbing frame in the garden) fill the barrel with water (I squirted it in with a drinking straw), and operate the trigger with a lanyard from a safe distance (placing a 5' trunk oak tree between me and it). I also placed a wet towel under the muzzle in the hopes of catching the bullet.
And amazingly enough, it worked brilliantly. I even captured the wax plug so I can do the whole thing over if I need to!
(the eagle eyed may note that the "wax plug" is in fact a lump of Carnuba Red bullet lube - the blue smear is the reflection of some or other LED on my desk)So I measured the bullet. Same bloody measurements as the first stinking two! So at least I know now, and I am developing a load based on sized down PPU 8mm bullets, 139 grain SP, the cheap Lee bullet sizers really does turn them from .323 to .321, but that whole process I intend to write up for the site at point, complete with photographs. Indeed there is the tiniest margin of possibility that I might be able to kill a deer with it before the end of the season...
.
would be great fun!
