A year or two down the road and its time to renew my Dealers license

My FEO visits, checks my stock and gets down to the matter of the .280 and is it for sale. Well its been on my stock for testing and maybe I have tested it on enough deer to make a start in sales. So I did. I sold it to my best customer, myself.

Last time my personal firearms license was renewed I met some resistance to adding the .280 to my certificate as I already had 2x 6.5 and a 7x57 as well as a number of .22 centrefires. All of them capable of the same job albeit with less overlap so I bit the bullet and banged up for sale a .243, a 6.5 and a 7x57.

The 6.5 can be found here: http://www.tcswoodlands.com/sporting-rifles-for-sale.html

In fact all of them can. So I sent in my FAC and discussed the calibre with the Deputy Manager (a nice chap) and a few days later back it came along with the 400 rounds allocated (although the chance of buying them is as slim as ever!) and the 2 additional moderators that I wanted. 

Time to do the paperwork and send in another notification!

Thats what I'm about to do so I will actually be testing my own rifle soon!

Time for gratuitous .280 porn:

 Above the original testing day, below dressed with correct scope mounts and moderator

 First deer with this rifle, a Muntjac doe in Suffolk

 The next morning the exit wound on a Muntjac Buck:

 A gold medal head Roebuck taken in Sussex last may:

Oh and the dealers license was renewed.

Time for something different

Way Way back in the mists of time, well the 1990's I had a brief love affair with a French personage. This was a model of 1936 7.5 x 54 mm MAS. It was lovely and simple even with a trigger pull measured in days rather than pounds, it was a superb battle rifle that didn't get the chance it needed.
7.62 x 51 mm NATO was 30 years later than this magnificent cartridge. I loaded up 6.5 x 55 Swedish cases that I had necked out by 1mm with 48 grains of IMR 4895 and a 148 grain Nato MG ball bullet and away it would go at the correct sight settings to appear in the bull out beyond 400 yards. 2700 feet per second was on the chrono when we finished testing.
Sadly we parted company, I needed to fund something else in my life (a mortgage I think) and I sold all of my military bolt action service rifles, My P14, Ross M1910, SMLE No1 MkV and the MAS 36.
Of all of those I liked the Mas the most, simple effective and with a great cartridge.
I decided to keep an option for the round alive on my certificate and arranged to keep a slot open for a 30 calibre rifle with a 55mm case. The Swedish case whilst 1mm longer then the French 54mm case fitted well, maybe it shrank slightly in length when expanded or maybe (more likely) the military chambers were generous to say the least.

Ok it seems an odd chambering to call it but Rigby Anglicised the 7x57 Mauser by naming it the .275 Rigby so why not!
So eventually a donor rifle was found, in this case a reasonably scarce Remington 700 ADL in 6.5 Swedish (means no changes required to the bolt) for a good (cheap) price and it was sent off with the rifles designated to become .280's to a Riflesmith.
Ok Its Riflecraft again but at the time in for a penny, in for a pound.
I specified a lightweight sporter barrel, screw cut for 1/2" unf and left about 4 rounds so they would measure for the reamer and use for proof.

Oh foolish me. Whilst I was about to pull the plug on the .280 project PTG did eventually send the reamer.
I authorised the work and paid the balance.
Oh foolish me.
I waited at home for my satin stainless sporter weight barrelled rifle to arrive. It did and as I unwrapped the shorter than expected package to find that they had sent it stripped not assembled (more later) and that the package had been jumped on by at least two parcel force employees on the way.
As I unwrapped the bubble wrap I found this;

 Yup the trigger was snapped, in two places, takes some doing that

 I sent these pics by email there and then and they promised to send me a new trigger!

Ok, I thought I would be getting a replacement trigger unit, after all who here has ever replaced a trigger blade in a Remington 700? You need 3 hands and thirty fingers to do it. Oh yes they sent a blade.
I tried but ended up sending the rifle back. Why did I give up? Well they couldn't have shipped the rifle assembled (parcelfarce would probably have broken the stock anyway) because the oversized fat barrel that was fitted wouldn't fit in the beautiful slim sporter stock that the donor rifle came from.

So I couldnt test it, the barrel was shiny (almost in the white) but at least the screw cut muzzle was the correct thread this time. I couldn't test the trigger but I could test the chamber by dropping in the ammo or at least drill rounds I had made.
Well I tried, the drill rounds went in about 3/4's of the way and that was it, live rounds too wouldn't chamber even some of the factory ammo I had left wouldn't chamber.
So I asked. I have yet to receive a satisfactory answer as to why the reamer is smaller than the test  ammo I provided for measuring and proofing. I have no idea how they proofed it, frankly I'm not even convinced they did.
Another trip up there this time to collect the rifle with replacement trigger fitted and the barrel channel reamed so it would assemble.
Frankly it was a dog to pull the trigger on. It has taken a year and a half of frustrating work to get the trigger bedded in and I'm not convinced yet it still pulls a steady pull within an ounce or two of the same weight each time.
I may yet have to spend another £200 later on to put in a drop in unit.
As for ammo, well back to basics, I fired off a handful of 6.5 x 55 Swedish factory loads to fire form them. That meant I had the right material to start with. I loaded up some 150 grain fmj .30 calibre bullets and found some 130 grain hollow points and loaded up some test rounds with 48 grains of IMR 4895. In theory I was back where I was in the 1990's but with a great sporting rifle fitted with a nice 8x56 Schmidt and Bender.

Its a very good looking rifle but by god it weighs something awful and its very unbalanced. That said I have yet to test it on game yet as I cant guarantee that the thing will shoot properly.

I have however been able to test the ammo I loaded. Hmm, that tight chamber means I get better MV for the same loading, 48 grains of IMR 4895 pushes 150 grain bullets along at 2900 feet per second. Its becoming a barrel burner. Which if it does burn out the chamber may mean I can chamber the original ammo or get a new barrel and get it chambered properly.

When I queried the overtight chamber the smith accused me of blowing out my Swedish cases to almost a 308 case dimension.

When I pointed out that it was immaterial, the reamer should have been made to cut a chamber to chamber the sample cartridges I delivered. This was the only chamber reamer Pacific Tool and Gauge delivered to our smith that year, you might think they would get it right, that the smith would check and the proof house would ask? No nothing they are all cunts the lot of them, lying bastards who failed to deliver the services paid for.

Next time I'm going to pay through the nose for a decent smith!

The build saga aka how to mark time for two years whilst no one seems to give a damn

You may recall how we dropped off the donor rifles and 4 rounds of original ammo. We also dropped off a number of converted cases a little later so the proof house could load their test ammo using these. The order to Pacific Tool and Gauge PTG had gone in for a reamer set in .280 British and a custom one based on several identical loaded rounds I had given for this purpose, these were a 6.5 x 55 case necked out to take a 150 grain .308 bullet. Essentially similar to the French M1929 7.5 x 54 round. Now in theory my stash of 7.5 Handloads would feed out of this giving me a ready supply of brass. Wait whats this you say deviation?
Yes I am deviating however this is also an important occurrence in this thread.
Six months went by and not a peep from Riflecraft. My oppo decided to e myther them, for those of you unfamiliar with the term its to bombard repeatedly by email until you get a response.
Guess what? Yup no reply. We ended up driving up to visit and discuss the matter. We had by now paid in full and were getting more than a little fed up with it all. Paul managed to find out that Brock and Norris had a .280 Reamer and were willing to loan/rent it out.
Job jobbed and as we paid up our final dues the man at Riflecraft announced my .30-55 reamer had arrived and did I want to continue. This was the clincher as we were about to ask for a full refund. Anyway we didn't, the rifles were rebarrelled and sent for proof.
Interestingly this is where it gets complicated.
As a dealer I have to account for ammunition in my register so these live rounds were booked out. More of that later.
Problems started to appear when the rifles went for proof. Pauls Remington failed inspection due to a defect with the bolt which was replaced. Then the proof house said they had loaded the test cases and they wouldn't chamber.
That taught me to learn about case neck turning for which I went to my Kiwi mate John a hand loader and Match Rifleman of some repute.
The problem was I had issued the live ammo so if there was a problem they could use those. The Proof House claimed that they didn't have them and hadn't been issued them!
Oops, Riflecraft were adamant that they had and had a signature.
Cue Norfolk and Suffolk Police. I had to report them as lost/stolen. A visit was made to Riflecraft by the Police and their books checked. The Proof House was warned and hey presto I  received an email stating they had "Found my ammunition" and at the same time had turned down the necks of the proof rounds and both rifles had now passed proof.
FFS 2 years this had been going on and I still didn't have either the .280's or my 30-55 in my hands.
Then almost as if out of the blue the call came, how did we want these two .280's delivered? I said without hesitating that I would collect them.
I really almost didn't believe it.
There they were, both rifles and yet he had still dropped the ball. I had specified a slim sporter barrel and screw cut at the muzzle for 1/2" unf. Nope he did some effing oddball thread on a fat heavy barrel.
He also fitted a bridge rail mount when I specified separate two piece mounts, nothing worse than a chunky rail getting in the way of sorting out a misfeed.
Anyway I was just happy at last to see both of the rifles and here they are at last;

 Paul giving mine the once over and seemingly happy with it, the screw cut muzzle is covered with a thread protector neatly made from barrel offcut so it looks seamless:

 Dressed in the correct mounts and with a Brugger und Thomet sound moderator fitted:

 This is almost too good to believe proofed rifles in .280!

 Pauls rifle next to the .30-55 still not rebarrelled:

 Pauls rifle looking very attractive in the AICS chassis stock:

Eventually the 30-55 was delivered, that deserves a blog post of its own what a sodding saga, anyway we were ready to start testing the rifles and ammo and had our die sets going full tilt;

 The projectiles we loaded up with (above) and the loaded rounds (below)

 The rounds provided for proof and neck turned by them;

 Two hand loads next to an original factory round;

 Reddings superb die set:

 Inside with the case forming die and two dummies

Oddly enough if you didn't neck turn the excess brass from the .308 style cases they would run through the dies but still wouldn't chamber. Infuriating when you didn't have the rifles but were converting at least 100 cases a month for two years!