6mm Musgrave. Part 2.

[dromia]

I shot my first handloads in one of my 6mm Musgrave Lee Enfield No1 action conversions last week and was pleasantly pleased with the rifle and rounds accuracy.

I've been spending some time adding to the first 50 cases I converted and thought that some of you might like to see some photographs of the process.

The case is a necked down .303" British to 6mm or .243". I used a two stage forming process to form the brass finishing off with decapping. I used HXP brass for my first 50 rounds but found the brass a bit thick with one of the rifles needing to have the cases neck turned to fit the chamber. This time round I used PPu brass as it is thinner and the neck fits the chamber on both rifles after forming. The brass is firstly neck sized in a 6.5 x 55 die to get it started and then is formed in the FL 6mm Musgrave die. These dies are Lee very special run and I was lucky enough to find a shop in the states with two sets and I had them over here within a week.

Here is a picture of a 303 parent case alongside a formed 6mm Musgrave. All the 303 brass was once fired.



This is the 303 case about to go into the 6.5 x 55 die.



Neck sized down to 6.5 and about to go into the 6mm Musgrave FL die.



Finished case about to go into the decapper.



Formed and decapped case ready for prepping.



The cases were trimed to length, had their primer pockets cleaned, neck deburred inside and out, flash hole was deburred and the primer pocket was uniformed. The whole process was done using Lyman power tools.

On the case trimmer.



Ready for primer pocket cleaning.



Clean and shiny.



After the merry go round of case mouth deburring, flash hole deburring and primer pocket uniforming.



Ready for priming and dropping the powder, I'm using PPu LR primers and Hodgdon 4350 37-39 gns gave good results and will be developed further.





Now for a bit of bullet seating.





Finished rounds.






Phwoarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

[Sandgroper]

Nice work, very informative. :goodjob:

Finding the right brass to neck down to .25 was a concern of mine, but you've solved that problem with the PPU brass.

When does the load development start and what sort of performance are you expecting?

[dromia]

Had my first run out with one of them last week.

4" x 2" groups at 200yrds with iron sights, thus explaining the vertical size of the group, easy moa. I'll get less when I work on it I'm sure.

Thread is here:

http://www.full-bore.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=5023

[Sandgroper]

I just read pt 3 and I see it's equal to a 243, but it's not a run of the mill 243!

[dromia]

Its not quiet a .243 as the No1 action isn't proofed for .243" Win pressures so its about 100fps shy of the .243". Its still a 3,000 fps .243" though and more than good enough for freezer filling.

[dromia]

The perfect .243", a proper rimmed case and an Enfield action, tack driving accuracy with good ballistics, what more could anyone want?

Wait 'till I get some cast boolits down them.

[ovenpaa]

Have you decided what you are going to use the rifle for Dromia?

[dromia]

You mean other than the sheer pleasure of owning them, reloading for them and shooting them for its bitsy groups at hundreds of yards?

I'll obviously take some meat with it over the Hogmanay when I'm up in Scotland as thats what they were made for. I'll get hours of endless fun doing load development and having two I'll probably have one for jacketed and the beasts and another one for cast boolits and playing around with the infinity of options that loading cast boolits gives you.

Besides that I haven't really decided.

[Sandgroper]

The world's your oyster! :lol:

[Dougan]

Cool photos - An interesting round, going in an interesting rifle . Will probably be even better groups now the cases are fireformed....

Btw: I'm envious of your mancave :mrgreen: