Re: 9.3x72R

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Really nice rifle/shotgun. As for the ammo, I know a smart lady like you will rise to the occasion!!!!
All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All, separated from government, are compatible with liberty.-Henry Clay
Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.—Aristotle

Re: 9.3x72R

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Marlene wrote: Sun Dec 30, 2018 11:37 pm 9.3x74 is way bigger in diameter.

I’m gonna cut on this die some more before I spend money
Ah crap my bad.
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
- Maya Angelou

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Re: 9.3x72R

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Marlene,

I recently put a cased H&H Royal double in an upcoming auction. It is in 360 2 1/2 nitro express. Since I started with new cases, I used 9X18 Makarov dies. I ground an old reamer I had to approximate the bullet shape and used it to reform the seating plug. A universal decapper took care of the spent primer. Come to think of it I think I have still have jacketed bullets that are left over which I'd be happy to send you.

Re: 9.3x72R

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I took a bit more off the mouth of the .30-30 die and then flared the opening a bit to avoid a step. It's better and damn close, but I'll have to make one more trip to the shop to get it right. Old RCBS dies are hard enough to resist drilling, but turn out to machine quite nicely with carbide tools.
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Re: 9.3x72R

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So, with my odd combo of mangled die parts, I managed to get five rounds assembled that would chamber. I used the MkI Enfield pistol bullets lubed with my favorite case lube, which is a waxy tapping and drilling lube (it was on the bench when I had five bullets to lube by hand, worked fine but way too expensive for this use). I used 26.4 grains of 3031, which is an appropriate very light load, because that’s what I’d been loading earlier that day in 30 Remington and not changing the powder measure seemed easy.

Shot the five on Friday. With tiny weird iron sights, I managed to put them all inside a group that’s maybe 8-10” on the outside. Pressure was so low that there was lots of unburned powder in the barrel. I expect some load work up will improve this a lot. I’m very optimistic.

Today I decided to go the whole way and make a sizing die. I worked from the chamber cast dimensions and made a reamer for the die (a few thousands smaller than the chamber). While I wouldn’t use them for production work, I’m a big fan of single flute reamers (also called D reamers) when I need to make one for a specific purpose. Tomorrow I’ll see if I can sharpen this thing up and cut the die.

Here’s the target and the reamer:
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Re: 9.3x72R

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AndyH wrote: Wed Dec 19, 2018 9:40 pm It's like a 9mm magnum-magnum-magnum-magnum. :shock:
Or a .357 Maximum Maximum. :D

Fucking cool gun. How you afford that and Bay Area cost-of-living on an honest artisan's salary I can't imagine! :ninja:
IMR4227: Zero to 900 in 0.001 seconds

I'm only killing paper and my self-esteem.

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Re: 9.3x72R

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Marlene wrote: Mon Jan 07, 2019 10:51 pm
Shot the five on Friday. With tiny weird iron sights, I managed to put them all inside a group that’s maybe 8-10” on the outside.
What range? 100 yards?

Congratulations! How do you go about working up for this sort of loading? Meaning, when do you decide to stop?
IMR4227: Zero to 900 in 0.001 seconds

I'm only killing paper and my self-esteem.

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Re: 9.3x72R

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Yeah. 100 yards. Sorry.

I’ve got some load data to work from, most of which comes from one magazine article from 1991. That and running some stuff through a piece of software called Quickload gives me a starting basis and some expectations about the relationship between velocity and pressure with the powder I’m using. I’ve got numbers I won’t go past, but I also know some things from experience.

The gun was cheap. My time working on it is the part I couldn’t afford if I had to pay for it.

Thanks Lurker.
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Re: 9.3x72R

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The other thing that’s critical to my ability to do stuff like this is having supportive and enthusiastic friends to listen and share and help troubleshoot and research. Particular thanks on load data research go to Shinzen and some very useful loading discussion (and remarkable generosity) from JoelB.
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Re: 9.3x72R

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We could write that. Sure.

I cut the die this morning. I couldn’t wait to try the reamer. I’m using a die blank from PT&G that has a 30 caliber pilot hole, which is why the reamer has such a little pilot. From this pic, you can see from where it’s making chips, that the chamber of this gun isn’t a straight taper, but a short taper at the base and a straight section forward of that for most of the case length.

Fingers crossed that this makes nice brass that chambers!
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Re: 9.3x72R

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I'm playing a bit more with the die, but I'm also working on loads with those first five cases I formed and fired once. The initial loads were too light to even fully fire form the brass. I've reloaded them with some 250 grain thin jacketed bullets I got from JoelB, over a slightly less-timid load of 3031. Next range day involves a lot of testing. This, the AR that looks a bit like a Johnson, and some more load development with my .40-65
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Re: 9.3x72R

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I saw a top break single shot 9.3×72R about three months ago. It was a beautiful gun, but there was a lot of play in the lock. I didn't want to spend what the owner was asking for it. I did some research though, and I'm pretty sure ammo is available from S&B and another manufacturer. If I remember correctly the cartridge is pretty close to the .375 Win.

Re: 9.3x72R

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I finally gave in and sent a chamber cast to the nice folks at CH4D and they figured which of the three versions of dies they have is the one I want. $180 later, I have dies that work. Loaded ten rounds a few days ago and I’ll take them to the range next week.

This morning I shot the 16ga barrel for the first time. Hit a few clays pretty easily once I figured out how to sight. This is a really neat gun. Somebody buy me an estate on which to wander in search of rabbit, birds, or deer. I’ll bring back whichever I see first for dinner.
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