IOF 315 rifle and cartridge

[penpusher]

As far as I know,the IOF .315 has no recoil lug.

[Grumpy]

"I do not agree with this, my previous rifle John Rigby 7x57mm Showed 7mm on the end of the barrel where barrel meets the chamber and on the barrel it was written "John Rigby" and its address, don't really remember but it was something like "72, St. ____ street, london" and after the address Cal .275 was mention on the barrel."

So what ?
What are you disagreeing with ?

Rigby had a monopoly on distributing Mausers throughout the British Empire and could call the calibres whatever they liked. They chose to anglicise the 7x57 Mauser by renaming it the `.275" Rigby`. Rigbys usually have both their own serial number on the rifles and also the Mauser factory serial number. Likewise the original factory calibre is often present along with the .275 English proof stamp.
Rigbys addresses were either 72, St. James`s St or 43, Sackville St.

Plenty of rifles have their calibres - and other details - marked on the action.

[penpusher]

Plenty of rifles have their calibres - and other details - marked on the action.

Come to think of it,I have seen one.Blame it on the limited access to firearms.

[penpusher]

Grumpy,

Thanks for the very lucid and detailed reply ,as always ,on the accurising of rifles.How do you find out which are the raised areas that need to be machined?By using lamp black?Also how do you machine the parts?Is it done by hand or on a lathe?

[sangi]

Just a very wild thought, so the GURUS, do please pardon! The IOF, very obviously so, could never have come up with anything resembling ORIGINAL. They could have spoofed from all over the world, but they needed to have something, with enough ammunition for testing, ready to hand.
A very good guess would be what the Portueguese were using in 1961-62 when we had the fracas in Goa-Daman-Diu: 7.92 surely, but which exact one? That will probably answer the mystery.
For a few years in between, one believes this ammunition was being sold to authorised defence people as 8 MM, and even now. they thousands of this captured stuff with them.
Regards.

[penpusher]

I have seen Kirkee manufactured 7.92/8x57 Mauser ammo.However this is a rimless round and nothing like the IOF rimmed .315 cartridge.

[Grumpy]

I take it that `KIRKEE` is the accepted Indian spelling ? As you are probably aware the English were so-and-sos at changing foreign spellings to suit ourselves and `Khirkee` seems to have been the more common form.
I don`t know how many calibres the Kirkee factory produced but I`ve seen quite a few .303 rounds produced at the facility.
Does the factory still exist ?

[Grumpy]

Yes, on a lathe is best - and using lamp black is a good idea. The term `truing` is often used but I prefer `squaring` as that implies the actual 180 degree contact required - each surface milled to a true 90 degrees vertically and laterally. The actual amount of material removed is, of course, miniscule.

[penpusher]

The Kirkee factory still exists.It's called Khadki Ammunition Factory .This is the link http://ofbindia.gov.in/units/index.php?unit=afk

[kuduae]

1.) To grumpy: The .303 uses .311" bullets - .008" difference, the .315 uses .323" diameter bullets - .008" difference also. Solution: Both cartridges were named not for their groove/ bullet diameters, but for their nominal bore diameters in the old european fashion. The usual groove for jacketed bullets is 0.1mm= .004" deep.
2.) The idea that the .315 was derived from the .303 is ridiculous! While the 8x50R has a base diameter of 12.6 mm (absolute maximum for ammo factories) , the .315 IOF 12.4mm (taken from actual IOF cartridge), difference .2mm=.008", the .303 has a base diameter of only 11.68mm=..460", .7mm=.028" under the .315IOF case. As any accomplished handloader knows, you can shorten and reform case bodies and necks to fit other bullet diameters and chambers, but you have to start with a case of a base diameter that is not more then .2mm undersize unless you want to go into a danger zone.
3.) the only rimmed cartridge in both the 1925 and 1928 Kynoch catalogues is the "8mm (.315) Mannlicher" The others with the "(.315)" monicker are the 8x57S Mauser and the 8x56 Mannlicher-Schoenauer, both rimless. The 8x56R M30 Hungarian Mannlicher was not yet existing
4.) The British had a tradition to make their rifle cartridges to fit very loose in the chamber to take care of deformed cases, dirt and so on, or, by today´s standarts, grossly undersize. This tradition may have been taken over by IOF. On a rimmed case the head-to shoulder dimension is not as critical as on a rimless case, as the rimmed ones headspace on the rim. A too short shoulder or smallish case body will simply fireform out to conform to the chamber, but if overdone or the case is of inferior metal, the base will tear off on firing, a frequent complaint against the .315 IOF cartridges!
5.) The pressure given by Kynoch for the .303 Mk VI load is 17.5 Tons per Square inch, 18.5 for the .303 Mk VII, but only 14.0 for the 8mm (.315)Mannlicher.
6.) Something is always lost in translation, for example: Rigbys named the 7x57 Mauser cartridge ".276 Rigby" (have you noted? as the 7x57 uses .284" bullets, again the difference of .008"!) and had cartridges made by Kynoch. All pre-war .276 Rigby rifles were made, barreled and (German) proofed by Mauser as 7x57s. As the 7x57´s dimensions were fixed in the metric system in the first place, they had to be converted for Kynoch´s use to inches. Later, when the Brits had joined the CIP, the Kynoch dimensions in " were converted back to mm. Now we have two sets of slightly different dimensions in the German proof tables for the 7x57 and the .276 Rigby, but both are still interchangeable!

[shahid]

Thanks for sending me the Manton catalouge by Fax Kuduae.

It is established beyond doubt that the .315 cartridge is adapted from 8 mm ( .315 ) Mannlicher - For Austrian, Bulgarian and Greek service rifles.

Both the loads shown in 244 grain and 154 grain bullet would chamber in the BSA made or IOF .315 rifles.

The origin is quite clear, obsolete tools were purchased in the 1960s when the manufacture of IOF rifles and ammunition was started. As expected Kynoch was the maker of this ammunition. I had mentioned earlier and wandered if BSA made rifles there had to be an English producer of cartridges for this calibre, but I guess it never found favour on UK soil, and was mostly exported to the old colonies.

[kuduae]

Well, I believe BSA Lee-actioned rifles in .315/8x50R Mannlicher were only made for those colonies - India and the Sudan- where the military .303 cartridge was prohibited for civilian use. In Britain, Canada and other parts of the world there was no reason nt to use the original. Another example: Pre-WWI German gun catalogs like Burgsmueller´s recommend the 9x57 Mauser "especially for our African colonies where the (military) 8x57 is banned"

[penpusher]

What Kuduae has posted reveals nothing more than what we already know but for the fact that the Kynoch catalogue of 1925 mentions the 8x50R Austrian as the .315. That alone establishes nothing.All that can be concluded,if at all,is that rifles of English origin with the caliber marked as .315-8mm are chambered for the 8x50R Austrian cartridge.Nothing more.To give out that the 8x50R and the .315 IOF cartridges are interchangeable,as these posts seem to imply, would be foolish.It might lead the unwary to try to fire one in the other with possible disastrous consequences for the firearm and/or the shooter


The 'tradition' of loose chambers is also nonsense.The fellow obviously read about the .303 Enfield rifles and applied it to 'all' British rifles.


Another attack of twiddle dee and twiddle dum.

Shahid,isn't this act a little old and getting tiresome.Your friend posts a whole lot of gibberish that makes sense only to you and then you make an announcement as the final judgment on an issue.

[Grumpy]

Yes Kaduae, the British had a habit of measuring calibres by the diameter between the lands rather than the bore. This developed from black powder practice.
I agree that there is no way that the IOF .315 could have been developed from the .303. This seems to be a popular but perhaps reasonable misconception.
The 7x57 Mauser was termed the .275 Rigby by the way, NOT the `.276`. If you`ve seen that in print it is an error.
Kynoch were by no means the only British manufacturer of commercial ammunition in the UK and military ammunition was produced by several different ROF facilities.

Shahid, The 8x50R Mannlicher had a very limited life as the Greek service round because they were thoroughly unimpressed with the calibre. They adopted the 6.5x54 Mannlicher in 1903 - a cartridge designed to Greek specifications. The 8x50R was the principal service round of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bulgaria and Siam although it saw use in other countries - by Chilean rebels for one.
Please DON`T refer to the 8x50R Mannlicher as the `8mm Mannlicher` as that ignores the existence of the other 8mm Mannlicher calibre - the 8x56R. There`s enough confusion around this subject already without contributing to the chaos.

[Grumpy]

Oops - missed that:
Whilst Lee Enfields were inclined to have loose ( ish ) chambers for obvious reasons that certainly does NOT apply to British sporting rifles - including Lee Speeds. To suggest so is just plain wrong.