This is a little story about a Holland and Holland 360No.5 rook rifle and a method I devised to make paper patched bullets for it.
Now first, I must admit that the 360No.5 was never a cartridge with a paper patched bullet but rather it had a heeled cast bullet much the same in design
as a period pistol bullet or the 310 Cadet bullet.
Of course, as is often found with British Rook rifles, the bore dimensions tend to be quite varied with the 360No.5 so the heeled bullet mold I have was just too big for this rifle, the bore of this one being right at .360”
Now, to the bullet.
I have been swaging bigger bullets for my 450s for a while and am always on the lookout for other dies and such. As it happened, I came across a setup for swaging .358” jacketed round nosed bullets on Craigslist.
As I set the dies up, I like to use lead to check the setup and upon looking at the bare lead bullet, I thought of how much it resembled a miniature version of my 450s.
Seeing as this die made a slick of .358” and patching it would bring it right up to .366” I started thinking of the rifles I could use such a bullet in.
First, my Leeson 360 2-1/4” rifle came to mind and I swaged some bullets for that - works great!
Then, the H&H came to mind so I made up some 150grain bullets for it.
I loaded them up with 13grs of 3f Old Eynesford and they really shoot quite well.
They look quite handsome too!
Here are a few pictures of the process:
Next to the 450 bullet
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