[Hill]

Please read the email sent to a bullet manufacturer here in South Africa. The email keeps boucing back. So I was wondering if you guys could please comment.

Hi I hope you can help me or at least forward this onto someone who can.

I have a Lee Enfield P14 .303 British Rifle. The barrel had been shortened by the previous owner. From firing pin to tip it is 56cm (22in). Now when using your factory ammo it is accurate at 100m where I normally set it in.

However on trying to reload I am battling to find a powder charge to suit the barrel.

I am using Somchem powder. S335. It states a safe start load of 37.8gr for a 150gr head. And maximum load 42gr. I cannot achieve accurate groupings anywhere in this load range and get occasional flyers over a meter off the target.

I started a range of different loads this week end. Starting at 36gr and ending at 41gr with a .5gr increment.

Unfortunately I mixed up a couple of different casings. However just before starting the shoot I decided to mark each bullet hole according to casing.

The other casings used where S&B (Sellier & Bellot) and Highland AX. These casings seem to hold more powder than the PMP's. I checked a couple of cases and the eqivalent load in the PMP where always closer to the neck of the casing than the other two cases.

Anyway during the shoot I found the rounds using the PMP casings to be the most accurate. At around 36 to 37gr I achieved reasonable grouping at 30m but not great. Rounds using the other cases and even the PMP rounds above 37gr were erratic. 90% of the time the bullet hole was not round but elongated indicating to me that the bullet was possible tumbling.

My first question is, because the barrel is about 3 inches shorter than normal, should I be using a load with a lower charge?

Would it be possible to get the factory load details to try narrow my search to find the best load for this rifle? Things like powder type and amount.

Thanking you in anticipation.
R.M.Hill