Quoheleth
Member
I recently inherited my Dad's Marlin 336 .30-30 with micro-groove rifling. It'a s nice shooter and in very good condition.
Wanting to use it for plinking, I bought dies and some commercial, hard cast lead .311 bullets.
I deprimed and full-length sized my brass (Lee dies) and then trimmed to length with the Lee trimmer. Case mouths were slightly belled so as to not shave the bullets and charged with 12.5gr Alliant 2400 and a Winchester large rifle primer. Bullets were seated to crimp groove and crimped with a medium-heavy crimp.
I made 18 rounds (had only 18 pieces of brass). Of those 18 rounds, two would not chamber at all - the lever would not close all of the way. The others required more force than factory ammo to fully close the action - some more than others. I fired the ones that would chamber and accuracy was horrible - although, I found out last night part of the problem was probably a loose screw on a scope base (which I subsequently have taken off). Extraction was not difficult, as I recall. The bullets are not keyholing - they punch nice, clean holes in the paper.
What's frustrating is that my previous loads of Unique (I want to say it was 8gr, but I just don't remember) with untrimmed brass, they chambered with a little difficulty but not as much as some of these with 2400. And, accuracy was pretty good - 3" @ 50 yards, with the same scope. I tried 2400 to try to bump the velocity up a bit.
I checked the barrel last night as best I could. I could not see major leading, at least from the half-way point to muzzle. I cannot tell what's down by the chamber. I have a boresnake but not a cleaning rod.
Any thoughts as to what I am doing wrong with my sizing? The first thing that has come to mind is that the .311 bullet is just THAT MUCH too big to chamber - .002" is making that big of a differnce and is making it difficult to chamber. My clue is the easy extraction. But, the folks over at the cast bullets forum say .311s are golden in the Marlin.
Thanks,
Q
Wanting to use it for plinking, I bought dies and some commercial, hard cast lead .311 bullets.
I deprimed and full-length sized my brass (Lee dies) and then trimmed to length with the Lee trimmer. Case mouths were slightly belled so as to not shave the bullets and charged with 12.5gr Alliant 2400 and a Winchester large rifle primer. Bullets were seated to crimp groove and crimped with a medium-heavy crimp.
I made 18 rounds (had only 18 pieces of brass). Of those 18 rounds, two would not chamber at all - the lever would not close all of the way. The others required more force than factory ammo to fully close the action - some more than others. I fired the ones that would chamber and accuracy was horrible - although, I found out last night part of the problem was probably a loose screw on a scope base (which I subsequently have taken off). Extraction was not difficult, as I recall. The bullets are not keyholing - they punch nice, clean holes in the paper.
What's frustrating is that my previous loads of Unique (I want to say it was 8gr, but I just don't remember) with untrimmed brass, they chambered with a little difficulty but not as much as some of these with 2400. And, accuracy was pretty good - 3" @ 50 yards, with the same scope. I tried 2400 to try to bump the velocity up a bit.
I checked the barrel last night as best I could. I could not see major leading, at least from the half-way point to muzzle. I cannot tell what's down by the chamber. I have a boresnake but not a cleaning rod.
Any thoughts as to what I am doing wrong with my sizing? The first thing that has come to mind is that the .311 bullet is just THAT MUCH too big to chamber - .002" is making that big of a differnce and is making it difficult to chamber. My clue is the easy extraction. But, the folks over at the cast bullets forum say .311s are golden in the Marlin.
Thanks,
Q
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