Figured Out My Flyers

Snakeoil

Well-Known Member
I was talking with another shooter the other day and he mentioned someone who designed bullets with very shallow lube grooves. He felt you only need a small amount of lube.
 

Bill

Active Member
I am running an experiment now of finger lubing the drive bands only with thinned Alox so far it looks promising, but they are plain based at around 1200 fps, the stuff dries hard in 20 minutes

Bill
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
you do only need a small amount of lube.
a surprisingly small amount.
like none in the lube grooves and just the gas check area full is plenty,,, small amount.
 

Ian

Notorious member
Depends on the lube. Good lube and good fit needs very little lube and lube that's not too slick.
 

Snakeoil

Well-Known Member
By pure luck, I only lube the 1st 2 grooves. Actually did it to keep the round "neat".

And yes, Veral Smith.
 

Snakeoil

Well-Known Member
Just did a little research on moly. I had remembered it fell out of favor, but did not remember why. Know I know. Corrodes the barrel if you leave it in there. Bad idea.

The High Std NOS barrel on fleabay had one bidder at the last minute for the opening price of $400. I know it sold, but that seemed a little steep to me. Granted, they are not making any more of them.

My 50/50 lube will be here Monday. Guess I'll be going to the range with a few test loads. Hope it is not swamped with our of work C19 victims.

Regards,
Rob
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
it does it if there is moisture trapped between it and the barrel.
it isn't the moly it's the application method.
 

Snakeoil

Well-Known Member
Hmmm...

I was under the impression that shooting moly coated bullets was the std method. Combustion usually produces water. Assume the problem would then be moly bullets shot thru a cold bore.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
you coat the shiny clean bare metal bore with a little moly first.
then just shoot as normal.
that way the barrel is coated and there is no chance of moisture getting under the coating.
 

Snakeoil

Well-Known Member
Been a while since I've posted. The ah-ha moment resulting from borescoping the barrel looks like it may be more of another false lead. To summarize, I tried some oversized 311xxx bullets. Moulds thru 0.312 slugs and sized them to 0.312 as that was the largest sizing die I had. Moved to NRA 50/50 lube, which is a love more enjoyable to use since it does not ooze out below the bullet as my BP lube does. But still my flyers continued and beyond 300 yds they were major flyers. Granted, some of the shooting conditions did not help. But I'm shooting with a very experienced Cl F shooter and damn fine spotter so we are pretty good as sussing out the conditions and the corrections.

From the start of this, I wanted to try a fatter bullet. Challenge was finding someone with a mould I could borrow and a sizing die. A few weeks ago, another member had 3 rounds left over and asked me if I wanted to try them. They were the 314299 bullet over 13.5 of Herco. He shoots an Enfield that is so shot out that the rifling is all rounded. The fat bullet made it shoot again. I took those 3 rounds and fired at a 4 inch pipe at the 500 yd berm. I'd had flyers that day that spanned beyond the ram. I put all 3 rounds into the dirt in about a 4 inch circle. Granted, only 3 rounds, but very promising.

I finally was able to get fellow shooter and gunsmith to dig thru his huge assortment of moulds and find a 314299 that "he knew was in their somewhere". He also had the 0.314 sizing die. Loaded up 60 rounds for a 40 round match.

The shoot was what we call the VT match. Round plates at 100, 150, 200 and 300 yds, each sized to cover the same minutes of angle. There is a meerkat at 400 that is shot offhand as a tie breaker if required. Plus you get a nice pewter pin for every meerkat you manage to dispatch.

Cutting to the chase, the rifle shot some truly stunning groups all the way out to 300 yds. No flyers of any kind. At 300, my spotter could only tell me I hit the target because the bullets all were in the same group and there was no longer any paint to mark the spot. Shot a perfect score of 40 and hit one of the two meerkats. Another thing I did was drop my velocity by lowering the powder charge to 17gr of 2400. I did not put them over the chrono since I did not have time. But I'm guestimating that they are in the 1400+ fps range.

So, it appears that properly filling the bore, regardless of the pitting, has solved 95% of the problem. I say 95% because I have not shot it off the bench at 500 yds yet to see how it groups. That will happen shortly.

I just took delivery of a new NOE mould in their version of the 314299. It is currently seasoning in my oven in prep for casting some bullets. I still have some from the Lyman mould I used last week so I'll shoot those at the next match. But I'm itchy to get some out of this new mould.

I'll report back with results.
 

Snakeoil

Well-Known Member
The NOE 314210 (copy of Lyman 314299) is establishing a wonderful relationship with my 03. Shot what we call our Silver Bullet Match last week and shot a 17/20 for a 20 shot match with targets at 300, 400 and 500 yds. Also hit the coyote offhand at 500. Groups were very tight in spite of some challenging conditions.

Today, shot a standard BPCR silhouette match with the same rifle and hit 10 chickens, pigs and rams. But the turkeys instilled a sense of humility like they always do. Conditions were changing light, wind and mirage. I did a great job of getting round as close as possible to that damn bird without hitting it. Only managed to put 3 on the steel after putting 2 on with sighters. But a score of 33 is nothing to be ashamed of. Match was shot off the bench with my 15x Lyman STS.

I hope to get to my local range this week and put some rounds on paper at 100 yds.

What this is demonstrating is all the hubbub about bore condition appears to be some much urban legend. I know how pitted this old bore is and will the right bullet can hold its own with pristine star gauged barrels. I might just get my lazy arse out of bed before sunrise and get to the range before the wind and sun start to work their sorcery on the target picture and put some rounds downrange at 500 yds off the bench to see what the rifle's potential truly is.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
chuckle.
those turkeys are made from Styrofoam you can shoot them all you want but nothing happens.
 

Bill

Active Member
My 03a3 loves a fat nose 314299 the drive bands can be 309,310, or 311 it don't care as long as that nose is 304 or so, the 190 gr noe is working also

Bill