Reloading for the .30 Springfield

By C. S. Landis

American Rifleman, vol 63, No. 14, Dec 29, 1917 – pages 263, 264, 271

THE first thing to do when contemplating reloading is to obtain a good supply of empty shells. This is usually quite a problem to a lone rifleman and at present prices is no joke. If, however, one is fortunate enough to belong to a large rifle club this is a simple matter if the other fellows have not yet caught onto the reloading stunt. If the other men are reloading, or expecting to do so, ’tis far easier for half a dozen rich men to enter heaven than to get a supply of empties in that club.

For convenience, and to keep from looking on the dark side of things unduly, we will suppose that the shells are secured. These shells will have been fired in probably a dozen or more different rifles, each of which have individual peculiarities in chambering that manifest themselves in no uncertain terms in these fired shells. The thing to do is either to resize the whole shooting match in a full length Ideal shell resizer, or else to place the shells in a pile on the floor, sit down and make the bolt of that rifle fly until every shell is tested for perfect fit in that particular rifle chamber. Cast out every shell that sticks at all or refuses to allow the bolt to close. These large shells must all be resized.

Then they will fit unless they have been damaged around the head.’ I always keep the shells that have been resized their full length in a place by themselves as they are likely to be very slightly more accurate than the others, but very little difference can be noticed up to 500 yards range, unless very tight shells are used. In that case there is certain to be trouble from wild shots, even at 200 yards, and to be considerable more trouble from the extractor slipping over the head of the shell and leaving the shell in the rifle chamber from which it must be pounded with the help of a cleaning rod and considerable profanity.

It is necessary to use a wooden mallet in resizing the shells as a steel mallet will ruin both the resizer and the shells.

In theory the shells obtained in this manner will not shoot for nuts but in practice I have often taken 20 to 40 of these shells to the range and averaged 90 per cent or better on the military targets at either 200 or 500 yards. Applied to game shooting it means that practically every shot at 200 yards would hit a woodchuck, fox or similar animal; or a moose, caribou or elk at 500, and half of the shots would kill. This, of course, where the ranges are known exactly and a man of moderate ability shoots from the military prone position with sling.

This is not very good shooting compared to what some men will do, but it is better than I have ever seen done on our range or anywhere else by anyone using a sporting rifle and any old kind of ammunition.

So far we have the shells—all chambered and ready to load.

The first thing to do is to screw the muzzle resizer into the No. 10 Ideal Tool and resize the neck of every shell on hand that will be reloaded with metal-cased bullets. It is better to do this before the shells have been chambered as in that case quite a few of them will work all right that will not go in otherwise. The shells that will be reloaded with cast bullets are occasionally found small enough to hold the bullets without resizing but this depends on the particular rifle that they have been fired in.

A little practice with two or three shells will soon show how far it is necessary to screw tip the muzzle resizer to resize the necks properly. It will be necessary to resize the neck of every shell that has been resized its full length in the full-length shell resizer, as that resizer does not resize the necks small enough to hold the metal-cased bullets, although the shells will work freely in any rifle except those occasional rifles that have been chambered unusually small.

After the shells have been all resized at the neck, unscrew the resizer and screw the loading chamber into its place. Place the decapper inside the loading chamber and screw the chamber up until the tip of the decapper just clears the jaw face in a shell, inverting the tool over it and closing the jaws. This forces out the primer. No force is necessary and if nothing happens at once it means that the decapper nose is not down into the primer pocket and closing the jaws with considerable force will break the tip off the decapper.

After the shells are all decapped in this manner or with the aid of a sharpened nail and a hammer, take the little contrivance that comes with the tool to hold the shells in the tool, fit the tip in the hole in the jaw face, place a shell in the recapping hole and after fitting the holder in the grove in the shell and a primer over the head of the shell, close the jaws. This recaps the cartridge. This operation usually deforms the primer somewhat with a crescent shaped mark. This is likely to scare the operator but so far as I can see it does not hurt matters at all.

There is no use trying to reload shells one at a time. Get all the shells done tip to this point at one time, before bringing out any powder as it is the only way to make time. Now we have the shells all lined up in a row ready to charge. We get out the scales and powder can and get busy.

First balance the scales with a blank piece of paper on each scale pan and add or take off small pieces of paper or tin until the pointer always stops at zero on the scale. Place the small bits of paper under the big ones, then add the small weight for the full charge onto the one pan.

This weight will be from 46 to 50 grains if loading the full charge and be most mighty sure that if this small weight, or collection of weights, is or are marked 5o grains that it does weigh exactly 50 grains and not any old thing between 45 and 55 grains as is often the case. Also be very certain that you are opening the right powder can.

Anyone who has loaded for some time is not likely to make such a mistake except possibly that he might slide in No. 18 instead of 15 or 20 if he was in a hurry and was not looking at matters very carefully, but a person who cannot tell the difference between fine powders like 80 and 75, medium powders like 18 or lightning, or coarse powders like 15 or 10, should not walk up behind a strange horse in the dark. The fellow who loads 50 grains of fine-grained powder in the Springfield is going to get very decided results the first time he shoots.

I always take a teacup and dump a supply of powder into it—being sure the cup is perfectly dry—and dip the powder from the teacup onto the scales with the little dipper that comes with the tool. The dipper that comes with the Ideal tool is not large enough, or at least mine is not, because it takes one and two-thirds dippers full to weigh 50 grains, using No. 15 or the latest F. A. Government powder. I suppose this is purposely made small to keep anyone from measuring his powder by this small measure and therefore getting into trouble in case the dipper happened to be slightly large.

I have a small funnel, that I had made especially for this purpose, that I use to pour the powder through into the shells. Most funnels are too large at the spout and do not have a sharp enough pitch in the funnel to load the coarse powders readily. The fine powders up to and including 18 will pour through most anything but 15 will clog and that means a waste of time tapping the shell to get the powder settled.

After the powder is in the shell. place a bullet in the neck of the shell with the fingers, invert the tool over the shell and bullet and close the jaws. This loads the shell if the tool has been set properly.

To set the chamber at the correct depth, take a loaded cartridge and insert it in the tool. Screw up the main or upper part of the double adjustable chamber until it is tight, and bind it with the binding screw. Then repeat the process with the ‘small part that fits over the bullet. With the tool with single adjustment chamber there is only one part to screw up. Both styles will do the job.

I always make it a point to seat the bullet as soon as the powder is placed in the shell as this prevents loading any shells without powder, or with a double charge of powder, as might happen when loading reduced charges. When two men load together one should do all the powder weighing and the other seat the bullets.

I formerly charged a whole evening's supply at one time and then seated the bullets, but on one occasion I got up to get a drink, water by the way, fell over the table leg and spilled 40 shells, that had had their charges very carefully weighed for match shooting. I suppose that I said more than was absolutely necessary because the Mrs. has put the can on this style of loading in our house for the future.

Full charge loads for the Springfield requires some little thought.

Whether to use du Pont powders No. 15 or No. 20 depends mostly on personal taste. Number 15 corresponds to du Pont or Schultz in shotgun powders and No. 20 to Infallible and Ballistite—at least that is how the recoil feels. The 15 has the lesser chamber pressure but a terrific muzzleblast in short barrels like the Springfield. This muzzle blast causes one to be most heartily damned when shooting in a squad and the other fellow inches up. It also gives one the reputation of shooting a terrific load when such is not the case.

The 15 also seems to give considerable more flame at the muzzle that is very noticeable when shooting late in the evening and is likely to cause some people to flinch near the end of a long string of shots, especially late in the day. I get very much less metal fouling from the 15 than I do from the 20 and prefer it for that reason.

There are occasions, however, when I get to flinching while using it due either to the report or the flame late in the day, although I can stand it to shoot a Springfield all day without flinching so far as the recoil is concerned, as that never affects me excepting occasionally I get one on the back of the neck. I have never seen these little points taken up and which powder to select depends, I believe, mostly on a person’s failings. I have very little trouble from split shells using 15 and never had a primer leak to date, after using several hundred 50-grain charges of it.

At 200 yards I require 410 yards elevation, at 300 yards 460 yards elevation and at 500 yards 625 yards elevation on the service sight when using 50 grains of I5 behind the service bullet. With No. 20 I require 235 yards elevation, at 200 yards and 600 yards elevation at 500 yards. As can be seen the I5 is the speedier charge but the muzzle flip is entirely different and must be allowed for accordingly.

I have used a charge of 48 grains of No. 18 as well behind the service bullet. This charge is very accurate at 500 yards in my rifle but seems to be a pretty strenuous charge so far as chamber pressures are concerned. It gives more metal fouling than any other charge I have used. It requires 100 yards less elevation at 500 yards than the 50 grains of No. 15. I believe that any one of these three charges will put practically every shot into about ten-inch groups at 500 yards when carefully hand loaded in good shells, with weighed powder charges and bullets. -

I admit quite frankly that I cannot make such groups with service sights but from the ease with which I can call the shots I should judge this to be the case. At 200 yards on one occasion I had one fellow declaring emphatically that I could see the bullet holes as I was spotting pretty fair that day with I5.

The cost figures out to 0.35 per box of 20 shells, using government components. Buying the bullets, etc., at present prices runs about 0.65 per box against retail of about $1.50 per box for ammunition that will not begin to shoot with it.

The only mid-range load that I have used to any extent is Ideal gas check bullet No. 308334 and 25 ½ grains of 18. I have not tried any of them at longer range than 2oo yards but it does very nice shooting at that distance. It is even more satisfactory to use the service bullet and the same powder charge. Some persons prefer 25 grains of Lightning or 23 grains of No. 80.

Twelve to 14 grains of No. 75 or 80 and the service bullet are very accurate short range loads. With these loads and the service bullet I have scored 595 out of 600 at 50 yards on a 2-inch bull. In other words 55 bulls out of 60 shots. This is the best shooting that I have been able to do with service sights as a telescope suits my eyes considerably better. These two loads will shoot with exactly the same elevation and windage at 50 yards in my rifle, a point that may be of value to others. Elevation, 720 yards; W. G., one-third point left. That is 12 grains of No. 75 and 14 grains of No. 80. One of my friends swears by 15 grains of No. 18 for the same purpose.

Ideal bullet number S.308241 is the standard short range cast bullet for the Springfield. Quite long strings of consecutive bulls have been made at 100 to 200 yards with 10 or 12 grains of 75 or 80 and this bullet. These bullets sized to .311 will often seat in the necks without any resizing if the rifle is chambered pretty close around that part. I have tried the 125-grain Kephart bullet for the .303 Savage but for some reason while I can get splendid shooting for about five shots up to 50 yards, the bullet will begin to lead after that and the groups are poor. The bullets for some reason tip vertically but not horizontally.

The bullet is larger than the bore to the bottom of the groves and makes a nice little load for short range for a few shots.

In general there are four things to watch in reloading and in using reloaded ammunition.

1. Be sure that the shells will all chamber before loading a large supply of them.

2. Be certain that you are using the particular kind and amount of powder that you suppose you are using.

3. Be careful to keep reduced and full charge loads separated as once they are mixed up it is impossible to tell them apart except by the use of a pair of scales.

4. If using late issues of government primers do not load up more shells than are needed for present use for otherwise defective primers may ruin your total supply of precious ammunition.

American Rifleman, vol 63, No. 23, Mar 2, 1918 – page 454

Some Reloading Quirks

Having read with interest the thorough and comprehensive article on “Reloading for the .30 Springfield." by C. S. Landis in the last December, 1917, issue of your magazine, it has occurred to me that the mention of a couple of points not referred to by Mr. Landis, and which I have found quite considerably facilitates the reloading of ammunition, might not he out of place.

With reference to the use of a funnel for transferring powder from the pan of the balance into the shell, if the spout end is also cone shaped and the funnel attached to a table or other support, the empty cartridge can be very quickly put into position in the small cone end and the powder then poured into it through the funnel. This I have found to be a very satisfactory and quick method for transferring powder into an empty cartridge.

My practice is always to set the Ideal Powder Measure to throw a load slightly under weight, and having so loaded quite a number transfer the contents of each to the right hand pan of the balance, when the addition of a few kernels (the amount varying. of course, more or less with each load as thrown by the powder measure) brings the load up to the required weight. This avoids getting too much powder on the pan, to which more can be added more easily and quickly than taking any off, and utilizes the use of the powder measure as a time saving device.

“CIVILIAN"