This Old Gun..:)

[hammered54]

been reading a lot here lately about....datums, headspace...lifted primers and so on.
now with my old gun..a 1919 Mark 1 03 these were of interest to me as each of those topics seem to have surfaced with mine.
first before anything it went to the shop and head space was checked ( a concern of mine as it had a bolt not original to the gun (cc) ...it was good.
now with that out of the way I went to our range and fired some of my reloads,
( pretty common loads) 45.7 G of IMR 4895 with 168 sierra hpbt CCI primer ( M1 grand loads from Hornady Book) a few showed a high primer 3 out of 20, read that thread....peeked my interest, now back at the shop for another unrelated task I ask about it (head space) he said no biggie but he checked it again ( good) told me I should think about using fire formed brass...my next project.
now with that out of the way Ive notice a small line just below the "datum"
which brings up the next topic....seems this may be from a edge in the chamber leaving this mark, it wouldn't be a concern to me if I was just shooting and not reloading but after a few times resizing / firing it may split there.....with that said would that chamber hone ( another thread) help remove that issue ?
I'd like to start shooting this on a weekly basis and hone my shooting skills without stuff like this in the back of my mind.

open for any and all comments and thanks for letting me ramble a bit.


Matt.

[RickB]

I, too, have an '03 Mk. 1, and when I took it to a local shop for headspace testing, the bolt would close on a no-go, but not on a field gauge.
I've shot maybe 100 handloads through it, and while the brass looks OK on the outside after firing, it must be stretching some, and when I sized those cases they did need trimming.
I have not pursued neck-sizing, or anything to address the excess headspace, as I just don't shoot my '06s enough for it to become an issue.