Garand Bullets?

[Jmurman]

Bullets for Reloading?


What bullets do you use for "accurate" plinking/general purpose shooting?

I have a box (500) of 168gr SMK and I have 1K of these


http://www.wideners.com/itemdetail.cfm?item_id=1218&dir=278|281|296
which I haven't tried yet as my powder hasn't arrived.

What do you use? What is your favorite?

!

 

[azredhawk44]

In my M14, I've noticed that when I change from 168gr HPBT match grade bullets to cheaper plinking ammo at 150gr, my point of impact changes. It's about a 2" difference at 100 yards, the 168's hitting higher than the 150's.

To solve this, I've gotten rid of all my 150's and now I load Remington SoftPoint 165gr bullets for my cheap ammo. I got a box of 500 of them from Midway for $50, which is a little bit more than your 150gr FMJ's, but I feel it is worth it for my uses.

http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/showproduct?saleitemid=756198

 

[Jmurman]

AZRedhawk...I've not thought of that. Thanks.

 

[Jmurman]

I wonder how those Hornady bullets with the polymer tips in a 165gr would do in a Garand?

 

[Steve in PA]

My favorite are the one you posted from Widener's. I've shot over 2k of them, no one problem. Shoots great.

 

[ocabj]

That link to Wideners is a suspicious bullet. I don't know what an 'M1 bullet' is. I'm assuming they mean it's for the M1 Garand. As far as being milspec, M2 ball is supposed to be 152gr.

Anyway, you can make an accurate load using pretty much any 150 +/- 3gr bullet, surplus or commercial, for 100 yards. If you are going to use the Sierra Match Kings, you're better off saving them for 600 yard use. When I do handload for my Garand, I use M2 ball pulls from River Valley Ordnance (also available from gibrass).

I pretty much practice with Greek HXP now, though, since that's the issued ammo for CMP matches.

 

[Steve in PA]

There is nothing "suspicious" about the bullet. Its a Yugo made bullet to M1 specs. I've been shooting them for about two years out of my M1 and 1903A, nothing but great results.

 

[Crosshair]

I use surplus 110 grain 30 carbine bullets over 41 grains of surplus AA1680. Cheap bullets and cheap powder.

 

[Jmurman]

SteveinPa, thanks for the info on the 150's from Wideners.

Nice group with that round.

 

[Pixsurguy]

gibrass and Widners

I've bought and shot a couple thousand "150" gr. FJM flat based bullets from gibrass.com that were specifically made for the Garand, as evidenced by the cannalure location and the overall cartridge length limitation of the M1. Those bullets, in combination with the CCI No. 34 "hard" primers and IMR 4895 have given my M1 Rifle the ability to shoot far better than I can hold. I use the CCI military type primers as insurance against a slam-fire.

I've just ordered 250 of those Yugo "M1" bullets from Widners and I'm expecting delivery tomorrow. Really looking forward to seeing how they perform.

(My rifle was worked over big time by some really good, but unknown gunsmith before I bought it at a gun show some years ago. It has NM everything, glass bedded, Boyds laminated stock, 4.5 lb trigger pull, etc., etc. My eyes are not near good enough to make it worthwhile for me to use them, but my shooting partner with his frickin' young eyes can get occasional sub-minute of angle groups with 168 gr. Fed. Gold Medal Match.).

I'm getting to the point that with iron sights, I'd be better off charging down range and using a bayonet. Bet I'd get good groups.

 

[Jmurman]

Let us know how those Yugo bullets work out, ok?

 

[Jim Watson]

I don't guess it matters if they shoot well, but a 150 grain bullet cannelured for .30-06 OAL should be listed as an M2, as ocabj says.
I guess the Yugos or Weidners thought that would confuse us, since there is not an M2 rifle.

An M1 bullet is the 173 grain boattail.

 

[Pixsurguy]

An interesting related post from The Loading Bench

Re our discussion of Yugo and other bullets for the M1 Garand, following is a copy of a post I found on The Loading Bench, a really nice web site.
********************************************************

"Re: Reloading Cannelure Bullets

Posted By: Jim-Bob
Date: Thursday, 14 July 2005, at 5:10 pm

In Response To: Reloading Cannelure Bullets (John Cook)

If you try to crimp, get the Lee .30-06 Factory Crimp die, it really does a great job. Follow the easy instructions. Crimping can be an advantage, I have done very well by crimping my 150 FMJBT bullets, very accurate in Garands.
I just ordered some Yugo 150 Flat Base M2 type bullets with cannelure from Widener's. If it is what they use to load the new FNM M2 Ball made under contract, those bullets should be pretty good. Widener's sales rep, a shooter, said they were accurate. "

*****************************************************

Pixsurguy
Louisville, KY

 

[Jmurman]

I haven't loaded any of the Yugo's yet, however, today I went and placed a Yugo in a trimmed case (X-die @.020 less than normal), at the cannelure the COAL is 3.330"

Should I set the COAL less than this?

 

[Rudy2281]

Steve in PA

Impressive Garand target results. The 150 you are shooting sure does the job.

Your load of I4895 47.0: is that taken from the Sierra manual using their 150-155 bullet as a guide?

Rudy

 

[Steve in PA]

No, its from the Hornady manual I believe. They have a seperate section covering the Garand but they use a 155gr bullet and list 46.5gr as max. However, before obtaining my M1, I checked out alot of Garand boards and found 47.0gr to be the average used by most, some even going up to 49.0gr.

I worked my M1 load up from 45.0gr and found it liked 47.0gr quite nice, as you can see by the pic. My rifle likes the 168's a little better, for that I use 46.5gr, but I do the majority of my shooting loaded with the 150's.

This is my 168 load. It uses a Hornady bullet (168gr BTHP) with 46.5gr of IMR-4895 and the grouping is a little better. Darn low left flyer ruined a great group.

This is from my 1903A3 using the Widener's bullet. Hard to tell from the number of rounds fired but this rifle will shoot excellent groups. Not bad for an open sighted rifle at 100 yards.

 

[Rudy2281]

I like those targets

I have the Hornady manual as well and Dave Emary at Hornady has sure helped me make some 'leaps' in a short time. He's shooting in the President's Match at Perry in a couple weeks, the team shoot, with a Garand and the Hornady 168-A loaded with VV N135. He likes that powder. And I can say that he is a few-tenths over the max shown in the manual. His last email re his practice said he was holding the 10 ring at 600 yards. I'm anxious to see how he does.

I've been finding that however good my load is, there is a tendency to shoot the first round into the 9 ring at about the same place your flyer is. Then I get the next bunch into the 10 on that SR-1 target. I'm going out again Friday with a tweaked 168 smk load and am going to make a visual change on my sight picture and see if I can't 'fool' that first round into the 10 ring.

Your Garand is a great shooter. Well, you obviously know what you're doing as well.

Rudy

 

[Rudy2281]

I'm ordering some of the Widener 150's

I can use those at 100-200 yds and when our new range is complete, I'll shoot the S168 mk's out at 500 yds, and never hit the target.

 

[Burt]

Garand Loads

Steve in Pa, you do have some nice targets up there from your Garand. I am trying to get some handloads worked up here and will be using most of the same components that you have listed above. I would like to know what your cartridge over all length was and if you used military brass or commercial. Also, what primers were used in your handloads?

 

[Steve in PA]

The majority of my brass is Remington. I do have some Federal, Winchester and LC thrown in, but by and large Remington is the most used. Primers are standard CCI 200 large rifle primers. Brass has been trimmed and run through the RCBS X-die so there is no trimming needed (after the intial trim). COL is 3.240" I think. Data is upstairs, if its different I'll re-post the correction.

 

[P-32]

I've not gotten the 168 SMK's to shoot the way they should out of my '06 M-1. I have gotten the 155 SMK's (Palma) to shoot very well though. I found my '06 M-1 likes IMR 4064 better than IMR 4895. (the 308 M-1 is the other way around, likes 168's and IMR 4895)

The one single best bang for the buck thing I found you can do to help gain smaller groups so far though is to uniform the primer pockets.

Steve, if you shot the targets off the bench, Ho Hum, but if you shot those slinged up, good job! I use the same targets for practice BTW.

 

[Steve in PA]

Ho hum? For a 60 year old rifle with the original barrel thats sure to have been used and abused a bit?

So where are your 100yd open sighted targets at? By the way, the standard for a military rifle was 3moa, which means a 3" group at 100 yds. The 10 ring is 3" in diameter. The first target I posted, except for the flyer kept all the shots in about a 2" group.

The 03 pic is misleading due to the number of rounds fired. That rifle will shoot around a 1" group if I do my part. Not bad for open sights. This is a pic from the first time I shot the 1903A3. First grouping is taped and marked "1". I reloaded and fired the next 3-round group.

Same load, same rifle just on a different day

A target from a load I was working on for my Swiss K31

I do on occassion shoot a scoped rifle. This is my deer hunting load for my Win 70 .30/06. First three rounds were at the 2" high mark. I adjusted down to be 1 1/2" high at 100yds. Thats a 3-round 1/2" group.

 

[Rudy2281]

Right on, Steve

It's interesting when we Garand fans try to search out the best loads-bullets, etc some of us get concerned if we're not shooting 1 moa or better, on a consistent basis. As Roy Baumgardner, an authentic expert on the Garand has written over the years, there are a 'few' 1 moa Garands with GI barrels, but not many. And even the 1.5 moa Garands with GI barrels will rarely hold that accuracy for 20 rds.

To get that x ring on 7 of 10 shots means an expensive built match Garand with heavy barrel.

I decided to dig out my armorer/ Ordnance Corps manuals from my days in servioe, some spent as an armorer working on Garands. My National Match & Ammunition manual of 1960 (many if not all of the same rules apply in the Garand matches regarding qualifying rifles) has this to say.

Under acceptance requirements, the standard M1 rifle is fired 5 consecutive shots at 100 yards and the 5 shots must group within a 5.6 inch circle. That's with issue ammunition.

A National Match Garand was tested in a machine rest (fixture) and three ten-shot groups fired at 100 yds using match quality ammunition. The average extreme spread of the three groups can not exceed 3.5 inches. Any one ten-shot group can not exceed 5.0 inches extreme spread.

Steve, your rifle seems to be shooting as well as what was expected of a match rifle shooting from a fixture , based on Army acceptance standards. And far better than the standard issue M1 standards.

The military used mean radius as the system to evaluate ammunition and the 1960 match ammunition requirement was that it must average less than 3.5" M.R. at 600 yards.

A little background on ammo: the ammo referred to as M/1 catridge Cal .30 ball was the match ammo used up until 1941. A 172 gr bullet loaded with IMR 1185.

Around 1940, the original Cal.30 ball model of 1906 was put back into production using a gilding metal jacket and was identified as Cal .30 Ball M/2.

The main combat ammunition in the Garand was 168gr armor piercing 2800 fps and the main training round was the M2 ball with 150 gr bullet at 2800 fps.

All this comes out of the NM manual of 1960 which includes all the details needed to build a match rifle, which our school was required to do before we received our artificer certificates.

So Steve, your rifle (and shooting) is right in there!

 

[Burt]

Thanks to all for your help...not my post but, thanks just the same!