Latest cartridge you're reloading?

My latest venture is 6.5 Carcano for a cavalry carbine. After struggling to find brass, I now find myself less than satisfied with bullet options. I don’t cast, the PPU bullets perform less than stellar in my rifle, and off the shelf cast options are fairly nonexistent. Steinel does sell an appropriate copper bullet a good cast bullet, but the copper is expensive when it’s available, and they say that the cast won’t stabilize from a carbine.

I always do this; pick something just because it’s an oddball, struggle with finding reloading options, and when I do get satisfied, I move on to something else.

King Medallion said:

45 Colt today, with my own home cast bullets.

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45 colt is the last thing I loaded. At this point Its pretty much all I shoot.

redcon1 said:

I'm looking at these adjustable gas plugs as op rod insurance too.

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I’ll add my 2 cents here as well.

Keep your bullets at 180gn or below and powders no slower than Varget and your op rod will be fine. An adjustable gas plug just puts you into a region of loads that you shouldn’t be running in an M1A anyway so why do it.

Instead, apply your tweaks toward accurizing the M1A (i.e. shim the GC, free float the hand guard, Sadlak spring guide, trigger job, etc…). After that and a good bit of range time start tuning some loads to your rifle. You’ll get a lot of satisfaction watching you groups shrink with each of these things and you eventually end up with sub MOA 5 shot rifle.

WARNING: if you do these things you will run a strong risk of catching the “accuracy disease”. I speak from experience here. There is no cure.

Nature Boy said:

I’ll add my 2 cents here as well.
Keep your bullets at 180gn or below and powders no slower than Varget and your op rod will be fine. An adjustable gas plug just puts you into a region of loads that you shouldn’t be running in an M1A anyway so why do it.

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Varget would be my preferred powder as I have a lot of it for .308 and .223 and I don't want to add any more jugs of anything to my powder magazine unless it's something really special but I'm reading mixed reviews about Varget in the 30/06 and that it doesn't play well with heavy bullets in the Garand. I haven't bought the rifle yet but I'll probably end up going forward with this purchase and jumping back into the 30/06 game and I'm looking forward to it. I learned to shoot and reload on a 30/06 a long time ago. This will be fun. And if this rifle ends up being capable of MOA or better accuracy, I'll be ecstatic. I'll be researching shimming the GC and free floating the handguards next. Thanks for the guidance. I'll also add that if anyone is thinking about buying a Garand, the nice lady at the CMP told me to wait until November 17th as they have a truck load of rifles coming in on that day and there will be a better selection so that's what I'm doing. You know how it goes with gun purchases, the waffling and the hemming and hawing and looking at other guns that you think you might want more but I really want one of these rifles, especially if they're capable of MOA or better so I'm getting one.

Double tap

No worries about varget in the garand.

My accuracy load is 48.0 and a 168/175 SMK. Pretty much moa load in most "good" rifles. Duplicates M72 Match.

Don't "float" the handguards just clearance them so they aren't rubbing. Lightly peen the barrel splines to snug the cylinder up.

If your action is loose in the stock don't bother shooting for good groups until you get a new stock.

Jeremy2171 said:

No worries about varget in the garand.

My accuracy load is 48.0 and a 168/175 SMK. Pretty much moa load in most "good" rifles. Duplicates M72 Match.

Don't "float" the handguards just clearance them so they aren't rubbing. Lightly peen the barrel splines to snug the cylinder up.

If your action is loose in the stock don't bother shooting for good groups until you get a new stock.

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Good to know. I have a lot of 168s too and was hoping they would work well with Varget. The CMP/Camp Perry is about 30 minutes away from me so I'll be going there in person to find the right one. Any thoughts on what I should be looking for when I pick one out?

I just got through cranking out some .308 to fill up a case of ammo boxes I found at the range. It's an easy way to store ammo, just refill the boxes that other toss out.

Just added a Uberti 1876 in .50-95 to the stable. Have .50AK brass to form and bullets on the way. Last year it was the 6.5JDJ and 7mmTCU.

@redcon1

I must have confused your post with another guy with an M1A.

I’ve never developed loads for a Garand so disregard what I said

Legionnaire said:

@markr6754, just picked up some 105 Match Burners to try in my 6 ARC, too.

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I loaded a 3 step ladder (10 each) w/CFE-223, using data for the Hornady 105gr BTHP. BC for Barnes is .511 vs Hornady .530. Loaded the Barnes to 2.15".

bearleft said:

30-30
I picked up a very nice 1988 Marlin 336 in 30-30.
Still working on powder and bullet weight, trying to get down to a sub 2" group.

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Have any Win 748 on hand? And LR mag primers? If so, I may have a load for your 336.

357 mag, my honey wants to go practice.

.35 Remington

2 1/2” .410 shells…trying H110 and copper plated shot. The first loads i tried seemed to pattern well.

My son wants to try some 00 buck loads for plinking.

redcon1 said:

Good to know. I have a lot of 168s too and was hoping they would work well with Varget. The CMP/Camp Perry is about 30 minutes away from me so I'll be going there in person to find the right one. Any thoughts on what I should be looking for when I pick one out?

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Shake it, and pick the one with the best gauges that rattles the least and preferably a birch or walnut stock in that order if you want a shooter. A 168 with 46 Varget, 4064 or 4895 is a well known load. In my experience with '06 and similar size cases, Varget likes a magnum primer and/or higher pressure.

Will be stating loading the 6 arc myself, will shoot factory ammo for brass for now. Still have to see what dies I want to get and stock up on some bullets, at least I have enough primers for a while need to start grabbing powder. Been seeing some cfe-223 for around $45 local, I'm not quite finished building the rifle so not to much money for reloading stuff right know.

Found some new old stock Hornady # 2280 bullets (no longer made) last weekend for $25.00. They are 0.227" and 70 grains designed for the 22 Savage High Power. I've been casting and coating for my Son's 109 year old Savage HP. Not getting the results I want. I'm gonna load up 12 rounds of the Hornady tomorrow morning with Reloder 7 and send them down range Sunday morning. I'll also be going back to buy the other three boxes they had.

Last two I worked up new loads for were:

170 grain SP in 350 Legend
130 grain SP in 6.8 spc

Next on the list is 150 grain SP in 7.62x39.

Getting ready to find a load for my .308 Win.
Going to load 130 grain TTSX with Varget to find the best for my rifle.
- if anyone has an accurate load using those components wouldn’t mind hearing what you’ve found….
(Of course I’ll work up my load using safe handloading practices, but would like to know where the “area” is for accuracy) I know, each rifle is different ;-)

6.5 PRC, it's my latest caliber and rifle I own. 450 bucks for a Mossberg Patriot Predator and I loaded up 150gr SMKs with Lapua brass I got for it and man they are stupid accurate! I used Retumbo powder and the Hornady manual says they should be going 3k fps! I didn't get a chance to chronograph then as I was at a indoor range sadly...

Wolfshead said:

Getting ready to find a load for my .308 Win.
Going to load 130 grain TTSX with Varget to find the best for my rifle.
- if anyone has an accurate load using those components wouldn’t mind hearing what you’ve found….
(Of course I’ll work up my load using safe handloading practices, but would like to know where the “area” is for accuracy) I know, each rifle is different ;-)

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My load is the book OAL, Hornady brass at 2.005, Federal 210, and 45 grains of CFE223.

I want to heap praise upon the OP for using the correct contraction "you're" in the thread title instead of the incorrect, improper and frankly intellectually lazy use of the word "your" to express "you are". I swear if I read "your right" or "it needs fixed" again my head will explode.

Rant mode off.

HEAVY METAL 1 said:

I want to heap praise upon the OP for using the correct contraction "you're" in the thread title instead of the incorrect, improper and frankly intellectually lazy use of the word "your" to express "you are". I swear if I read "your right" or "it needs fixed" again my head will explode.

Rant mode off.

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I see you're point and I think your absolutely right. Its infuriating how grammer gets abused on an reloading forum.

higgite said:

I see you're point and I think your absolutely right. Its infuriating how grammer gets abused on an reloading forum.

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What you did, I seen it.