Very cool. The Murica magazine load.Been casting and loading 225gr subs for the 7.62x35, even made some patriotic rounds...
Just picked up some ADG brass for the 300wsm, stuff is priced like gold! Been working with some 200.20x Bergers and it seems to like em.
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Nice. I picked up some 230s 45s from them awhile back. I figure those will be extra fun. Nice and lazy and large diameter. Sadly, no night shoots for me unless someone wants to invite me over to their private range/land. My range shuts down about sunset. So unless it is a real overcast day, it never gets THAT dark before I have to go cold. One evening I need get to practice with my G17 and G21 WMLs and some shooting because it was heavily overcast and dark as heck by the time I had to go cold.Loaded up some more 9mm this morning with Ginex, since I verified the loaded rounds plunk test as expected. Finally have restored my 9mm buffer, which feels good. I have very mixed feelings about Ginex SPPs; they don't go in very smooth, and my Primer Pro doesn't like them much. But I have to admit you can really crunch them deep without undue effort, which is a big plus to me.
I also lucked into 1k of 124gr STREAK pulls from American Reloading, so I think some night-shoot-specific ammo is in my near future.
standard birdshot, standard field loads, or something more interesting?A couple of half hours over the past few evenings after dinner and prior to gym...
How fast are you getting? I thought the Berry's plated couldn't exceed ~1500fps. Would love to be able to load those Berry's in .303 British. I can be below the military load but will still need enough for the gun to cycle.Went to range again, more test-firing. 7.62x39 with Berry's plated bullet over 23.1gr CFE BLK was OK.
Berry's 7.62x39 projos are officially rated to 2000fps. Lyman provides data to 2200fps. There are people online who have pushed them to higher than that with apparently no ill effects, but that's not what I'm going after.How fast are you getting? I thought the Berry's plated couldn't exceed ~1500fps. Would love to be able to load those Berry's in .303 British. I can be below the military load but will still need enough for the gun to cycle.
If it helps, I saw similar performance with Berry's and CFE BLK out of my SKS until I bumped the load to I think 24gr? Something around there. I got good (for my SKS) grouping out to 100 with it. My range doesn't go past that, so no way to check, right now, at longer distances.Went to range again, more test-firing. 7.62x39 with Berry's plated bullet over 23.1gr CFE BLK was OK. Accuracy at 25yds was vaguely acceptable, but it opened up pretty bad at 50yds. I may try bumping the powder load to whatever the starting load for FMJ is, since this seems indicative that they're losing stability early on. (For reference, my old Yugo ammo shot like a laser beam in comparison.) Also discovered that my Maxim 9 more-or-less tolerates Ginex SPP, which was a nice surprise. Need to seat it reasonably deep, but it lights off, which is more than I can say for CCI.
Loaded up another couple hundred 9mm when I got home to replenish the stockpile.
Not sure what the next project will be. Part of my problem is that the vast majority of my shooting is 9mm and 22lr, so I'm not really finding myself super short on rifle ammo.
I feel that. If I setup my tripod brass catcher right on top of my SKS, I can deflect about 80% of my brass back on to the bench, or it'll bounce and land right around my bench. Half of what goes bouncing way in front of the bench I manage to find in the grass.Berry's 7.62x39 projos are officially rated to 2000fps. Lyman provides data to 2200fps. There are people online who have pushed them to higher than that with apparently no ill effects, but that's not what I'm going after.
I didn't have a chrono on me that I could use with my Sig 556R (Magnetospeed being somewhat finicky about mounting). I may load up another batch and try out my LabRadar on them (coming today, supposedly). Hopefully I procured a x39 conversion kit for my 650 at some point...
The problem with using Berry's in general for me is that 7.62x39 is 25-35c per case, and if you can't recover your cases, the cost of the bullet is only a fraction of the cost of shooting that caliber. The mental math I do is 25c per case, 12c of powder, and 9c per primer. That's 45c not including the bullet. Berry's bullets are 15cpb; PPU is ~21cpb.
If you're shooting a bolt action like the CZ, no problem, you can retain those cases and now you're talking the difference between 36c and 42c per shot (which isn't cheap, but is livable for low volume use). But with a semi-auto, those things fling brass to the moon, and it's often forward where retrieval isn't easy. 61c vs 67c? Six cents to deal with the hassles of loading and shooting plated just doesn't seem worth it to me. Heck, you could make a strong argument that reloading 7.62x39 period still is not a smart plan for semi-autos if it's not for some sort of terminal effect boost over the imported steel-case stuff due to how you lose pretty much the entire cartridge anyways.
The only reason I'm doing this at all is because 1) I got some super cheap "scrap" brass (the better of which, it seems, holds up fine to mild pressures), 2) I made a promise to myself that I would be able to reload everything I shoot, and 3) it is useful if I need to shoot at somewhere like NRA HQ, where they've banned steel-jacket ammo.
Yeah, my plan is to crank them all the way to 25, 26, 27, maybe even 28 (like Gavin at UR did). Having a LabRadar will make it much easier to determine velocity (and BC, interestingly enough).If it helps, I saw similar performance with Berry's and CFE BLK out of my SKS until I bumped the load to I think 24gr? Something around there. I got good (for my SKS) grouping out to 100 with it. My range doesn't go past that, so no way to check, right now, at longer distances.
Hit me up if you do.I think I am going to give up any more reloading for 7.62x39 past the supplies I have. I might even consider just selling them off.
This is the only brass catcher I have found that works for an SKS. I recover 100% of my brass, now. Load the gun, attach the catcher, release the bolt and shoot without concern about where the brass will land.I feel that. If I setup my tripod brass catcher right on top of my SKS, I can deflect about 80% of my brass back on to the bench, or it'll bounce and land right around my bench. Half of what goes bouncing way in front of the bench I manage to find in the grass.
I think I am going to give up any more reloading for 7.62x39 past the supplies I have. I might even consider just selling them off. That said, I got 500 pre-primed "seconds" cases from RMR a couple of years ago for something like 15cpc. Checking them with a case checker and calipers, around 250 of them are fine. About 200 of them are sized a little under (but should be safe to load), about 30 of them are sized large and just need a pass through the resizing die. 20 are trash and sized way off or damaged cases. I need to de-prime them at some point to reuse the primers.
I had also bought 200 federal pre-primed cases early in COVID for around 25cpc. And I've collected maybe 50-60 range brass that can be reloaded and generated maybe 50-60 of my own from brass cased boxer primed commercial loads.
I have around 800 Hornady .310 FMJ 123gr bullets I picked up at a good price awhile back, that box of Berry's plated that I've barely used anything out of, other than working up a load. And 400 mystery 123 FMJ that I think is probably hornady I got really cheap. Oh, and I have around 250 PPU .309" bullets that work okay, but not great. And 2# of CFE BLK.
But I also have at least 1500-2000 rounds of commercial 7.62x39 non-corrosive steel case and maybe 300 brass cased 7.62x39.
At the rate I am shooting it all up, just the commercial stuff is like 10+ years of shooting my SKS. Add in the reloading supplies and I've got like 2 decades worth.