M14 Loads????

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Robmcleod82

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So a friend of mine has been having some issues with his m14 loads recently.
I do his reloading for him and dont have a problem building decent ammo. This has been an ongoing problem for about a year now. Some things I learned I needed to teach my friend were:
1.The op rod guide should not move
2. When your gas system is packed with carbon it wont cycle properly
3. When the expander ball in your die is improperly adjusted the bullets fall out of the cases :jerkit:

So I was loading 168 grain hornady bthp over 42 grains of IMR 4895 with a cci large rifle primer.
This load dont shoot!
I am a little curious if this powder is a good match for this rifle? I am thinking after doing some research that this load might be a little hot.
So I ask My fellow m14 owners:
What is your load????
 
Robmcleod82 said:
(snip)
So I ask My fellow m14 owners:
What is your load????
Click to expand...

Personally, I use 45.3 Grains of BL-C(2) under a 150Gr. Hornady Boat tail soft-point bullet, with a CCI-200 Large rifle primer loaded to 2.775". This load is for commercial .308 cases, not 7.62x51mm.

I have been toying with the idea of upping this load to 47.0Gr, but life keeps getting in the way before I get a chance to test it... :p
 
Hornady 168gr BTHP, 41.0gr H4895, Once fired Rem cases with CCI BR2 primers. around 1 to 1.5 inches at 100. Nothin fancy but it works. I picked up the NEA op rod guide and seemed to tighten things a bit.
 
I found that starting loads cycled mine fine with all the M14 approved powders and 150-168 jacketed bullets. Even the low to mid range cast loads did too.

Your Hornady 168 and IMR 4895 sound like a great combo!
 
I've used Hornady 150 FMJBT with 43 gr of IMR4895, Win LR primers in IVI brass. Also tried 168s from Speer, Hornady, and Sierra. 42 gr in military brass or 43 grains in commercial brass. All work well.
 
43.5g RL15
165g Hornady Interlock
Fed 210m
1965 DA Nato brass

1.5 inches @ 100y before I even did mods to my gun. I'm hoping that now the same load will do less.
 
I just made up some rounds the other day , i was out of 4895 so i tried 42gr of Varget under a 150gr Hornady FMJBT, Privi brass ,Winchester primers ... shoot very accurate , and did not seem too hard on gun or brass at all, the brass looks mint and was left in one neat pile .. i was worried Varget might be too slow burning ?
 
frykasj said:
Personally, I use 45.3 Grains of BL-C(2) under a 150Gr. Hornady Boat tail soft-point bullet, with a CCI-200 Large rifle primer loaded to 2.775". This load is for commercial .308 cases, not 7.62x51mm.

I have been toying with the idea of upping this load to 47.0Gr, but life keeps getting in the way before I get a chance to test it... :p
Click to expand...

Mind if I use that one, haha. I've only got BLC2.
 
My experiments with imr4895 resulted in 2-3 inch groups. I bought some H4895, ballc2, and 4064 so we'll see how those make out. The thing to remember with the m1a rifles, they're really sensitive to load charge variations. Half a grain can be the difference between 2.5 inches and 1.5, I've seen and done this myself. It's not like other rifles where reloading is usually just more accurate but the more you dump in the case the hotter the load.
 
You might also try 41 grains of 4064 under that 168 grain BTHP as well. That has been the standard M-14 match load since about 1957 or so.Check that the gas system is properly aligned as well.

Scott
 
150 grain PRVI FMJ with 40.5 grains of IR 4895 and a Winchester Standard Large Rifle Primer. Gonna keep going and hope I find another sweet spot with a little more juice to it.

I was quite happy with this group. 4 shots touching and then got mind-fracked on the fifth. :redface:

M14group.jpg
 
I was using 165g bullet with 40.5 41 41.5 and 42

Every one of these loads were dog####, I tried with Winchester brass and DA 1965 (the good stuff)

Accuracy didn't unsuck until I used RL15 and Varget in Winchester brass. The idea here is to get a powerful hunting load that's accurate with an extreme powder.

One little pro-tip I have found. Every time I try a new powder in my m305 I find the most accurate load is about 1g below max. The gun doesn't really seem to like ##### loads, so from now on I just start 2g below max and go up to .5g below max. I know this is bad for the gun, but it cost me $399.00 and I took a little heat from the german gf's mom because I left it in the kitchen all oily when it arrived.
 
8ball said:
Varget is too slow powder IMHO, very hard on the gas system.
Click to expand...

Well it sure worked well for me, shrunk my groups by half ... the brass was not beat up at all . no bent rims nothing looked perfect , it never sent the brass flying too far ether .. I called Hodgdon and they said its fine for M1A and Garand type rifles .. And competition shooters often use it down south including the ones sponsored by Hodgdon ..
 
Varget will not hurt the brass but it sure will play havoc on the op-rod. It puts a little too much preasure at the port and drives the op-rod back faster than it should. If you have one of those little plastic recoil thingys for the op rod that combined with the faster more violent movement of the op-rod will cause it to fracture at the point where the roller bearing and the op-rod work together!

Scott
 
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