M14 Ammo Suggestions

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CGN,

It has been a few years since having an M14 variant and shooting it. I have picked up a LRB and want to do some shooting with it. For plinking ammo what have people been using that is reliable in regards to feeding and safe. I did a brief search, but I couldn't find what I was looking for. Please link me to it if I missed it.

Thanks!
BB
 
CGN,

It has been a few years since having an M14 variant and shooting it. I have picked up a LRB and want to do some shooting with it. For plinking ammo what have people been using that is reliable in regards to feeding and safe. I did a brief search, but I couldn't find what I was looking for. Please link me to it if I missed it.

Thanks!
BB

I have never had any issue with Hirtenberger or Lake City.
 
An LRB is a fine piece of workmanship! Single or double lug? You ought to check the chamber for the depth of the leade (that bit of jump before the rifling). That is the sort of rifle built to shoot a particular weight of bullet - 147, 155, 168 or 175 grain. When the M1 and M14s were still competitive in US fullbore shooting and the big service teams were tied to issue supplies, their advice was to shoot as many different lots of ammunition as possible to find the one that made their rifle sing. Keep that aside and hammer hard!

In a pre-rolled ammo situation, you should plan on buying a couple cases of what looks good and doing some testing. There are probably three case quantities of types circulating - Austrian pretty-close-to-NATO Hirtenberger (Boxer and Berdan primed, someone else will help with the particular years); US surplus Lake City NATO ball (umm? why are they selling new production ammo for cheap?); and Chinese whatever they can flog. Canadian IVI and DA issue ammunition circulates on the secondary market. IMHO, choose the DA first for ball vs IVI. It might be from the 1960s, but it started out with superb QC.

You may also encounter Brazilian CBC from the 1970s. DO NOT fire this! Recognizable by the green sealant, severe primer crimps and paper boxes that say "Reengastada". It is dangerous and unpredictable. However, remanufactured CBC in paper boxes marked as Gold Cross is very good, both because the powder has been replaced and because it will have 155gr Sierra bullets.
 
I would recommend trying to get your hands on some Lake City loaded ammo, save the brass and handload that once fired brass going forward.
That LRB deserves quality handmade ammo.

Edit to add:

I believe this XM80 ammo uses LC brass, and SFRC (and maybe other supporting vendors) has some in bulk.

https://theammosource.com/federal-xm80cs-7-62x51-149gr-fmj-box-of-500/
 
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Can you buy lake city in quantities of less than. 500?

I would love to try a few different options to see what this rifle likes. I may buy a few boxes of American eagle M1a, battlepack of Hirtenberger and I would like to find a small quantity of XM80.

I'm not doing hand rolled again. Been there, I'm not match shooting.
 
Yes lots of stores sell the Federal 7.62x51 for about 25$ a box of 20 or less. Sometimes in a white box just stamped federal. Sometimes in a blue box under american eagle name.
These will likely shoot different. I got two different batches and they're different OAL. One's 3/16 shorter than the other. One's XM80C other is XM80CL.
This is considered machine gun ammo, should be just fine in any M14 tho. Not considered to be accurate or anything.

Anyways, for consistency I'll be reloading. I just recently bought 300 new brass LC shells, already primed. 27$ per 100. Put in a 50 cent bullet with 25 cents of powder. Cheap cheap cheap. New brass is also cheap so saves headaches of cleaning and resizing.

Or just find a .308 it likes. LRBs I'm guessing are headspaced for both.
 
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I just picked up a new to me, Heinz-57 Norinco M305. I was planning to hand-roll most of what gets shot through it. I’m specifically curious as to whether this action tends to be tolerant of “soft point” bullets, or whether it’s best to stick with FMJ or OTM match type bullets? I’m thinking of starting with either Hornady or Speer 150 grain soft points, as that’s what I have on hand.
 
Wholesale sports used to carry some American Eagle ammo that had a photo of and said it was for M1As used to be way cheaper then any other 308 ammo too I bought quite a bit of it but haven't seen any other stores carry it since. Shot decent out of mine but I also have shot the Federal Lake City Bulk 7.62x51 stuff you can get a quite a few places. I have not shot any of the Hertsberger stuff but other then that I just reload its just cheaper and you can customize it better
 
I just picked up a new to me, Heinz-57 Norinco M305. I was planning to hand-roll most of what gets shot through it. I’m specifically curious as to whether this action tends to be tolerant of “soft point” bullets, or whether it’s best to stick with FMJ or OTM match type bullets? I’m thinking of starting with either Hornady or Speer 150 grain soft points, as that’s what I have on hand.

Soft point and plastic tipped bullets work just fine. One of my favourite loads uses 150gr AMAX bullets. Never had a failure to feed.
 
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