Paper patch 311466 in the Garand?

[GrizzLeeBear]

I've got a nice 4 cavity 311466 that makes lots of very nice 150 gr. boolits fast. I tried them in my Garand with up to 32 gr. of IMR 4895 and 1 gr. of dacron but it did not function the action fully. I've also got a load that works with the 180 gr. Lee and RE-15, but I would like to find a load with the 311466. I'm worried that if I try to go any faster (to get the action working) I will be getting too much velocity and start leading with regular gas checked boolits.
Would paper patching water dropped wheel weight 311466's allow me to push the velocity up around the 2200 - 2400 fps needed to function the action with either 4895 or RE-15?

[Kenny Wasserburger]

Sounds like one hell of a good way to plug up the gas system hang up the op rod and have a wreck.

The rifle was made to shoot jacketed bullets period. Find a old 06 bolt gun and have a ball.

KW
The Lunger

[BruceB]

The Garand works very well with cast bullets, both with dacron and without.

Paper patching is a needless complication in such a rifle, and I'd be concerned about it affecting (impeding) the chambering of the round. Free chambering is absolutely essential in this design, as well as the M1A. I've never found even a trace of dacron in the gas system, even after firing hundreds of consecutive rounds.

311466 worked well for me in the Garand and M1A for a long time, up to about 2000 fps. Lately, I've become aware that even when I thought it was seated deep enough to avoid contact with the rifling origin, it was in fact making contact hard-enough that I pulled a couple of bullets from their cases when extracting loaded rounds. I haven't yet tried seating them deeper, but I'm not too sure that it's going to work.

If your rifle will accept the design without seating too deeply, then your load of 4895 is simply too light. Try taking it up to maybe as much as 38 grains, and it may work fine. Remember that the service load of 4895 with a 150-grain bullet is fully 47 grains. You will NOT get anywhere near arsenal-load pressures with charges under 40 grains.

If the bullet doesn't want to co-operate with heavier loads of 4895, then try a slower powder. I'd recommend one of the 4350s or 4831s. These are NOT USEABLE in the Garand with jacketed bullets, but offer great utility with cast loads. I think the best results will come with a heavier bullet, but 150s will still work well. Just be very careful to ensure easy chambering!

There's a LOT of info available here for the Garand. Do a search with the terms "Garand", "M1", and anything else you can think of.

[GrizzLeeBear]

The rifle was made to shoot jacketed bullets period. Find a old 06 bolt gun and have a ball.

KW
The Lunger

Kenny, you haven't done much reading here have you. Lots of info. on cast boolits in the Garand.

Bruce, thanks for the info. Yes, I have done LOTS of searches for info. on cast in the Garand. I made sure my seating depth does NOT contact the rifling. I initially had my COL a little long on a dummy round and the boolit was engraving when chambered. So I dropped a boolit into the chamber and held it in place with a short dowel rod and measured to the muzzle with a cleaning rod on the nose of the boolit. Then marked the cleaning rod with it against the closed bolt face. Measured between the two marks to get the COL to the lands and seated my boolits .020 shorter. Oddly enough, that puts me just a little longer than the 3.000 OAL listed in the Lyman Cast Bullet book.
I think I will work my way up some more with the 4895 and RE-15. I have almost 8 lbs of each of them, so I would like to get something to work with them instead of going to a slower powder if I can. If nothing else, the load with the 180 gr. Lee shows promise with 37 gr. of RE-15 and I can work on tweeking that one, but it sure is nice to cast boolits faster with the 4 banger vs the Lee 2 cavity.

[Kenny Wasserburger]

As for cast bullets yeah plenty of Info YOU asked bout Paper patch as I recall? Still a BAD IDEA.\ In my opinion

I can remind ya if you like?

Would paper patching water dropped wheel weight 311466's allow me to push the velocity up around the 2200 - 2400 fps needed to function the action with either 4895 or RE-15?

The Lunger

[303Guy]

I would have thought the Garand to be the ideal semi-auto for paper patching. The gas port is a long way from the peak chamber pressure area.

A paper patch is tougher than plain lead and if the Garand works with plain cast then it should work well with patched, I would think. For starters it can take full loads (starting loads should be good). For starters, if the first few shots print a 'group' then the chances of boolit damage and hense gas system fouling would be pretty low. That would be my thinking anyway!)

I'd be very interested to know one way or the other and am looking forward to GrizzLeeBear trying it and reporting back. (Well, I'm hoping he will try it! )

[clodhopper]

I did some testing with PP in a M-1. Could not get away from wild flyers. Could be paper crimpimg during chambering. It works much better with gascheck LLA lube and around 41 grains of IMR 4831 plus dacron wad. With out the dacron, unburned powder would be in the chamber. Residue there soon prevents bolt closing.
Still can not make it shoot as good as with bulk fmj jacketed bullets. Still experimenting.

[303Guy]

clodhopper

Was there any crud build up or whatever in the gas operation system?

Might I ask what alloy, boolit weight, powder and charge and patching you used?

[clodhopper]

303Guy,
Got lead in the gas port jamming the op rod with 4895 loads and un PP gas checked bullets. No other gas system problems.
IMR 4895 starting about 34 grains got good function about 37 grain in warm weather. And IMR 4831 starting at 36 grains with function achived near 39 grains.
Alloy was unsientific WW+ about 1.5% lead free solder air cool, aged several weeks.
Bullets tried were Lyman 311-291, RCBS 150, RCBS 180 FN, Lee 150 FN, Lee 170 FN. FN bullets caused some feed failures.
Patching 9# Southward onionskin with cockle finish, 2 wraps, bullet sized to .309 wraped with water, air dried, lubed, with Johnson paste wax and sized to .309.
Of the moulds avaible the 311-291 was best for feed, the The RCBS 150 for base not protruding past the neck into the case.
Wonder if the gas port ripped the patch?

[303Guy]

Wonder if the gas port ripped the patch?

Well, I would theorize that it wouldn't. That doesn't make it so. As Kenny says, "The rifle was made to shoot jacketed bullets". This means that consideration need be given to damage to the bullet during feeding. My mini-14 dinged the case mouth and scratched the case on the neck and shoulder during chambering. That was fixed by radius-ing the chamber to face on one side where the damage was occurring. I can understand how with a plain cast boolit and some flame cutting that there would be lead build up in the gas system and I can understand how lead might scrape into the gas port but a paper patched boolit shaving paper into the gas port? The only way to find out would be to fire a number of PP rounds from the mag and note how many it takes to foul the gas system then repeat but with hand feeding into the chamber and see whether it takes the same number of rounds. The thing is, if the patch is being damaged on chambering then one can expect flame cutting and so on.

[clodhopper]

303Guy,
I only got lead in the gas port with bullets lacking paper patch.
I really need to load some more pp bullets, chamber them, then eject them un-fired and inspect for patch damage.
I have failed to take this step so far.
Recent distractions have left this project on the back burner.

[Ekalb2000]

Any update?
I am very interested.

Thanks

andy

[pdawg_shooter]

I no longer have a M1 but when I did I used the 311466, sized .3015 and patched up with 16# printer paper. Loaded over 48.0gr of H4895. Many thousand rounds with NO problems. Fellow offered me 4 times what I had in it for the M1 so now it is long gone.

[dualsport]

But now you don't have a Garand, that's not good. I think I get the reasoning for PP in the Garand, it's for higher velocity than possible with nekkid boolits, right? If so, that's good, I'd like to try your load and see for myself. How was the accuracy and any estimates on velocity? I've been messing with the Bob S. load, must be doing something wrong, poor results so far, but I'll get there. I got carried away and put COW on top of the dacron/4831. Wild accuracy but the gas system was fine, no clogging/leading at all. That gas port hole is good size, not that easy to clog. My goal is a good load for milsurp silhouettes out to 500 meters, gotta be able to hold about 2 moa to get those rams way out there. I just got a used 311284, that might fix things up.

[pdawg_shooter]

No idea on the velocity, but must have been around 2700 or so. The rifle would group around 2.5 inches at 100, just about the same as jacketed. I always shot in the top 5 in matches at the local rifle club.

[Crash_Corrigan]

I have had decent results with the Lyman 311284 boolits in my M-1. Over a load of 30 gr of 4064 with a dacron tuft stuffed to the base of the boolit and two wraps of computer paper, sized down to .308 and then wrapped wet in a cigarette roller and then resized with JPW dad at .309 I was getting a reliable function of the weapon and 1790 FPS velocity.

It made for a very reliable and easy on the ears and shoulder load. With the low speed boolits I had to raise the sights some but it was fun and pretty good out to 200 yds on steel plates. Bang.....CLANG. A really sweet sound. Easy on the brass, gun and pockets.