Post by Bullshop on Jun 26, 2020 8:12:42 GMT -7
Fairly recently we have acquired a wonderful old Husqvarna rifle chambered for a much overlooked but immensely capable cartridge the 9.3x57 mm Mauser cartridge. We acquired this handsome lightweight fast handling Euro style rifle with the specific intension of expanding our reach into the so far neglected caliber in both loaded ammo and available bullets.
After we thoroughly delve into the shorter 9.3x57 we have a very good Mauser mod 98 action available for barreling to the longer 9.3x62mm chambering with the same end goal to offer bullets, load data for our bullets and loaded ammo using our bullets in the two chamberings.
To date we have woefully neglected this caliber offering only one bullet design a 280gn round nose gas checked design acquired from Walt Melander a couple decades ago now. This has been a wonderfully accurate bullets from the several rifles we tried it in but in a round nose configuration leaves something to be desired as a hunting bullet.
We underwent some testing using 35 caliber bullets paper patched and these proved capable of fine accuracy but presented problems for field use in that the nose section of 35 caliber bullets are smaller in diameter than for 9.3mm so there is no land contact for guidance to the bores center as well as the issue of the forward part of the paper patch on the bullet being a loose fit so susceptible to damage when feeding from the magazine. Its was a good idea but in practice not quite right.
We have a friend that does all the MT. gun shows and he knows I am always interested in odd or different molds he may acquire at a show. A couple years ago he picked up a treasure chest of molds he brought to my house and on a pleasant Sunday afternoon we dickered, bartered, and otherwise horse traded his goods for items of interest to him in my possession at the time.
One of the treasures in that box was a Tom Ballard mold for an adjustable weight smooth sided, cup based, slightly tapered spitzer type bullet with a small meplate from being a nose pour design. Until very recently I have been using this mold that drops a bullet of .366" diameter at its base to paper patch to 375 caliber and it has been working most excellent in that regard. I used it in a 375 Whelen to fill a deer -B tag last year and for that task it performed admirably.
More recently I have tried powder coating it for 9.3mm caliber but it did not work out as I had hoped. The issue with PC is one of bullet alloy hardness. What I discovered was that with an alloy soft enough to expand velocity was very limited but is alloy hardness was increased to allow full or near full potential velocity the spitzer shaped bullets would not expand at all so a poor choice as a deer hunting bullet deer hunting being the purpose of the 9.3mm bullet adventure.
Even more recently I was inclined to try paper patching these bullets for 9.3mm. When patching for 375 caliber I use a 25LB 100% cotton fiber bond paper the 25LB paper being several thousandths thick and needed to fill in from the .366" bullet diameter to the .377" finished diameter I size to for 375 caliber. Now here was the trick in switching to the smaller 9.3mm caliber which is to go to a 9LB paper also known as onion skin of the same 100% cotton fiber construction. With a double wrap of 9LB paper bullets easily pass through the .368" die we size to for the 9.3mm caliber.
Now as they say we are cooking with gas! The paper patch completely eliminates the alloy hardness issue with its velocity restrictions. Now even a very soft alloy can be pushed to the velocity limits of the cartridge. There are some practical limits though as too soft an alloy at too high a velocity can be extremely destructive and ruin otherwise edible meat. I learned this the hard way in my trials with hard cast soft nose bullets where I ran half the length of a 400gn 40 caliber bullet in pure soft lead in the nose and the base half quenched to very hard to withstand full velocity loads of 2100 fps from the 405 wcf. The result was two ruined shoulders on a fork horn bull moose.
Anyway for the potential velocity of the 9.3x57 an alloy hardness of BHN 12 to 15 will be about right. My formula for expansion is BHN x 100 = impact velocity so with hardness in this range will still give expansion at the reduced impact velocities of shots to about 300 yards.
An accuracy trial in our Husky rifle yesterday with a bullet alloy at about BHN-12 gave excellent results fired at 50 yards. Our rifle has a Weaver variable scope mounted that is from 1 to 3 power so even at 3x at 100 yards the bull is pretty small so we used 50 yards for a more precise aim with the quite heavy cross hairs in this scope
So the PP project is working out well but wanting a selection of bullet designs greater than two and knowing the terminal abilities of a non expanding wide flat nose bullet design I decided to progress in that direction as well. Using the enjoyable design feature at Dan Lynch's Mountain Mold site we have designed just such a bullet. This bullet should come in at about 280gn in clip on wheel weights. I felt the 280gn weight important because most available load data for all 9.3mm cartridges will center around this weight and most folks want published load data.
We do not yet have this mold in hand but should soon. I designed it with what Walt Melander called his modern design with a single wide lube groove and fairly long nose but short bore ride section and having a 70% meplate should smack deer with some authority. Anyway that wide flat nose bullet should be in our near future offerings in 9.3mm caliber.
I am really enjoying shooting this wonderful old Husqvarna rifle and imagine Lord willing it will be used with one of our two new offerings in 9.3mm to fill some of our deer tags for the 2020 season.
After we thoroughly delve into the shorter 9.3x57 we have a very good Mauser mod 98 action available for barreling to the longer 9.3x62mm chambering with the same end goal to offer bullets, load data for our bullets and loaded ammo using our bullets in the two chamberings.
To date we have woefully neglected this caliber offering only one bullet design a 280gn round nose gas checked design acquired from Walt Melander a couple decades ago now. This has been a wonderfully accurate bullets from the several rifles we tried it in but in a round nose configuration leaves something to be desired as a hunting bullet.
We underwent some testing using 35 caliber bullets paper patched and these proved capable of fine accuracy but presented problems for field use in that the nose section of 35 caliber bullets are smaller in diameter than for 9.3mm so there is no land contact for guidance to the bores center as well as the issue of the forward part of the paper patch on the bullet being a loose fit so susceptible to damage when feeding from the magazine. Its was a good idea but in practice not quite right.
We have a friend that does all the MT. gun shows and he knows I am always interested in odd or different molds he may acquire at a show. A couple years ago he picked up a treasure chest of molds he brought to my house and on a pleasant Sunday afternoon we dickered, bartered, and otherwise horse traded his goods for items of interest to him in my possession at the time.
One of the treasures in that box was a Tom Ballard mold for an adjustable weight smooth sided, cup based, slightly tapered spitzer type bullet with a small meplate from being a nose pour design. Until very recently I have been using this mold that drops a bullet of .366" diameter at its base to paper patch to 375 caliber and it has been working most excellent in that regard. I used it in a 375 Whelen to fill a deer -B tag last year and for that task it performed admirably.
More recently I have tried powder coating it for 9.3mm caliber but it did not work out as I had hoped. The issue with PC is one of bullet alloy hardness. What I discovered was that with an alloy soft enough to expand velocity was very limited but is alloy hardness was increased to allow full or near full potential velocity the spitzer shaped bullets would not expand at all so a poor choice as a deer hunting bullet deer hunting being the purpose of the 9.3mm bullet adventure.
Even more recently I was inclined to try paper patching these bullets for 9.3mm. When patching for 375 caliber I use a 25LB 100% cotton fiber bond paper the 25LB paper being several thousandths thick and needed to fill in from the .366" bullet diameter to the .377" finished diameter I size to for 375 caliber. Now here was the trick in switching to the smaller 9.3mm caliber which is to go to a 9LB paper also known as onion skin of the same 100% cotton fiber construction. With a double wrap of 9LB paper bullets easily pass through the .368" die we size to for the 9.3mm caliber.
Now as they say we are cooking with gas! The paper patch completely eliminates the alloy hardness issue with its velocity restrictions. Now even a very soft alloy can be pushed to the velocity limits of the cartridge. There are some practical limits though as too soft an alloy at too high a velocity can be extremely destructive and ruin otherwise edible meat. I learned this the hard way in my trials with hard cast soft nose bullets where I ran half the length of a 400gn 40 caliber bullet in pure soft lead in the nose and the base half quenched to very hard to withstand full velocity loads of 2100 fps from the 405 wcf. The result was two ruined shoulders on a fork horn bull moose.
Anyway for the potential velocity of the 9.3x57 an alloy hardness of BHN 12 to 15 will be about right. My formula for expansion is BHN x 100 = impact velocity so with hardness in this range will still give expansion at the reduced impact velocities of shots to about 300 yards.
An accuracy trial in our Husky rifle yesterday with a bullet alloy at about BHN-12 gave excellent results fired at 50 yards. Our rifle has a Weaver variable scope mounted that is from 1 to 3 power so even at 3x at 100 yards the bull is pretty small so we used 50 yards for a more precise aim with the quite heavy cross hairs in this scope
So the PP project is working out well but wanting a selection of bullet designs greater than two and knowing the terminal abilities of a non expanding wide flat nose bullet design I decided to progress in that direction as well. Using the enjoyable design feature at Dan Lynch's Mountain Mold site we have designed just such a bullet. This bullet should come in at about 280gn in clip on wheel weights. I felt the 280gn weight important because most available load data for all 9.3mm cartridges will center around this weight and most folks want published load data.
We do not yet have this mold in hand but should soon. I designed it with what Walt Melander called his modern design with a single wide lube groove and fairly long nose but short bore ride section and having a 70% meplate should smack deer with some authority. Anyway that wide flat nose bullet should be in our near future offerings in 9.3mm caliber.
I am really enjoying shooting this wonderful old Husqvarna rifle and imagine Lord willing it will be used with one of our two new offerings in 9.3mm to fill some of our deer tags for the 2020 season.
. then i'll take them out to hunt deer. the boolits are .368" and 15bhn. 
) but they all came out the same group size!!! so i decided on what was best on my shoulder and not velocity gained. i went to my book and 280gr rn gc with 39.0gr of imr4895 is the load. i have to set my chrony but they'll probably be 1700-1800fps. also my load development 
