Which brass for reloading in a M305

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AaronL

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K, got some great feedback in another thread (thanks Gents).
Picked up a Dominion Arms (Norinco) SOCOM 18 (M305) chambered in 762x51 NATO.
Previous owner safely fired 308 ammo in it. I plan to reload for it, but would like to start off with loaded ammunition.
Did the same for my precision .243, and have 5 reloads on that brass and havent noticed any signs of weakening yet, so pretty happy with that.
Wondering if i should be buying actual 762x51NATO ammo for the SOCOM 18 or if commercial 308 brass will stand up alright for reloading?
Ideally LC brass would be great, but more prep work. Just wondering (and hoping) i can get away with winchester or something cheaper :)
thanks!
 
buy surplus hirtenberger ammo and reload it - i did with good results - also you would want to reduce your loads since these are thicker than comercial brass
 
I just picked up 500 pieces of surplus LC and similar brass. I wouldn't be too worried about the additional prep work. A primer pocket reamer, drill and a steady hand made quick work of it. Took me about 10 minutes to do 100+ pieces.
 
IvoB said:
buy surplus hirtenberger ammo and reload it - i did with good results - also you would want to reduce your loads since these are thicker than comercial brass
Click to expand...

I had looked into this a bit, but was unsure about the brass regarding the primer. I havent found any boxer primed hirtenbeger, is it possible with the berdans?
 
Hirtenberg is available in Boxer. Buy that and reload it.

or buy some IVI brass.

Military brass has a hard head to take the violence of extraction.

Down load at least 2 full grains from commercial brass load data.
 
I have found Hirtenburger a little too soft personally. I use PRVI where possible, it stands up to the abuse on the head better.

Hirtenburger, when given the full treatment (incl. annealing) make a fairly decent bolt action round for 3-5 reloads. In an M305 I would go twice only, personally.)

Candocad.
 
I use Hirtenberger 7.62x51 for plinking and reload that brass. The 7.62 brass is thicker than commercial brass, and the very loose chamber in my m305 means the brass stretches a lot. The primer crimp is also not as bad to deal with as some other 7.62. Hirtenberger has the "three dot" crimp rather than the "full circle". I find reducing 308 loads by about 1.5 grains is about right to account for the smaller case volume.

That said... Jerry (Mystic Precision above) has had a lot of success with the M1A platform in the past. A lot of what I have learned came from various posts he's made online. There's a particularly good one on reloading for the M1A if you do a google search.
 
IvoB said:
buy surplus hirtenberger ammo and reload it - i did with good results - also you would want to reduce your loads since these are thicker than comercial brass
Click to expand...

In my measurement of water volumes of cases I found the hirtenberger cases vary close to the volume of commercial Winchester brass, that would make it similar in thickness to commercial brass, not similar to the LC which had lower water volumes as expected. I suggest doing your own measurements before taking another persons word as you may be surprised.

When reloading Hirt brass, my measurements of powder used in my commercially Winchester cases I found similar performance with the same powder weights and bullet weights as well. Just my findings thought
 
i now shoot hirt and ivi in my m305 but before that i was using winchester and never had any issues with the few hundred reloads i put through it. only brass i ever had issue with was federal. i had some federal american eagle that i reloaded twice and on third firing i had roughly 8 full case head separations in a box of 20. so now all federal brass gets crimped with pliers and thrown in the garbage barrel.
 
My gun out of the box was 14 thou over go gauge. If your gun does not have a reasonably tight chamber/headspace and you have not adjusted your dies to suit, dont expext a lot of reloads.
 
I am not a precision shooter, whacking the 200yd gong is my style of shooting. I pick up range brass process and reload it, throw it out at the second reload.
works for me
 
I run Federal brass in my M14S. I started out with a crate of American Eagle and that was what I started reloading with. It's given me great (for an M14) accuracy, I have loads with 155gr Amax and 168gr BTHPs that very rarely print 5 round groups bigger than 1.5 moa. I inspect the brass after every firing and normally end up pitching it at 4-5 firings. That being said, I've measured my headspace (1.638") and I size my brass appropriately (bump the shoulder 3-4 thou). I've stuck with the Federal brass simply because I developed loads with it and don't have much interest in doing more load dev. I generally buy 1x fired Fed brass and then anneal it.

If I had to redo things, I'd buy a crate of XM80 (LC brass) or PMC Bronze, shoot it then reload that brass. I use both of those brands of brass in 2 different precision bolt guns and have found the brass to be both very consistent in terms of weight as well as tough. The LC brass I have is all on 10+ reloads and I've pitched maybe a dozen pieces out of 500 or so for loose primers and that's running a decently stout load. If I were to just buy new brass, I'd most likely pick up some PRVI. I've run it in an old rifle I had and found it to be very consistent and also durable. That barrel is long gone but I still have a few hundred pieces of brass that have all had 10+ firings and is still fine.
 
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