What It’s About

I have a problem. That’s right I have an affinity for the .311 diameter projectile cartridges. Why? Who knows really. They aren’t the slim sexy 6mm or 7mm bullets and they are terribly fat and slow. Kind of like me in more ways than one. But… I still like them anyway. Now I must say that I am not a professional in any way, shape, or form. I am not a pro shooter, or gunsmith, nor do I have any military background. “But by whos’ authority dost thou feed us thy information?!” the torch lit mobs cry. Well nobodies authority really, I am just an average run-of-the-mill nobody who wants to try and provide some help for the few people that fall into the same sinking boat that I did. The two main cartridges that I am currently working with are 303 British and 7.7x58 Japanese, emphasis more on the latter, and derivatives thereof. There are several wildcat cartridges that were chambered in the Type 99 Arisaka some of which I would love to be able play with. What exactly will I get into? I am starting with but not limited to: 303 British loads, 7.7x58 loads, data from different barrel lengths, accuracy achievements, cool builds of already sporterized milsurps, the reload process, and essentially anything that pertains to .311 cartridges.

When

I acquired my first milsurp rifle in early 2018 and I quickly added a sporterized Mk4 No1 Enfield which I slowly converted back to original configuration. Arisakas followed the Enfields and I realized that if I was going to feed these rifles I would need to reload for them.

Why

One of my arisakas sported a very shortened barrel at barely 16 inches. Not really wanting to shoot full powered loads from that short of a barrel I embarked on a mission to find a load that had a good balance between power and reduced flash and kick. That mission was cut short however, because of shortcomings with the scope mount that kept coming loose. (The mount was a scout mount which replaced the rear sight. The receiver still had a full mum so drilling was out of the question). I never was able to complete that goal but I wanted to continue reloading and gathering data on things like light weight projectiles, velocities with shorter barrels, and learning some home gunsmithing.

Reloading Data

So after the initial failure I realized that there was very little reloading data available for some these cartridges that use the .311 diameter bullets, particularly in light bullet weights, so I thought maybe I could try and start gathering some of my own. 303 British certainly has plenty of data but for a limited selection of bullets, and 7.7x58 has minimal data at best. I hope that my info gathered here will help some others that are looking for data. I apologize in advance if there is not much here right now. It’s been hard to get the time and money to test what I want to do. I will add info as quickly as I can acquire it.