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Rule303, I will be really be keeping an eye on how you get on in regard to your Ruger. I'll admit that any interest in mine has gone and accept that some lessons cost more then others.

I must say that reading the history of the old 303 is quite interesting, but what it has to do with this lot of 303's is a bit of a mystery. Military rifles are by necessity made to tolerances that no sporting rifle manufactuer, today at least, should follow. Even in war time I believe that potential sniper rifles were pulled from the production line due to their above standard of accuracy. I bet if these barrels were measured when new, projectile to bore fit would have been tighter then the rest. These "tight" rifles would also shoot flatter due to the higher velocity of there bullets making hits at long range that little bit easier. How do I know that there would be an increase in velocity ?

Several years ago I lucked apon an Alex. Henry double that had been bored out to 410 shotgun. Other then this, it was perfect. Long story short I sleeved both barrels with .358 liners and began to see where it shot. Before shooting the first loads, I made up a sizing die to bring the first lot of projectiles [ 200 gr.jacketed ] down to .355 just to make life easier on this fine old rifle. Accuracy was O.K, velocity a little slow and the shots crossed by 1 1/2" at 50 metres. When I recovered a bullet or two from the back stop and looked at them under magnification, it was clear that they where not completely filling the bore. After reaming the die out to .356 , sizing and loading another 4 rounds but changing nothing else, these were fired. Accuracy was about the same but regulation was better,with them only just crossing. The suprise to me was the velocity, which had gone up on avereage 85 fps. Anyway I discovered that for each thou. that was added to the bullet dia. until they just completely filled the bore, velocity went up about 80 to 100 fps. This was the only change to the loads and the barrels were cleaned between each batch of shots.

To me it really showed out much gas was being wasted by getting squirted past the projectile when the shot was fired. In the end I could use less powder to get the same job done. This is also why old and well used doubles have that problem of each barrel running at different speeds but using the same load, at least with copper jacketed pills. See what happens if you shoot paper patched bullets in them. Both tubes have the same speed or at least very close. This is because these bullets upset and completely fill the bore and so every thing is again equal.

From this, you can see why the bore dimensions of the Ruger 303 doesn't sit well with me. Would anyone who bought a new .22 cal. centre fire rifle be happy with a bore size of .227-8" ? Just because the 303 started life as a military round should have little bearing on how they are dimensioned today. There is a standard size for the projectiles for the 303, it stands to reason the barrels should have been dimensioned accordingly.

Ruger know how to make a good rifle, or at least they used to.

Ron.

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