Rossi Rifleman

Have you ever slugged a bore then looked at the slug and the bore and wonder if that slug actually came out of that bore? I slugged my M44 Moison the other day using a barrel sinker and got a slug that shows 4 lans and grooves of roughly equal size. All I can say is looking down the bore it doesn't "look" that way. Just weird.

I was able to determine why it wont shoot any of my assorted 30 caliber cast bullets. Biggest one I have drops a little over .311 and I've measured .313 across both sets of grooves. I think I'm going to cast a bunch of 311s then powder coat them up to 313/314 and see what happens. I tried a few commercial 308s and knew there was a problem when half of them went side ways through the 100 yard target .

This slug was an eye opener, wonder what I'll find with the m48 in 8x57 .

Make smoke,

My Mosin didn't shoot cast well until I filled the throat and ignored the bore size. IIRC, I have a .317 bullet squeezing into a .313.5 bore. The case neck has just enough clearance to expand and release the bullet.

This thread reminds me of my early trials with my 16 ga. x 8x57 drilling. Proof marks on the rifle barrel indicated it as the smaller bore size for 8mm, the .318. So I collected an assortment of European .318 jacketed bullets, bought an RCBS sizer to shrink .323 Nosler Partitions to .318, assembled loads, test fired some, and took the weapon hunting.

Mule deer at 150 yards dropped at the shot. A week later I hit a small bull elk at 30 or so yards. As he staggered away I put another one in him at 80 yards. The bullet I recovered from him was poorly engraved, not mushroomed at all; in fact it was bent indicating it had hit the elk while key holing or tumbling, probably the former. I was suspicious immediately.

I slugged the barrel. The result was .3235 by .3245! So much for believing proof marks. Of course the bright side of all this is that .323 bullets are rather common compared to .318. And I still get to use my special order RCBS sizer for projectiles for a friend's .318 drilling.

A buddy of mine picked up a M1 Garand.
He couldn't get better than 9" groups at 50 yards with it.
I couldn't get better than 6" groups at the same distance.
Slugging the bore the bullet was tight for about 8 inches then FELL FREE for about 6 inches and then was tight through the remaining portion of the barrel. OBVIOUSLY shot with an obstruction and bulged the bore BUT there were ZERO signs on the exterior of the gun OR the barrel even once it was stripped of the handguards and the hardware.

Same fellow bought a Tokarev that keyholed at 10-15 feet.

The Garand was rebarreled to .308 along with match trigger and front end mods.
The Tokarev was exchanged for a CZ-52.

Fortunately my M44 is tight from muzzle to chamber, just fat

Make smoke,