Adventures in Case Resizing

I learned a couple of important lessons last night:

• Just because it worked once, doesn't mean it will work twice.
  
• A hammer is a handy tool to have on the reloading bench.

I was taking my first run at reforming some 7mm Remington Magnum brass to 7 x 61 Sharpe and Hart. I doused the first case with lubricant and slowly ran it through the sizing die. It worked beautifully. So I tried to do it again. This time I managed to get the case to bind so strongly that I ripped the rim off attempting to extract it. Once I ran out of rim, I got a bit frustrated and grabbed a small hammer and a metal rod. After absolutely soaking the die and jammed case with WD-40 I removed the expander head and rod, placed my metal rod through the top of the die and into the case and started swinging. It took about five minutes, but eventually I forced it out.

Oh well. Live and learn I guess. I am still wonder why it worked so well the first time and then bound up so tightly the second.

Splitting cases seem to be an issue

One thing I am seeing a lot of is split cases. All of the brass I have is old (think 30-40 years old) and I am hoping that it has just grown brittle over time. Otherwise, this could very quickly become an expensive gun to load for. Of course, it is possible to reform 7mm Remington Magnum brass into Sharpe and Hart cases, but I'd rather not get into that if I don't have to.

Well, that was embarrassing

I shot about 40 rounds off of my elbow on a bench at 100 yards last Saturday. The best group I managed was about three inches. On the other hand, I did learn some useful things.

1. My gun seems to like hotter loads. The ones with 60 grains of 4350 behind a 160 grain bullet shot better than the ones with 54 grains behind the same bullet.

2. There wasn't an appreciable difference in recoil between the slower and hotter loads.

3. That being what it is, the gun still kicks more than enough to make me have some flinching issues.

Going forward, I plan to load some lighter rounds that I can shoot more comfortably in order to see if I can get my flinching under control.

Going shooting tomorrow

Well, so far, the gun seems capable of accurate shooting. A couple of weeks ago I loaded up some 160 grain Speer boat-tail soft points with 54 grains of IMR 4350. At 100 yards, accuracy was okay (around 2") but nothing to get thrilled about. Much better was a hotter load (also with 160 grain boat-tail soft points). The only trouble was that I don't really know what it was. It was some left-over ammunition that was included with the gun. For sake of experiment. I have loaded some significantly hotter cartridges (60 grains of IMR 4350 behind the 160 grain bullets). I hope to find out tomorrow if I get better accuracy from them.

Hornady 7th Edition has Sharpe and Hart Reloading Information

For what it is worth, the Hornady Handbook, 7th Edition has a nice collection of Sharpe and Hart loads.

Norma Reloading Information from 1963

Many of the loads listed on this one-page technical information flyer produced by Norma for the 7 x 61 Sharpe and Hart use IMR 4350. Just click on the images to see the full page at a readable and printable size.

It's interesting to me that they list the approximate pressures of the different loads. From other literature I got with the gun, one of the complaints about some of the early (i.e. late 1940's) writing about the cartridge was that most early published performance information came from very high pressure loads in a gun with a 30" barrel. While some of the pressures Norma publishes here climb close to 58,000, there are a lot of 3,000 plus FPS loads here with pressures right around 50,000.

Reloading for the Sharpe and Hart

I got a couple of 50-year-old reloading manuals with the gun. They make for interesting reading in their own right. The one thing that seems abundantly clear already is that reloading for this particular cartridge, even without current data, shouldn't be too hard. The bottom line is that the 7 x 61 Sharpe and Hart is a 7mm magnum that is quite similar (though a bit smaller) than a 7mm Weatherby Magnum. It can move a 160 grain hunting bullet downrange at around 3,000 FPS, or chuck out a 130 grain soft-point at more than 3,300 FPS.

Some general information:

Case length 2.402
Case width at belt .532
Case width at shoulder .476
Case powder capacity: around 70 grains of 4831

My 7 x 61 Sharpe and Hart

Well, here it is. I don't know a whole lot about it except that it is a custom built rifle with a Mauser action, three round box magazine, and a 20 inch barrel. I bought it from the original owner who had it made about 50 years ago. I forget what he said he paid for it.

So far, I have only run about 40 rounds through the rifle. It was a cold windy day, but I still managed to shoot a couple of groups with bullet holes touching (truth be told, I also managed to shoot a couple of groups bigger than my hand at 100 yards, but I prefer to blame those on my cold fingers).