Pistol bullets in 308 reduced load?

D

diegocn

CGN Regular
Rating - 100%
90   0   0
Location
Waterloo, Ontario
I have some 85gr projectiles pulled from norinco 7.62x25 rounds. The bullet measured 308 in diameter, and are lead core with bimetal jacket.

I'm thinking to load these in 308 winchester cases with a powder like trail boss. It will be fired from my browning blr. This will be a close range (20 yard), low velocity (sub 2000 fps) plinking round just for fun.

There is well established data for 308 trail boss load for heavier bullets (as low as 110 gr off my head). My concern is such a short bullet will be seating pretty far from the land. Would this large jump create any pressure spike or throat wear issue? The blr is pretty sensitive to pressure to begin with, and I want to double check this is at lease sound on paper before experimenting.
 
Ganderite said:
Go for it. Bullet jump matters not.

I would use a fast rifle powder like 4198. 35 to 40 gr.

or 40 to 45 gr of 4895
Click to expand...

Thanks for chiming in. Yes I can see fast rifle powder like 4198 or AA1680 would definetly be interesting. Worth a try for sure. However I do hope to use a fast pistol powder or trail boss which is designed for this kind of things. Primary due to how little it takes which means I can shoot them pretty cheap.

I'm waiting for a small base die set to arrive as the lee sizing die seems to not size the brass down enough to chamber in my blr. Will report back when I get the dies.
 
Last edited:
Been a while since I loaded 7.62x25, but isn't bullet diameter .310-.312? I'm not entirely sure this would be an issue, but you may want to double check before you try and squeeze one through a .308 bore...
 
Shooting a fatter bullet (lead core) is not an issue. It will squeeze down ok.

I shoot .312 surplus bullets in a 308 all the time. (because I have a bucket of them.)

What is an issue is neck clearance. On firing the neck has to expand to release the bullet. If the neck is tight in the chamber, you have a pipe bomb.

Measure the neck diameter of a fired case (fired in the rifle you will use) and of a loaded round. So long as the loaded round is smaller, you are good to go.
 
Ganderite said:
Shooting a fatter bullet (lead core) is not an issue. It will squeeze down ok.

I shoot .312 surplus bullets in a 308 all the time. (because I have a bucket of them.)

What is an issue is neck clearance. On firing the neck has to expand to release the bullet. If the neck is tight in the chamber, you have a pipe bomb.

Measure the neck diameter of a fired case (fired in the rifle you will use) and of a loaded round. So long as the loaded round is smaller, you are good to go.
Click to expand...

Right. I knew there was something there; I've never done it, so I haven't really looked into it. Looks like I learned my one new thing today.
 
My load for the 308 was 110 gr. M1 carbine bullet with 17 gr, of Unique. At 50 yds. It would do one ragged hole. At 100 it would open up to over an inch but I don't remember how much over. The rifle was an iron sighted target rifle.
 
Lexthedestroyer said:
Been a while since I loaded 7.62x25, but isn't bullet diameter .310-.312? I'm not entirely sure this would be an issue, but you may want to double check before you try and squeeze one through a .308 bore...
Click to expand...

They are actually .308 diameter projectiles, much to my surprise as well.
I was pulling them to swap in magnet friendly bullets, and found 32 acp pills are too big for it. The hornady 86gr XTP bullets designed for this caliber is .308 as well.

My small based die set showed up and I'll load up some over the holidays. My plan is 10 to 14 gr of trail boss under the 85 gr pill.

I've also discovered there's a low recoil load for 7.62x51 called M256. It's reported to be 38 to 41 gr of IMR4198 under 82gr pill, travelling at 3100 to 3200 fps. It might cycle some autoloaders, but that's irrelavent to my case. This certainly provided another data point if I want to take Ganderite's suggestion of using a faster rifle powder. I got lots of 4198 and AA1680 for my 7.62x39 reload.

The 110gr M1 carbine bullets are very interesting. The plated ones seems to be selling for $.12 a bullet, so it's cheap enough for plinking. When I run out of the pulled projectiles I'll be giving these a try.
 
I used a bunch of mixed pulled 7.62x25 pistol bullets in .308 with Trailboss some years ago and it worked well. I never chronied it and they didn't group that well, maybe 5-6" at 50yds if memory serves, but they were mixed bullets from different manufacturers, lots, and countries of origin. It was range-pickup live ammo I pulled and reused the bullets from. With consistent bullets it would likely be pretty easy to see 2-3 MoA so long as you don't push them too fast.
 
Update: I loaded a few today.

I've worked up the load of 14 grain trail boss using 150 grain bullet before, so for a lighter bullet, I figure 14 grain would be safe. That 85 grain pistol pill sure looked funny on a 308.



Went to the indoor range and shot at 20 yard, looks promising.


I will do some longer range when the outdoor range opens up after the holiday and fine tune the accuracy.
 
Looks pretty good. I've played around with the opposite end of the spectrum: heavy for calibre projectiles (200gr lead) under a fast pistol powder. It's nice and quiet, but I haven't been able to get it to group terribly well. I was looking for a shell I could carry around whilst deer hunting for popping grouse...
 
Yes! Trail boss and light 308 projectiles work. I have a sub sonic load and a faster load using 110 FMJs and 110 plated jacketed projectiles. These work well in bolts but will need to be hand cycled in my M305 even with 14 grand of TB for with 110 FMJ and gas port closed. Trail boss rocks!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom