[THE PUNISHER]

anybody reloading it? I thought of pulling surplus bullets and hand load some hunting rounds....what says the CSC crew?

 

[mckenziedrums]

I reload it but I use Lapua brass typically. Found a temp source where its $30 per 100 pcs instead of the usual $100. 4895 has been a good powder for me so far. I'm under 1.5" at 100 yds with my sniper.

 

[NJSC]

He always gets a little excited when someone starts talking about loading 54r.

 

[mckenziedrums]

Tis true... It's comforting when I'm not the only crazy one Actually I need to get myself a bullet puller so I can muck about with some of the surplus rounds a bit. The idea of taking a $.16 cartridge and making it shoot like a $1+ cartridge is very appealing. Plus I won't feel as bad when my PSL destroys the casing. Shooting the Lapua in the PSL makes for one expensive outing when you figure 75%+ of the brass isn't going to be suitable for reloading!

 

[CaptainGyro]

You may already be aware of this, but if you're having trouble pulling bullets from military rounds, it may be because they're sealed in with varnish or pitch. In this case, put them in a seater die first and seat them a few thousandths deeper. That will break the seal and allow you to pull them.

 

[THE PUNISHER]

Back about 10 years ago when I first got my M44 nobody sold hunting rds. at any of the local gun shops but I had plenty of brass case Bulgarian surplus ammo I bought dirt cheap. A friend who used to own a 303 British found several boxes of Speer Hot-Core 150 gr. .311" bullets so I did a little research and found some info on Mexican Matching. Mexican Matching is basically replacing the existing bullet usually a FMJ with at equal or lesser weight bullet of same dia. for match or hunting purposes.

The US Army shooting teams during the late 70's in non National Trophy or Excellence-In-Competition Matches pulled the original 173 gr. bullet for the M118 Nation Match ammo and replaced it with the Sierra 168 gr. SMK bullet it was such an improvement over the old arsenal match bullet that in the 80's the Nation Match ammo was being loaded with the 168 gr. SMK,I digress!

Anyways the Bulgarian surplus has no neck sealant but had a nice crimp so I used my bullet seater die to seat the bullet bout 1/8" maybe less down into the case to brake the crimp and pulled the bullet,I saved those to shoot later. I measured the powder charge in a random number of cases and wrote it down for later use.

I then resized the case neck with the decapper pin removed since the cases were bredan primed,then took the average charge weight for the case I measured and dropped the charge weight by 2.0 grs. as a safety measure since the bullet I was using was .311" instead of .310.5" and had more bearing surface than the factory FMJ. I ended up being one full grain @47.5 grs. of the Max. of my average when all was said and done. I could get a 1.5" groups at 100 yds with the old fat factory front sight much smaller once I scoped the rifle years later.

Still have about 100 rds. left I made up. I don't shoot many J bullet loads in the rifle though it gets a pretty steady diet of cast lead bullets these days.

That's what I`m doing now, just pull the FMJ and load 150 sp .303 bullets.....and since I measured the pulled bullets was .310 and had some .308 150 sp lying around would it hurt to shoot a "smaller" bullet?