Doble Troble

One down, many to go.

Damn, Jason. Nice polishing and especially nice carving on that grip. It looks really good! How's the humidity out there? Maybe its time to try a rust blue (with that polish it would look awesome).

It's a great cartridge and caliber for wounding. I think anyone who has killed a few large and small mammals understands the limitations, especially when loaded with FMJ. If we loaded them up with HP it would be an entirely different story. There is a lot to be said about carrying a lot of ammo, but when you're not shooting expanding bullets a 30 cal beats a 22 every time. Maybe we should go back to the 45-70. A Garand or M14 chambered in 8 x 57 seems like a good compromise of bore diameter, ballistics and documented ability to supply and carry enough ammo. And the comment (from a disarmed beaurocrat living in Washington DC) about 18 y/o's in combat not being able to shoot accurately fries my last nerve. We clearly need to start training our youngsters in primary school how to shoot accurately. Once trained accurate shooting is instinctual. But this scares the hell out of our government, which it should, which is why this type of training is so important. I propose that part of "no child left behind" should be the demonstrated ability to shoot a rimfire rifle course of fire with a respectable score before admission to high school. Then centerfire proficiency becomes mandatory.

I thought you guys would find this interesting (as I did) on D-Day.

Welcome to chambering! The shoulder of the reamer is definitly going to take off more material toward the end than the body of the reamer. Its also very possible that your reamer is on the thin side of tolerances while the A&B reamer was on the large side. I wouldn't worry about it as long as headspace checks-out. We've all been there having to take a bit more off the shoulder, so you should feel good about not being left out of the experience. If you're chambering for accuracy you should consider your first loads to be fire forming, and then adjust your die to neck size only. Hopefully your chamber isn't so big that this results in sizing of the case walls too. If this does turn-out to be the case, don't worry, just get yourself a collet neck sizing die (cheap from Lee) and your problem is solved. For hunting accuracy you should be fine with the FL sizer, for target loads neck size and everything's good. Congrats on your first chamber! More details are in order, cartridge, action, etc... I am obsessive about checking the quality of reamer cutting with a flashlight - I think this comes from a history of using crappy (home made) reamers (not all are crappy, but a few have been, and its hard to predict in advance how well a home made job is going to cut). Make sure your chamber is smooth and shiny, if its not some emery paper can help (but will increase the the chamber a hair - but if it prevents unsightly ridges on your cases [that can create extraction problems] its a good thing). The other thing to think about before taking the barrel out of the lathe is to put a bit of chamfer on the mouth of the chamber. If you cut it good and clean the edge will be sharp and will happily cut into cases during chambering - either shaving brass or preventing chambering. I do this with a lathe tool at ~ 45*, but others use a counter sink. Just a hair of a cut is all that's needed. Congrats again!

Fritz, Do you have your eye on on that bridge (like a good troll)? I'm accused constantly of being a troll and not wanting to be around annoying other people. Sometimes there is truth in accusations.

Very, very nice. The USGI stock really makes it, and you did and excellent job with the finish - its beautiful.

Well we got rained-out. Thunder, lightning and a torrent from heaven at 8:30 am. As soon as the match was officially called off it pretty-much cleared-up. We all had a great time anyway shooting everyone else's Garands and 03s and ammo. I did get a chance to shoot the 03A3 (but only about 5 rounds of lake city before a new guy ["I've never seen one of those in person"] cut in). The five LC M2 ball that I shot was a nice 2" group with three touching so I'm pretty sure the modifications did the trick. I won't have time to put it through its paces and fire the handloads until July sometime. Clemson, I don't know what part of SC you're in, but we're in Greenville NC and (having come from Oregon the states out here seem to change as fast as you need to stop and make water). It can't be too far of a drive and its a very new person friendly environment. You should bring up those Garands and put them through their paces. The plan is to make-up this match in August, probably the 14th (if that's a Saturday). Please let me know if you want to come up and I'll do what I can to get you set-up.

Thanks, Clemson. The 03A3 throat is far enough out, but I haven't tried to run this bullet/OAL combo through my Garand yet. The reason I seated it out is because of a comment on the MidwayUSA site (where I bought the bullets) that seating these to the cannulature wasn't far enough for the Garand and resulted in some type of gas-related problem. I probably pay too much attention to comments elsewhere due to the excellent advice I've been able to trust here. I've been very sensitive to throating issues since loading various bullets for my K-31 Swiss. Mine has the shortest throat I've run across so far. I'm not sure it even has a throat I've got to seat the bullets so far in. I learned this the hard way loading to the OAL recommended in the Hornady manual and not checking feeding with a dummy first. I got to the range, placed a cartridge in the magazine (a Mauser habit), closed the weird straight-pull action closed with authority and...it didn't go into battery. With effort I managed to get the bolt open by pounding with the palm of my hand...the bullet stayed in the barrel and about half the powder dumped into the action. I was done for the day and completed my first experience reloading for the K-31. The bullet took a bit of pounding with a cleaning rod to dislodge and there was about 1/4" of rifling engraving in the jacket. Most bullets (e.g. my favorite cheap Rem 150 gr CLs) I have to seat significantly further than the cannulature for easy chambering with that K-31. Anyway, now that I've waxed off topic for WAY too long...we have a Garand match tomorrow. I was considering using the 03A3 but didn't get a chance to sight it in today so I'll probably stick with my Garand unless I get a wild hair at the last minute. But I'll be taking it with me and should be able to get enough Lake City M2 rounds down range with it to tell if its going to be as accurate as I'd originally hope (and as accurate as everyones elses seem to be).

What kind of accuracy are you guys getting out of these? These projects sound like a lot of fun (as if I need more fun). P.S. What is a trunion? R. Neumann - please do document your next project. For some reason I think I need an AK in 8 x 57, and If I could build one...maybe I could figure-out a way to actually have one (or maybe I can finally find a way to blow myself up which I haven't been successful yet with those darn, safe M98s...maybe my first one should be a 7.62x39...it might be really cool to make a wildcat in 6.5 x 39...). P.P.S. I think this thread is entirely 100% on topic.

Hey fritz, I think you have a personal problem (no offense). The board is still lightning fast for me. I think Jason is probably onto something with the cookie issue. What did you do to your computer?

Here are some pix of the 03A3 that I got from CMP a few years ago. I'd heard that it was unlikely to find an 03 in reasonable shape that wouldn't outshoot an unmodified Garand, and the Garand I got from them was very accurate, so I was really looking forward to this one when it finally arrived. When it did arrive it was in beautiful shape for a surplus rifle. It had clearly been rebuilt and stored unused. After cleaning the cosmo out of the barrel, the bore was brilliantly shiny but only a 2-groove. I'd never seen a two groove before and it was shocking how little rifling there is in one of these. But I'd read that tests support no accuracy differences between two- and four-groove barrels and so I wasn't troubled...until I shot it. With the Korean M2 ball that my Garand shoots into four inches at 100 yds, this 03A3 would put into a 12" shotgun pattern with the occasional flyer. Bummer. Everything was tight, and it looked really good, so I was stumped. Even Lake City M2 wasn't much of an improvement. The 91/30 that I hand drill counterbored could outshoot this A3 with slave labor-produced surplus ammo. So this rifle has been sitting in the gun closet for years. Every once in a while I'd take it to the range, hoping that my prior experiences would somehow just go away, but it was the same every time. I'd been thinking of selling it, or trading it. It really is a good looking rifle and I'm sure that any buyer would have been temporarily happy, but I just didn't feel right trying to sweep my problem under someone else's rug - I wouldn't expect anyone to try to do this to me, and if they did they'd hear about it. So I was stuck with it, and of course am a Bubba at heart, and so despite it's excellent condition, decided I had to do something with it. I had pretty-much decided that I was going to have to buy a 4 groove and rebarrel when I decided to check how the current barrel was fitting into the stock. It became clear that there was a lot of stock/barrel contact from both the handguard in the rear and much upward pressure from the stock at the muzzle end. I coated the barrel with inletting black and put it back together. I took off the high spots with this barrel bedding tool that I wouldn't be without.. I repeated this about a thousand times until the barrel was free-floated. Although I'd accepted the fact that I was stuck with it and the Bubba in me didn't care, this modification didn't alter the appearance of the rifle in any way that I can tell. The barrel channel is actually better than when I started, and it was saturated with cosmolene and so its impossible to tell where wood was removed. I took it out to the range last week and it now shoots Korean M2 ball into 4" at 100 yds just like my Garand (which is MOA with handloads). The only problem is that it shoots them 4" high with the rear sight as low as it goes. Time for more modification. I removed the front sight (I had to make a drift by grinding-down a broken tap - that's a tiny, British-sized pin) and found that it was an A which is the highest issue blade. These blades are 0.050" steel. I had some aluminum stock, which just wasn't right even for a Bubba like me, so I orderd some steel (and too much other stuff) from Online Metals. It took about 15 min to fabricate the sight shown which is 0.035" taller than the issue blade. I'll be taking a file with me to the range as I suspect there will be a few thous more to remove ( based on Brownell's sight height calculator). The load shown is a Hornady FMJ 150 gr that are very reasonably priced. I've loaded sets of five rounds each, from 42.5 to 44.5 gr AA2495 seated out to 3.333" OAL. These are Garand loads. I'm hoping one of these will shoot into a ragged hole with the modified 03A3. Hope springs eternal! I think this is a big reason shooting and milsurps are so much fun.

Jason posted about a friend who successfully converted a Mauser to feed 325 WSM. The issues he faced may be the same as what you'll need to do. Here's a link.

VERY COOL! There are many similarities between the M14 and the M1 Garand. The biggests differences are the M14s are chambered in 7.62 x 51 (most M1s are 30-06, but some have been rebarreled to 308) and they have the detachable magazine. You can shoot it in a Garand Match. If you have a shooter, enjoy it, and if you decide to sell it and Sailormilan doesn't want it any more, let me know!

You go, Rev! Idaho's great this time of year (its pretty good any time of year). Sun and fun. See if you can ride one of those bears - yee haw!

Bummer all around, Jason. Make sure to email your state representatives about the deer population problem. Maybe they'll improve your season. The population is so robust out here that we can take six deer from September to the end of the year. Two of these MUST be does.

Jason, a small, probably annoying clarification; it's not chlorophyll you need for making ethanol, its carbohydrate - sugars that can be consumed by yeast. But you're entirely correct that virtually every organism that contains chlorophyll uses it to synthesize and store carbohydrate that is useful for ethanol fermentation. If it grows, ferment it (this is how our forefathers thought, kind-of puts a new spin on the idea of 'internal combustion')!

Nice link! When you pull the barrel let us know what you find.

I like the idea of preparing to have pills in people's hands in 48 hr. The gun confiscation idea is another story. Being armed should always being a priority. During a crisis it becomes a necessity.

What this country needs is another Reagan. Hopefully we'll find him/her.

I vote for Karl's CODE too! Those who survive it can be made to become self-sufficient under Horsefly's system. I also think that this problem is at least partially related to the break-down in our society's expectation of responsible and civil behavior. Being nice somehow has become unimportant. I believe that something as simple as a general refusal on the part of Americans to continue tolerating unkind behavior could have a dramatic effect on this problem. When you witness someone being unkind and inappropriate call them on it, and tell them to behave (this is easier to do with a 38 in your pocket which is why Americans should keep and bear arms).

When your dad was earning 17% inflation was at 14% so by the time he got his money back he could only buy 3% more than if he'd already spent it. But there's nothing wrong with that.

Whoops.

Interesting article in the SF Chronicle

Link to story. 1/136 Americans are imprisioned. This isn't a good trend. 2.2 million negatively-productive people is a lot for a society of 270 million to support. How can it be stopped?