Thread Update.
I prepped 20 new PPU cases in 303 British, resizing them in my 30-40 Krag dies. Although the rifle is chambered in 30-40 Krag, the Krag rims are too thick to function in the enbloc clips. The 303 cases work very well in the clips.
I decided for the first outing to just use the old standby of 16 grains of Alliant 2400. I loaded 3 bullets, my NOE copy of the Lyman 311299 sized .310, my NOE copy of the Lyman 311284 sized to .310 and the NOE 190gr "Hunter" bullet sized to .310 (just because it was in the foremost part of my 30 caliber cast bullet drawer).
I loaded these the night before our outing. I did not have time to experiment with determining how far out I could seat the bullet, so I just covered the lube grooves and called it good. This was going to be the first time I shot this rifle, so I was more interested in fire forming the 303 brass to fit my 30-40 chamber. And I also wanted to make sure it would go bang.
I had spent the morning shooting my Enfield No 2 star in 38 S&W to see POA/POI with 158 grain bullets vs 200 grain bullets. I was able to confirm that someone had modified the front sight to work with 158 grain-ish bullets. I had set the shooting table up at 15 yards, and also set up my chronograph.
I also spent some time shooting my 44 special Ruger Flattop with my new over-sized mesquite Texas Grips versus my little Ruger 44 special Vaquero Sheriff with it's standard sized Elk grips. I will be buying more of the oversized grips from Texas Grips. They are very comfortable and fit my hand well.
So by that time the sun was fully out, the temps were in the 80's and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The wind was gusting 20-25 mph though. We had planned to shoot some clays in the afternoon, so I didn't feel like moving the shooting table and chronograph, so I shot the rifle at 15 yards just to get the chrono data and to see what would happen on the target.
The group size at 15 yards is meaningless, but I was pleased it grouped anyway.
The 311284 and 190gr Hunter bullet didn't group as tightly as the 311299, but they were still under an inch. Since I didn't do any homework seating out the bullets, I wasn't expecting anything more than the rifle to go bang. All three bullets were loaded with 16.0 grains of 2400. The average velocities were: 311299 = 1553.2 fps, 311284 = 1535.2 fps, Hunter bullet = 1559.0.
Last month I had created a report in my reloading database to print out letter sized targets with my load data on them. It makes it easy to match up the load number with the target, the loaded rounds and the chronograph data. And with as sloppy as my handwriting is, it is actually legible. I need to make a new target template for rifles with a bigger bullseye though. My eyes are so bad, there would be no way I could see this bullseye at 50 yards or beyond with open sights. But it worked pretty well at short ranges.
I'm starting to get my workflow down now. After shooting, I can just take the letter sized target generated in my reloading database, dump it into my sheetfed scanner and load it into the On Target TDS target software. It only takes a minute or so to input the POA and mark the bullet holes, and then I can capture group size and offset from POA/POI. I know this is probably overkill, but I am working harder to keep more and better records of my outings and handload performance in specific firearms.
So we had a great day shooting. I got sunburned and wind burned. And have a big smile on my face today.