Ben for shotgun reloading I have an old Pacific 366. I believe it is the pre Hornady 366. All I ever loaded was #8 target loads and I used the same load for trap, skeet, etc. I don't remember how many rds per hour but It was fairly quick. I used to go through about 500 rds per week when I did a lot of shotgun shooting. Today I am more into long range rifle so I don't really bother with shotgun. For as much as I shoot shotgun some of the major sporting goods stores (Dick's, Cabela's, Sport's authority, etc.) have sales on target loads fairly regularly and the price is not too much more than what it costs to reload a box shells.

Shotgun
 

Thanks!....my brother and I shoot a flat a week (8 boxes one flat) (yep, around 30boxes of AA shell)...hopefully I can save up so I can get a good one:-)

My percision air-rifle couch is a man named Larry Schimdt. Anyone heard the name? He tells me that he went to Germany for pistol and won (pretty hard)...he also (I think) ran the course for machine-gun and then had to take it apart and make it again for speed....yep, he won. Funny thing is that his partner (The man who loads it...helps...idk the title of him....anyways) got injured, so he picked up a different one, and in the hotel they were at, he stuffed a machine gun in his case, carried it to his room, and taught the guy to take it down and up in a night.

Thank Gene:cool:

Be a Decent Shooter
 

Guys who Reload -- particularly for long range with the AR-15 Service Rifle.

Do those of us who don't go overboard with loads a big favor in High Power competition. Keep your 5.56 / .223 Long Range loads under maximum pressures please.

I am getting real tired of alabi strings because some moron thought he could get an extra half grain of powder behind his 77 grain .223 bullet - thus creating the 'blown primer' effect that also causes the 'failure to function' effect, that causes the 'desperate field stripping' effect, and thus causing the 'match being two hours longer than it should be' effect due to the alabi strings.

Not to mention the fact that those of us who are squadded next to said AR-15 shooters who want to overload already heavy loads. Bottom line is that it makes us safe reloaders nervous to see a fellow next door desperately field stripping his AR-15 to remove the blown primers from his "I use an extra grain of powder behind my 80 grain bullet" load.

Makes us nervous as when a rifle blows primers in 60 degree temperatures, something is terribly wrong and another ten degrees of air temp means the same rifle disintegrates when the trigger is pulled, thus causing guys like me who are safe in their loading to become wounded by flying AR-15 pieces.

So if you AR shooters think another half grain of this or that behind your 80 grain bullet will still be safe -- please consider those of us who still covet our eyes, fingers, hands, and faces.


Gene

Gene - Does that mean my HSLD 80 gr. bullets won't go 3300 fps no matter what I do? :D Even if I crunch the powder a little bit? When Billy Bob and Bubba gave me the data they swore their "secret" 80 gr 1000 yd load for the AR could match any 40 gr Blitzking and that it would "shoot like a laser beam" at max range. I'll have to keep my eyes open later in the summer when it gets up around 100 in the shade. Should I change firing positions if the guy next to me pulls his ammo out of a cooler for the August match? :p

Enough giving you a hard time 'cause I do agree with your sentiments. Sounds like you had a bad time this last weekend. I actually sympathize even though we don't have that problem very often at Butner (or at least I don't see it). Are you going to be in town the 14th of June? Peregrino

Peregrino:

I live in Washington State -- about 2500 miles from Butner. Kind of a long ways to drive for a High Power match I figure. :p I retired here for a couple of good reasons. Panama Canal Zone, Fort Benning, Fort Bragg, Fort Stewart, Washington DC, Thailand, Haiti. All have one thing in common -- the temperatures average about 80 and the humidity averages about 80. I will only travel east of the Rocky Mountains between 1 October and 1 April. I have spent some July days at Yakima but Yakima is only an hour from the Cascade Mountains where the temperature is once again fit for human existence.

I didn't have a bad time last weekend but the high speed AR shooters did. One reason why I never became interested in the AR-15 for High Power was the continual observation of said shooters blowing primers with their 80 grain bullet loads. They were trying to make an 80 grain VLD in 5.56 competitive with the 6mm or 6.5mm cartridges fired from Match Rifles.

Lord Have Mercy -- I have seen guys dump ammo into coolers of ice when their bullets blew up about 100 yards from the muzzle. Didn't blow primers but they also threw out their brass after firing.

Just hope guys take real care in loading heavy bullets in the .223. It ain't worth blowing a rifle up to win a match. Blowing primers is an indicator and one that I believe many AR shooters don't take seriously enough.

Now I have a few rounds of 5.56 that the AMU had made at Sandia Labs. Dense core big time. It popped holes through 3/8 inch steel made by Mike Gibson (450 Brinnell) at 300 yards like that steel was an aluminum beer can. Pressures were low and I bet that stuff would shoot at 1000 yards.

Gene

Gene I am some what South of you. Hopefully it would be nice to get together.

I think some of the issue has to do with "Bravado", "heck I am a real man, I can handle a shoulder cannon. I will load at max plus 20%".


Never understood that frame of thinking. It ruins brass and messes up the firearm. Max load is not always better. One of my favorite books to start a load with is Ken Water's "Pet Loads". It is a oldie and a goodie.

I never understood why people think velocity is the key. The only thing it's required for is a parameter into a ballistic calculation. A 6.5mm 142 MK traveling 2600 - 2800 fps will reach a 1000 with accuracy the same as if it were going at 3000+ fps. If wind is going to affect the slower moving bullet than it is going to do the same with a faster moving one. Both the slow and the fast will still be going 1000+ fps when they get down range. Slow will save the barrel and at $500 - 650 a pop for a new one i'll take a slower rebarrel rate. The guys shooting a 6.5-284 seem to rebarrel at around 1800-2000 rounds. My 6.5-06 going at 2700 fps will need a new barrel at around 5000+. All bullets of the same weight with a BC of .45 - .55 should still be at a 1000+ fps at a 1000yds when leaving the muzzle in the 2700 fps range.

I was at a match a couple of weeks back in WV where winds were steady at about 30mph with gusts to 45. I don't care how fast your bullet is traveling if you are engaging targets past 700yds in those winds than it's simply a matter of luck. The hold for my 6.5-06 142mk was left or right edge of the reticle and I think some guys were dialing 18-20 moa instead of holding. Oh what fun.

Sticker Shock
 

Hollis and guys:

Am doing my yearly bulk purchases of reloading components. Man, sticker shock on a drop shipment from Sierra. Their prices have gone up three times this year and this last time it is almost a ten percent increase.

No wonder the shooting sports are dying. No way a youth can get involved in competitive shooting unless his parents are pretty well off or he gets sponsored.

Re-thinking my aversion towards the 5.56 but honestly, the prices of 5.56 bullets aren't that much cheaper than 6 or 6.5's.

Gene

Gene, no kidding, I buy in bulk, best prices, but they last a while.

Next time I buy..............Egads the price. There are some companies that sell pulled military components.

This is one company:

http://www.iidbs.com/hitech

Pays more than now to shop around.

H.

I'm hoping finished ammo and component prices will come down as commodities back off from their highs. Copper, zinc, lead, etc. were all unreasonably high as speculators did their thing recently.

Even Wolf 5.56 is through the roof.

Exactly.

Manufacturers raised their prices because of the metals, and already loaded ammo, including surplus has gotten to be in very short supply.

Shipping heavy components and loaded ammo costs much more with oil at $74 a barrel as well. Do not neglect to figure that the cost to mine and smelt is affected by fuel cost increases as well.

I don't put Wolf in guns I plan to keep and rely on.

TR

Message received and heeded - I plan on keeping the rifles I now have.

Last week I put about 300 rounds of the brass Serbian Wolf M193 through the new POF upper without a problem, but I gave a mag-full to a kid next to me and he had to manually cycle the action for every shot. He said his rifle was clean and lubed -- I don't grok the system well enough to even guess what was going on. He had no problems with the steel-cased Wolf he'd been using that day, so it's a puzzle. There was no real discernible difference in the POI of the two Wolf rounds at 200 yards.

Edit: Sorry for the hijack

Gene asked me to write something on the benefits of using pulled military components.

I think probably the best way to approach the issue is to express some thoughts. For me any shooting is better than no shooting, I just enjoy it. There are different types and style of shooting. Using pulled components fall into my shooting for the fun of it category. For long range, varminting, and serious stuff I use commercial components.

Using pulled components is less expensive, .308 is around $6.50 per 100. The other aspect of reloading is not just the financial consideration, but giving a person something to do. I prefer reloading over any "honey dos". I don't do precision shooting much anymore, that would mean doing more Honey Dos than reloading.

Also every so often I like to do a "mad moment", just going out blasting away.

As Gene mentioned a loaded round is getting up there in cost, for that mad moment and general plinking, pulled military component works.

The loads for my .338 Win Mag and 300 Rem Ultra mag are about $1.50 a round, I don't shoot much. They are for hunting. Biggest cost is bullets. I would never Plink with those rifle.

I would say, pulled components would not be the choice for shooting that requires precision.

The other thought, is that people mention Wolf ammo for a lesser expensive alternative. IMHO, my reloads, using pulled Military components are more healthier for my firearms.

Gene, I got back from the range and took a closer look at the pulled bullets. They were re-sized and polished. Actually look good. They were 147gr FMJBTs.

I was getting about a minute and half group. I was using a A10 FT, Burris fullfield scope, and the round was not loaded for any rifle in particular. I have a ruger MkII , that clover leafs with hand loads, I probably should have used it instead.

Some surplus ammo is really good some not. CMP has some Greek 30-06 that a number of CMP shooters spoke very highly of. I tried it in my Pattern 17 and was very pleased. I had some .308 surplus (I think Portuguese) that was about 5 minutes. I shot it in my MkII and thought, at first, something went wrong with my rifle.

A friend tried some of the 55gr in his AR and some Hornady (I believe) 53 Grain. The Hornady was slightly better.


H.

Hollis:

Roger but I wanted you to comment on the use of surplus powders. Basically the fact that they may be called the same as a commercial powder but that doesn't mean they are the same.

I had about 16 pounds of a surplus "30-06" ball powder at one time. The company provided a sheet with reloading data that they had developed. It looked strange because almost every load was filling the entire cartridge case. I finally figured out it was something akin to a Hodgdon ball powder whose name I can't remember-- but only for one specific load. This load was for the 150 grain ball round. The load was identical to the same load of that commercial Hodgdon powder with the same velocities.

That is where any similarity ended. The load data with the powder became very different when bullet weights were changed. It was a lousy powder for the 30-06 and I believe it was way too slow. However I didn't dare try it in a larger cartridge out of pure fear. I dumped about twelve pounds of it.

A friend of mine gave me about 35 pounds of surplus IMR 4895 recently. It is absolutely not the same as commercial IMR 4895. It is even faster than H-4895from what I have gathered. I can still use it to decent effect so I won't dump it but it just shows guys that the surplus powder you buy probably isn't like any commercial powder you buy either.

My belief is that cannister powders were intended for one bullet, fired from one specific type of cartridge, at one specific velocity, using one specific primer to set it all off. Deviating from that very specific set of components will create a far different effect than can be extrapolated from knowledge gained from shooting commercial powders.

So I tell guys to be very careful when messing with surplus powders.

Gene