I loaded ten rounds with each of the bullets, both on 28gn of AR2206H, the Bertram seated to 2.750", the Speer to 2.800" (the speer is more pointed). This picture shows the marked differences in the shoulder between the original .303 (fireformed in my Lithgow) and the wildcat .25.
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I wanted to put them over the chrono, but the battery was flat and it was getting late, so that'll be for next time. Loads were light, similar to shooting .223 and .243 80gn loads, my seat-of-the-pants guess would be around 2600fps. I set up paper at 50m, boresighted, and fired a five-round group with the Bertram. The scope has horrible clarity and we couldn't see the 16mm black dots on white paper at 50m despite the 4-power scope, so I made some squares of four dots and nine dots. The four-dot square was barely visible, and the nine-dot square is about the width of the reticle, roughly 50mm at 50m - it's huge and blocks out the aiming dot. The post also rises slightly above the fine horizontal line so holding on the centre of the aiming square entirely blocks out the square. First group was 150mm high and about 50mm.
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There is nothing on the scope about what the clicks are but I gave the dial a couple of turns and fired a similar group with the Speers.
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Made another adjustment and put Rose on the rifle. She shot two similar groups, and we came away pretty happy with the result.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxtpqOL3xCY&t=11sBut the front two screws had hammered themselves loose so the front of the mount was bouncing about 1mm upwards under recoil. We had a play on the gongs with the Henry .22 lever before coming home.
I stripped the scope off again as the screws are rooted. Went into town hoping to get a tap to try to repair the threads, and found some replacement screws floating in the bottom of my dealer's "box of bits". But I can't find a bloody imperial thread gauge to measure the screws
The screws though are tiny, about the side of scope ring screws rather than mounting screws. So I'll drill the holes out, tap them with a metric thread, and use larger metric screws.
Doing so much pistol shooting recently, and playing with the Henry whenever we're out in the paddocks, Rose really doesn't like the scope and would prefer an aperture you thinks. I figured I'd transfer the PH5 over from my other rifle for her to try. But there are two holes tapped in the right side of the receiver, so I asked the LERAA guys about them. Seems they're for a Weaver aperture sight, similar to those I run on several of my rifles. And, incredibly, Cleaver still list them, despite it being discontinued by Weaver, and for just $70! I ordered one expecting a message yesterday saying they don't have stock, but lo, it's on its way today! So that'll make Rose very happy. I suspect that fixing the mount and putting a modern scope on it will improve her view of the scope as well, this old Japanese Bisley Deluxe 4x32 is very tough to work with (the reticle is not etched, it's a physical post and wire just in front of the ocular lens housing). I can't see any way to use the aperture with the scope installed, but if it sits up high enough to clear the charger bridge it might be possible to drill holes through the ring posts to make them "see through", but I'll probably have to make a taller front sight as well. 4mm would likely be sufficient which shouldn't weaken them at all. The monte carlo comb feels like it'll be too high for me to get down behind the aperture, but Rose might be fine with her smaller features.
I'm still waiting on the old SMLE butt stock I've ordered from one of the LERAA guys as I don't want to start cutting the monte carlo yet.
Now, if you look closely at the pic of the loaded rounds, you'll probably notice that the bullets are not standing like soldiers on parade, they look more like NAAFI workers on a smoko break. The Simplex dies are garbage, in my opinion, a complete waste of money. You'd get much nicer results with a set of Lee's cheap RGB .257 Roberts dies (if you're concerned about the .012" slack around the case head just put an o-ring over your brass to centre it when running it into the dies). Since you also need a very difficult to find thread adapter to use the Simplex dies in a proper press, it makes the die set more than twice the price of the Lee dies. The Simplex dies do not encapsulate the entire cartridge case, to keep the case head centred along the vertical axis while you work with the top of the cartridge. This allows the case head to move in the shell holder (the Simplex shell holder is of no use in a proper press). Which means that when decapping the brass, the decapping pin does not travel straight down and automatically enter the flash hole, you have to ensure the case is properly centred in the shell holder, or you are likely to break the decapping pin. I decapped two before breaking the pin, with no noticeable additional pressure to indicate an issue, it simply snapped off. So I used the decapping pin from my old .222Rem Lee Loader, but you could remove the pin from a .223 or .22-250 die and use that manually.
Then, when sizing the neck (the Simplex dies only neck-size), if the case is not properly centred in the shell holder you'll see that the necks have been skewed noticeably. The pattern continues when you seat your bullets, and you end up with the most appalling bad ammunition I've ever seen. Rolling them across the benchtop makes your head spin with the lack of concentricity. Additionally, and this may not be an issue if you are using Simplex's own press, the die screws into the thread adaptor, which then screws into the press (or Breechlock interrupted thread adaptor). This means there are two "ledges" within the seating die, that you can't see or feel, but need to feed the bullet up through to reach the seating stem. It might take ten or more attempts before you manage to get the bullet all the way up in there. I would think boat-tail bullets would be less of an issue, but flat-base bullets don't necessarily sit vertically on the case mouth, even with a good chamfer. The next issue is that there is no way to set a consistent seating depth with a proper press. The simplex dies only work the case mouth, but they've made them very short, so the ram will never get anywhere near to bottoming out or "camming over". If they had made the thread adaptor an inch or so longer (and chamfered the bottom of their dies so the brass entered more easily) that would've at least allowed you to set the dies up at the conventional height above the press. So I used the 7mm-08 seating die since it was near to hand, the 6.5x50mm would've been my preferred choice but the 7mm-08 did an adequate job of straightening the bullets, at least to be as good as you can see in the pics.
Amazingly, I went to Lee Precision to order a universal decapping die to avoid the Simplex decapping rubbish, and discovered that Lee offers .303-25 die sets! So I've ordered those, A$130 delivered, though I expect to get a $13 bill for GST when they arrive. The Simplex die set and adapter cost me $170 without including postage for the dies set as I ordered 1000 9mm bullets with it to eat the postage. And the Lee set also full length sizes for bumping the shoulders.
I measured the fire-formed brass against as it came from Bruce. I took a sample of them into the shop and ran them through the rifle before loading to make sure it fit the chamber, one case allowed the bolt to fully close, all the others held the bolt up slightly and needed to be forced down but were usable. The shoulder has blown out to be .002" wider, and backwards .002", making the brass shorter at the shoulder, they chamber perfectly now. And the base of the neck has moved forward .002", reducing the shoulder angle infinitesimally. Bruce did a fair job of trimming them to about 2.215" (they varied from about 2.205" to about 2.218" but most are close to 2.215". After firing they've shrunk back to 2.208"-2.210", and after neck-sizing are back up to 2.220", so there is some elongation there, hopefully it won't be as much as I see with .303 brass though.
The narrower bullets and shorter overall length means they don't fit the magazine very well. Is it possibly the original conversions used a spacer in the rear of the mags to push the ammo forward? The bullets just barely tuck under the front feed lips and like to pop out through the action if you have the bolt open while inserting the mag. Feeding the mag from the top is extraordinarily painful due to a sharp burr on the front edge of the scope mount, I want to grind that away while I have it off. I'll have to try some boat-tail and heavier round-nose bullets to see if that helps with this issue, but I need to measure the twist rate. Spec should be 12" twist, which limits bullet length to little more than 1.100" I think which would rule out the longer bullets.
While I'm sorting the sights out I'll load some more at 30gn of AR2206H and get some velocity data, then I'll load 100rds and have Rose practicing hitting the 120mm gongs randomly placed across the paddock from about 50m to 200m until she can reliably hit them.
