[bobotech]

A friend of mine has a couple of cases of this stuff that is known to be bad.

He is asking 300 a case with 640 rounds in each case. I'm thinking that if I can get each case for 250 and pull all the bullets and reload the cartridges with powder, it might be a good deal.

What do you guys think? Is the late 90's indian 308 usable and reloadable after dumping the powder and recharging the cases? And is the brass decent enough to reload after I shoot the recharged cases?

I know this stuff has a bad reputation.

[bullseye308]

The brass should be fine the bullets will be sealed with tar and should be cleaned, and the powder does great on roses. Check over at http://www.militaryfirearm.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=617 for more info on Indian ammo. These guys have dealt with lots of it in the past. :)

[bobotech]

So would 250 for the primed brass and bullets (component value) be a decent deal?

And what kind of powder was used in these? Just ,kind of wondering.

[bullseye308]

250 wouldn't be bad. The problem with the powder charge was that it varied by a few grains in some cases. No QC at all and some of the cases were dented, the bullets canted, stuff like that. I have heard reports from folks that pulled some down and weighed each charge and they varied by as much as 7+ grains at times. I fired some through a bolt gun and some rounds were noticeably different from others, either harder or softer recoil as compared to most. It was noticeable. :(
Pull the bullets, clean them up, and use measured charges of good powder, and you should be fine.

[fatelk]

40 cents each for garbage ammo, component value only? I sure wouldn't.

I bought a couple hundred rounds of this same stuff a while back for 20 cents a round, then spent hours pulling them apart, resizing the brass and remeasuring the powder charges. The bullets were not uniform in weight OR diameter, and some of the brass was scrap. I had several that were so bad they wouldn't even fit in the shellholder. One had a paper-thin rim.

If you can find some 1x brass, and wait until the scare is over on powder, primers and bullets, you can load up some rounds that will be about a hundred times better for not much more money.

I suppose if you just want to rework it for blasting ammo, don't care about accuracy, and want it right away, then it would work.

[bobotech]

That is what I want, blasting ammo. I don't have that good of eyesight. I just like shooting at crap like puddles in the range and the big metal bear at 480 yards. You don't need a 1moa gun to hit that big metal bear at 480 yards.

I found a couple hundred rounds of 308 brass at my shop however its stamped with FC 308 WIN. I don't beleive that is good brass to use.

I currently have about 400 pieces of RP new 308 brass (mix of primed and unprimed) that is my good stuff.

[evan price]

That FC is Federal, it is as good as and probably much better than 1990's era Indian brass. The 1990's era Indian stuff was rejects, range pickups, really lousy quality stuff. Figure the projectiles are ten cents each, the primed cases ten cents each, and that's all they are worth (unless you want to just shoot it as is and recover the brass, then maybe a quarter apiece). The 1990's stuff was made on the old British machines but the Brits were not there providing oversight then, like they were in the 70's.

The 1970's era Indian OFV was excellent, I wish I had another couple dozen thousand rounds of it. Nice brass, too.