"Tuning", not "loading", what is your opinion?

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Katitmail

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I'm reloading for all my pistols. For rifles I just have 1 caliber, and not necessary reloader-friendly :) 7.62x39

I posted awhile ago about reloading for caliber but still undecided if I need to go all the way..

Cheap ammo is plentiful and available everywhere. And it's plenty good for my AK47. Brass itself costs more than cheap ammo, powder is not available anywhere...

For caliber "unification" I have CZ 527 for hunting. This carbine is excellent and pretty accurate with Hornady plastic tip ammo. But I want to make my own. Potentially more accurate and for bragging rights :)

So.. Idea is pretty simple:

1. Get good bullets
2. Pull apart 50x cartridges (any brand really) while measuring charge
3. Use exact power charges by weight and new bullets.

This way I don't have to mess with brass and I can reuse powder. I can control charge and I can use good bullets and play with OAL

Opinions?
 
I'm not sure what you're trying to do--are you trying to substitute different but which appear to you to be better bullets?

Whenever you change any component in a handload you should work up those rounds--sounds like you're just going to wing it.

I can't quite figure out why you're doing this.

As for the availability of components, such as powder, there is a lot of powder available. Maybe not at your local gun shop, but check out recobs, powder valley, there is powder all over the place. Same with primers. Same with bullets.

If you really need some high quality ammo, built it from scratch and don't take shortcuts.

My 2 cents.
 
Whenever you change any component in a handload you should work up those rounds--sounds like you're just going to wing it.
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If I weight factory load and substitute with better bullet of the same weight - there should be no problem, right? Obviously, I'm going to chrono those loads and compare to factory.

I can't quite figure out why you're doing this.
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I'm not shooting this caliber in volumes and don't really want to stock on components, deal with cleaning, resizing and priming. I do think that exact power charge + high quality bullet (Hornady lets say) will yield better accuracy. Plus, I can experiment with OAL.

Also, I can use worst-performing ammo for that. Usually those steel-cased rounds come without any sealer, so pulling bullets will be easy
 
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Katitmail said:
If I weight factory load and substitute with better bullet of the same weight - there should be no problem, right? Obviously, I'm going to chrono those loads and compare to factory.


I'm not shooting this caliber in volumes and don't really want to stock on components, deal with cleaning, resizing and priming. I do think that exact power charge + high quality bullet (Hornady lets say) will yield better accuracy. Plus, I can experiment with OAL.
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Two questions: are the bearing surfaces identical, and are the diameters identical? I'll leave out the weight of the bullets for now.

It's your fingers, face, eyes, and life. Do what you will. You asked for opinions, I gave you one. Good luck and be safe.
 
mongoose33 said:
Two questions: are the bearing surfaces identical, and are the diameters identical? I'll leave out the weight of the bullets for now.

It's your fingers, face, eyes, and life. Do what you will. You asked for opinions, I gave you one. Good luck and be safe.
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Makes sense. In that case I can go completely safe way and replace powder as well. Which will mean I don't have to deal with brass and primers. Like I said, I shoot very little of this.
 
I learned objectively and with absolute proof that Vendor A's 55gr FMJ shoots very differently than Vendor B's 55gr FMJ - when holding all other things constant between the two.

Changing any component, even if weight and construction is the same, produces a different "system".
 
It's been done. You'd still want to resize the brass to get good and consistent neck tension, but it's certainly doable. Worth the effort? Eh, if you're really curious, sure. At least with a decent sized test batch you could answer the questions of:

1) What improvement can I obtain over whichever factory ammo I'm using by doing this?

and

2) So what? What am I doing with this rifle that requires or benefits from the improvement in accuracy I'm achieving?

and

3) (With a bigger range of test samples...) Are there factory loads which are adequate to the task I'm trying to accomplish with this rifle that don't require all the hassle and time and variables of my hand tinkering? And if so, are they enough more expensive to warrant my time expenditure to make my own semi-custom loads?
 
Sam,

Yeah, my time worth something. This is more of an experiment/tinkering. This rifle is for hunting, but I'd like to try it on local "hunter rifle" matches. So far "Hornady Ammunition 7.62x39mm 123 Grain SST Steel Case Box of 50" performed best, get's me 1 MOA accuracy.

I did full bedding job, barrel floating, bushings, in this carbine. I really like to see if it can be better. I also want to try all available bullets.

Thing is - there is not much available for this caliber in "hunting" bullets. Last time I researched - there was 2 powders recommended: Accurate 1680 or H1498 and I can't find any and don't want to workout any other powders.

If I knew that I can take any cheap box of ammo, pull apart, fill with my powder and bullet (Can stack on those) and get best accuracy possible - that's all I'd want.
 
You can't just switch components out even same weight bullets and call it good.

Each time you change just one component in the mix, you're supposed to do a new workup.

Reloading safety 101.
 
I say go for it. If nothing else, you know everything within the cartridge is as complete and consistant as is possible.
Ive pulled apart ammo i just didnt like, for whatever reason, and done the same thing.

If you do want to go with new powder (but why?) ive had very good results with IMR4198 in this caliber.
 
I have done this already. I used Accurate 1680 and 123 grain SST bullets. Good accurate load at about 2 grains above starting weight. Had to resize the neck to get good tension. Also I pulled 20 rounds and dumped the propellant into a pre-weighed container. Weighed the whole thing and subtracted the container weight then divided by 20. Used that weight to refill all 20 and reseated all bullets. Put those rounds head to head with 20 original rounds and ran over the CRONY. My mex match had single number SD but the factory had SD of 50+ FPS IIRC. Accuracy for both groups was about the same however.:scrutiny: My 1680 groups however were 1/2 the size of the other two at 50 YDS in a Mini 30 off the bench. YMMV
 
I might be missing something here but how do you know exactly what charge to shoot for without knowing what powder you're using and if youre using "any brand" of ammo, you don't have any way of knowing what powder it contains. The only way I can see you doing this is to dump out all of the powder from all of the ammo, weighing it and taking the average but that's making a pretty big assumption in my book.
 
FROGO207 said:
I have done this already. I used Accurate 1680 and 123 grain SST bullets. Good accurate load at about 2 grains above starting weight. Had to resize the neck to get good tension. Also I pulled 20 rounds and dumped the propellant into a pre-weighed container. Weighed the whole thing and subtracted the container weight then divided by 20. Used that weight to refill all 20 and reseated all bullets. Put those rounds head to head with 20 original rounds and ran over the CRONY. My mex match had single number SD but the factory had SD of 50+ FPS IIRC. Accuracy for both groups was about the same however.:scrutiny: My 1680 groups however were 1/2 the size of the other two at 50 YDS in a Mini 30 off the bench. YMMV
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Not sure I understood. In both cases you used SST bullets? Or, accuracy was improved when SST+1680 vs OriginalBullet+weighted charge
 
tcoz said:
I might be missing something here but how do you know exactly what charge to shoot for without knowing what powder you're using and if youre using "any brand" of ammo, you don't have any way of knowing what powder it contains. The only way I can see you doing this is to dump out all of the powder from all of the ammo, weighing it and taking the average but that's making a pretty big assumption in my book.
Click to expand...
Obviously, I'm not going to take mix of "any brand" of ammo. I'm thinking take box (20) - pull all and average weight or much better pull and weight one by one to get an idea where it should be and pick number in a middle.
 
Katitmail said:
Cheap ammo is plentiful and available everywhere. And it's plenty good for my AK47. Brass itself costs more than cheap ammo, powder is not available anywhere...


Opinions?
Click to expand...

Rifle powder is available all over??

If all you want is some hunting ammo, buy some good ammo that I linked to above,

Or reload your own, a set of dies and some powder is not a big expense. Heck you can use cheap metal case ammo for hunting. You do not need match quality ammo for 1" groups.

By the time you pull bullets, mess with powder, reseat a different bullet you are reloading anyway.:confused:

Ever watch Life Below Zero? Angnes Hailstone makes unreal shots with a Mosin Nagant and iron sights
 
Katitmail said:
Obviously, I'm not going to take mix of "any brand" of ammo. I'm thinking take box (20) - pull all and average weight or much better pull and weight one by one to get an idea where it should be and pick number in a middle.
Click to expand...

Oh no!! I'm sure you weren't going to mix powders from different brands of ammo. Anybody who even thinks about doing that should never touch a press. I was referring to exactly what you're going to do. I'm skeptical that the difference you'll find between the average load you end up with and either the min or max load will be noticeable in terms of accuracy. I'm not familiar with the CZ527 but I know that in my K31 which is known for its accuracy, the difference between a 44.0gr load and 44.5gr load of I4064 is 0.18 cents and not much else. Depending on the ammo that you buy, there may not even be a 0.5gr difference between the high and low within the same lot (box).
Maybe the fact that we're even debating this proves that it's a worthwhile experiment to perform but I think you should do it with ammo at different ends of the spectrum and then compare results to arrive at some meaningful results that might have everyday application.
Good luck and keep us informed as you proceed.
 
Sam1911 said:
3) (With a bigger range of test samples...) Are there factory loads which are adequate to the task I'm trying to accomplish with this rifle that don't require all the hassle and time and variables of my hand tinkering? And if so, are they enough more expensive to warrant my time expenditure to make my own semi-custom loads?
Click to expand...

"For the money, for the glory and for the fun. Mostly for the money."

Completely bass-ackwards. :D

"Because it's there." "Because I can."

That's the ticket. ;)

I started handloading three years ago because it was cheaper. When's that going to happen???
 
IMO if you're buying good ammo to begin with your "improvement", if any will be negligible doing what you propose.
 
I’ve talked with guys at matches that talked about the “good old days”. When ships were made of wood and men were made of steel,

and the NM service rifle was the M1. Back then service rifle guys would use Mexican match. An M2 ball round with a match king bullet.

I guess it helped a lot, especially at 600. I think they did it out of necessity. Today we have much more options, much better options.
 
1. Get good bullets of the correct diameter. As in .311" and usually 123 or 125 grains.
7.62 x 39 is no more reloader unfriendly than anything else. You will have to work up the load for each of your rifles though.
Sierra makes a 125 grain SPT Pro-Hunter that'll do nicely. Hornady does sell the .310" SST's too though. Seems your rifle likes 'em. You still MUST work up the load. Reloaders cannot buy the powders the manufacturers use.
 
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