.308 Brass Question

[Rucker61]

I shoot .308 in a Tikka T3 for target shooting and hunting. Last summer I shot up about 500 rounds of Freedom Munition remanufactured .308 and kept the brass in case I wanted to start reloading. I'm starting to reload now, and with new .308 brass almost impossible to find, I decided to start working to use what I have. I've cleaned and deprimed 200 rounds of the 500 pieces of brass. It's about 50% Lake City and the rest is a mix of headstamps showing SBS, PMJ, Federal, TAA06 and WCC. A random sampling shows that length of the brass varies between 2.015 and 2.020, mainly on the low side. Freedom says that they don't use crimped primer pockets on their LC.

My primary use will be for target and hunting. Is this brass worth refurbishing if I want the maximum energy and velocity that's 1 MOA accurate for 150 gr bullets, or should I "bite the bullet" and pay for the expensive brass that's the only stuff readily available?

[cstone]

You are shooting it out of a bolt gun that it has already been shot out of? That brass is form fitted for that rifle and you should only need to neck size it. If the primer pockets were swaged by Freedom, then all you need to do is neck size, prime, charge, and seat bullets. Work up your recipe in groups of five or ten to find the powder charge that works best for the bullet you are using and then load the rest.

IMO max charge is almost never the most accurate, and you will get plenty of life out of LC brass using a mid range charge.

There are plenty of reloaders here who have lots more experience than me. Hoser, Zombie Steve, ChaLee, etc...

Be safe.

[Rucker61]

So even though the brass is 10 thousandths longer than recommended, I shouldn't need to trim with a neck sizing die? What about the 200 I ran through a FL die?

[spqrzilla]

At 2.015" the brass is at SAAMI max length, so you could trim it up a touch. I'd probably recommend trimming it all down to around 2.005"

It is possible to get 1 MOA from mixed headstamp brass, but its ain't likely. I'd sort out the largest single headstamp and do most of my reloading with that brass.

[mtik00]

I'm really interested in this too. I did the same thing with Freedom brass. I was using their blaster ammo in my Savage ( new shooter ). I did notice a huge difference in point of impact with the different brass. I don't think it was all me, but who knows.

[dtbighit]

I shoot .308 in a Tikka T3 for target shooting and hunting. Last summer I shot up about 500 rounds of Freedom Munition remanufactured .308 and kept the brass in case I wanted to start reloading. I'm starting to reload now, and with new .308 brass almost impossible to find, I decided to start working to use what I have. I've cleaned and deprimed 200 rounds of the 500 pieces of brass. It's about 50% Lake City and the rest is a mix of headstamps showing SBS, PMJ, Federal, TAA06 and WCC. A random sampling shows that length of the brass varies between 2.015 and 2.020, mainly on the low side. Freedom says that they don't use crimped primer pockets on their LC.

My primary use will be for target and hunting. Is this brass worth refurbishing if I want the maximum energy and velocity that's 1 MOA accurate for 150 gr bullets, or should I "bite the bullet" and pay for the expensive brass that's the only stuff readily available?Just bite the bullet and get new brass,ill take your old brass [ROFL1]

[Tim K]

Might as well learn to load on the existing brass. Depending on the chamber dimensions of your rifle, you may get limited life from any brass without annealing. Factory chambers are often on the large side leading to lots of "movement" from sized to fired.

As already mentioned, sort by head stamp and load the biggest quantity. Load the rest for practice ammo if you like.

Brass is a small contributor to accuracy when compared to shooter skill, barrel quality, trigger quality, consistency of powder charge weight, and bullet selection. I wouldn't worry about it until you've worked through those other factors first.

[jerrymrc]

I can tell you there is a big difference volume wise between LC and PMJ. I did some tests years ago and while unscientific I sized each and then trimmed. Then I filled with a small ball powder and carded off the top. I then weighed each of the charges. As you can see many like to claim that Military brass has less volume but sometimes this is not true.

I do not have it written down in my load book but I keep thinking that there was about 100FPS difference between PMJ and LC all else being equal. And I myself keep headstamps separate except for the M80 pulls that go into the plinking ammo.

Results

LC= 52.4
AFF91= 52.8
FC= 55.2
Hurtenburger= 54.1
PMJ= 54.8

[Hoser]

When you are poking holes in paper and critters, try to use the same flavor of brass trimmed to the same OAL.

For plinking and shooting dirt, any old flavor of brass will work.

I would trim all your brass back to minimum and check it after a reload or two.

For target ammo, neck only sizing is fine. For hunting ammo I would FL resize without a doubt.

[Rucker61]

Just bite the bullet and get new brass,ill take your old brass [ROFL1]

What is this "new brass" you speak of? I can't find any .308 anywhere.

Also, I haven't invested in a trimmer or case prep power tool yet. What's the going rate for case prep, or just trimming?

[dtbighit]

What is this "new brass" you speak of? I can't find any .308 anywhere.

Also, I haven't invested in a trimmer or case prep power tool yet. What's the going rate for case prep, or just trimming?
I know you can't find brass anywhere,you can order a Lee case trimmer and lock stud for cheap and do it by hand,its slow but yields good results for me,when I do .308 I take my time and don't load in volume anyway

[SA Friday]

Check the Walmart off of Harmony. I think they carry reloading stuff, and if so, may have an RCBS case trimmer. They run about $70-75. Having all the cases the same length will make a difference in accuracy. For my bolt guns, I like to resize inbetween neck sizing and full resizing. I set my resizer to just resize the case wall and shoulder barely enough to allow for an easy bolt lock-up and no more. It took some testing to get the resizing dies to where I wanted them, but I see a slight increase in accuracy without the increase in difficulty getting the bolt locked into place. A lot of the reloading forums out there call this "knocking the shoulder back". While learning the process or reloading, I would recommend going with a little more resizing than a little less.

As for different brass, I shoot a lot of Lapua, Win, and Rem brass in various calibers. In 308 specifically, a lot of Lapua and Win. I can get the two different cases to his the same POA and POI even past 600 yds, but they take two different powder charges to do this. Running mixed brass in a rifle will result in inaccurate groups unless you do tons of testing and get lucky enough to figure out exactly what brass and powder mix will result in the same accuracy... WAY too much effort. Only an anal retentive mad scientist like me would spend the time and effort to do something like this. (OK, maybe Zombie Steve would do it too. He's kinda nutty like me.) Separate the brass and treat the different makes as different ammo requiring different reloading specs.

Powders: Varget, RL-15, or IMR 4064. Try them in that order. Work up your loads, shoot groups for accuracy. Keep records of all the reloads you try along the way.

This will help too. http://www.ar-15.co/threads/30291-How-I-work-up-a-new-reload?highlight=

[Rucker61]

How about this for a trimmer: http://www.littlecrowgunworks.com/wft.html (http://www.littlecrowgunworks.com/wft.html)