Board of Game proposals and blackpowder rifles

The Palmer Lions gun show starts Saturday at Raven Hall on the Alaska State Fairgrounds in Palmer. The show runs both Saturday and Sunday with guns and outdoor stuff in Raven Hall and crafts and other assorted things in the building next door (I never can remember the name of that building). The show opens both days at 10 a.m., so stop in and check things out if you can.

I haven’t been doing much outdoors stuff recently except running the 6x6 for break-in time on the engine. I’ve been concentrating on researching and writing comments for the two proposals I submitted for the Board of Game meeting starting March 18 in Fairbanks. I hope to attend the meeting, but on the chance things don’t work out, I’m trying to cover all my points in the written comments. To give you an idea, one proposal comment is more than 1,700 words and the other is more than 2,000. That takes a little time to research, write, organize, and edit.

The other item I’ve been working on is drafting a proposal for next year’s Board of Fisheries, Upper Cook Inlet meeting. The deadline for submission of proposals for that meeting is either April 8, April 10 or April 11, depending on which reference source you happen to read. Normally, April 10 is the default deadline date, but since that date falls on a Sunday this year, the confusion about whether the Friday before or the Monday after is the deadline gets mixed in.

Shoot for April 8 and you know you’re ok!

I’ve been shooting lead bullets in my two big caliber, single-shot blackpowder cartridge rifles ever since I first acquired them. The only bullets I’ve ever fired in the 50-90 were ones I cast myself. Most of the bullets I’ve fired in the 45-70 were also “homemade,” but all were lead.

I have wanted to try lead bullets in some of the modern, smokeless powder rifles I own, but I only started doing so in the last year. I have a replica Browning 1885 single-shot in 348 Winchester which I have fired with lead bullets. I’ve got a couple of military surplus Moisin-Nagant rifles, a 91/30 and a model 38, both of Russian origin. I also have a British Lee Enfield, No.4 Mk.2 rifle in unissued, mint condition and an inexpensive Savage-made bolt action rifle in 30-30 caliber.

I have all the bullet moulds, bullet lubricating and sizing dies, top punches, and the reloading dies I need to assemble the loads, except the neck expander dies. When reloading a lead bullet in a cartridge case, the mouth of the case needs to be belled out just a bit to make sure the bullet is started squarely and to avoid shaving lead off the sides of the bullet when seating it. This belling step is not needed when loading jacketed bullets.

I was familiar with one reloading company that manufactured a die designed specifically to bell the case mouth. I’ve used those specialized dies when reloading the blackpowder cartridge rifle loads. Finding a die set up to do the same thing for either the 30-30, Russian or British caliber rifles wasn’t a problem, but the 348 Winchester caliber was. This company doesn’t manufacture dies of any sort for that caliber.

I tried buying the next caliber-size larger with the hope of having a local machine shop turn down the expander button to the correct size, but that didn’t work due to the shape of the button for mounting in a lathe and the hardened steel in the button. Back to step one!

In browsing the websites of other reloading manufacturers, I stumbled on another company which also makes neck expanding dies in all the calibers I’m interested in. I ordered the 348 Winchester die immediately and have it on my reloading bench.

The nice thing about this second company is that their neck expander dies all use the same die body. The only thing needing replacement as you change calibers is the neck expander button itself. This constitutes a considerable savings over having to buy the full die for each caliber. I’ve been putting together a list of all the potential calibers I might cast bullets for and looking up the appropriate bullet diameters needed.

Once I get a few dollars ahead, I’ll be placing the order for the various sizes of expander buttons! Until then, I’ll be happy loading and shooting the 348 Winchester into minute-of-angle groups at 100 yards!

Howard Delo is a retired fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. This column is the opinion of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman or its parent company, Wick Communications. You can leave Delo a message by emailing sports@frontiersman.com.