oldfart

Since you've already bought a bolt on ebay and gone to a lot of other trouble this may not be the best time to bring this up, but finding parts for rifles is better done with Numrich Arms instead of ... God knows who. Also, the bolt you originally had can be converted back to C-o-C simply by replacing the cocking piece and firing-pin spring with original equipment. From the looks of the notch made for the Dayton-Traister kit, the main problem is in the finish of the metal. Right now it looks like it was hacked out with a dull chisel. I can't say for sure that you'de ever get it to work as well as you'd like, but with a whole lot of elbow greese and fine sandpaper you could probably make an improvement. The final finish would require a fine stone and even more elbow greese. Good luck! P.S. If you ever get the rifle shooting properly, hunt down the idiot that screwed it up and kill him! We don't need these kinds of problems too when we've got legislators all over the country trying to take our guns away from us.

There are probably a number of things you could do to redirect escaping gas from a split case, but the simplest thing is to use ammo that is of relatively recent manufacture. Shooting 90 year old Turkish 8mm is inviting catastrophe. The Romanian and Yugoslavian stuff is much better but neither are as good as hand-loaded. Excessive headspace could lead to a separated head but would probably show up first as stretched cases. What is much more likely is a small amount of blow-back from a punctured primer. I had that happen to me, resulting in a small cut on my forehead from a piece of the metal primer. That incident led me to installing a similar flange on my bolt and - of course- I've never had a punctured primer since.

I've put nearly 5000 rounds of 155 grain Palma bullets through mine and It's beginning to show signs of burn-out. I shoot a pretty hot load so I expected this but if you can find a good yet mild load you should get 8000+ rounds through it. I'm getting ready to buy a new one as a replacement for my old tried-and-true. By the way, mine shot 168s well out to 600 yards too.

Regarding the Perfect Powder Measure: It won't give you repeatable results right out of the box, it has to be used awhile first. I think it has to do with getting a proper coating of graphite on the moving parts or something like that. I've probably got twenty pounds of powder through mine and if I want to just run off a bunch of blasting ammo I won't even check the weights, knowing that they're all within +/- 0.2 grains. When I'm loading for target ammo I weigh every load anyhow, letting the measure drop a slightly light load then "dribbling" it up to what I want. Frankly, I think I could get the same results out of any other measure but I'd have to pay more to do it. The Lee is about $30 from the factory. Sinclair will be glad to sell you a Harrell for between $173 and $234, depending on the model. I can buy a lot of powder, primers and bullets for that kind of money.

I use the 3-hole Lee turret press (#90933) and rarely have any problems. I tried the 4-holer and found that it just didn't fit my operation. Among reloaders the Lee seems to have a bad reputation but I haven't found any real reason for it. I suppose if I were forming .308 brass from 30-06 I might break something but it's easier to just buy .308 brass. As to the price: $250 is a bit high unless he throws in a bunch of dies that you need. The press can be bought for $71.98 + S&H Directly from Lee. Good (not superior) dies can be had for less than $30 a set. A vibrating case polisher will run you about $50 and a RCBS 5-0-5 scale can be found at a gun show for less than $40. The Lee "Perfect Powder Measure" looks like a classic POS but after properly breaking it in it saeems to throw loads about as well as any other. It'll cost you the grand sum of $30 from Lee. Whenever someone asks me about reloading, I tell them to buy used stuff to get started. Not everyone likes sitting at a bench, pulling a handle and concentrating on small tasks for long periods of time. If you go out and buy a Dillon (which someone will suggest) you can lay out $660-$800 before you're ready to go. That's fine if you continue to reload but if you decide it isn't for you you don't have a bunch of money invested in specialized equipment.

I had one of those 7X57 barrels put on my wife's rifle. True, it had large-ring threads and had to be turned down, but it hasn't done anything but improve the gun. It's accurate and a pleasure to shoot.

Will, my scope mount only has three holes-- two in front and one in back. If I understand you correctly, your rifle has four holes drilled and tapped, two in the front ring and two in the rear. That sounds to me like a set-up for a two-piece base rather than my one-piece. Perhaps someone with experience with two piece bases can chime in here.

Sorry, Clemson--- I have found 8-40 screws and taps at a local hardware store. It definitely isn't your typical Ace Hardware, it's a very complete store. They don't carry a lot of those odd thread types but they do carry some of almost everything that has ever been threaded. If you're ever in Portland, look up Wink's Hardware. They've been here about a hundred years so they'll probably be here when you get here too.

I haven't used the oversized screws. Considering the effect 'Murphy' has on human events though, I'd go to the larger screws. You can generally find them a any good hardware store while the oversized ones are only available at Brownell's.

I've never shot in a postal match before, but it might be fun to see just how badly I stack up against some of you guys. I'd like to see the rules first though. Anyhoo, I can be found at yancey_dv at MSN.com. I'm sure you see the neccesary change in the address.