SlamFire1, have you considered annealing your cases, or do you? Chances are that you would get even more safe loads from those cases, if the primer pockets stay reasonably tight.
I could have, but I have never annealed cases. Annealing takes too much time when you are shooting each weekend, or every other weekend. I needed to just size, trim, prime, and get the stuff loaded for next weekend. Plus I was really not hard up for brass. I was given thousands of LC match cases, I just wanted to get the maximum life out of them. Seemed a waste just to toss them when they still had plenty of life if it were not for the case head separations that develop due to semi automatic actions. I finally retired the brass because it was very easy to push primers in the pockets. I could have used it longer in a bolt rifle but I was concerned that a primer could get knocked out on feed and cause a misfire. I do not want to have a malfunction and shoot an alibis. With alibis you get the low shots out of a string of ten, it is hard enough to shoot ten perfect shots, then you have to try to do it all over again, and instead, you drop points.
All semi automatic mechanisms open up when there is residual breech pressure. The developer measures the pressure curve and designs the mechanism to open up below the rupture strength of the brass. Col Chin’s book said 650 psia for 20 mm brass. This residual pressure increases the amount of time energy is available to operate the mechanism. Unfortunately it stretches the brass. The front of the case is still expanded to the chamber at unlock. So it gets stretched during extraction. If the case is lubricated, and the pressure curve at unlock is within spec, you don’t have that sort of stretching. M1a’s and M1’s are particularly hard on brass (FAL’s are worse!) whereas you can take .223 brass in a AR 10 reloads without any issues. The pressure drop curves must be different in these mechanisms.
This also worked for me as I never tried to hot rod ammunition in these rifles. Loading max bolt gun loads will beat up a Garand or a M1a. I will bet my loads never exceeded 50,000 psia.
In fact, the pressure on most service rifle ammunition was in the 40K psia range. See the specs on the 1963 NM ammo.
So, I'm assuming that Johnson's won't attract dust? I'd assume that it would... Sounds like a great idea - I'm going to add that trick to my next batch of M1 loads. I'll be happy if I can get less than 1/2 of the amount of reloads that you did
Yes, it does not attract dust and you can't even tell it is on a case after it is buffed. I found in cold weather cases with globs of paste wax caused the bolt to close on an empty chamber. The rounds were not rising fast enough. So I buffed my rapid fire cases and all was well. Slow fire stuff, it went into the chamber clumpy.
I tried a number of different waxes, Johnsons was thicker and worked well. The stuff melts due to the heat of combustion and that provides a viscous layer between the case and the chamber.
Clean your chamber out at the end of each match. I always do that regardless of the rifle. I use a chamber brush.
Incidentally, I think some commercial ammunition may have an invisible wax coating. I have factory Federal that has underfilm corrosion. Looks like spider webs. This type of corrosion occurs under coatings. It would not surprise me in the least to find out ammunition makers have coated their cartridges with ceresin wax (as in the Pedersen rifle) to keep the cartridges shiny and bright on the shelf.
http://www.mnfpetroleum.com/New/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=99&Itemid=100
Lubricated cases shoot as well as dry.
This was shot with a match Garand and paste wax on the cases.
This was shot with a rack Garand in a 200 yard Garand match. I did not have enough time to clean the cases of lube and then apply paste wax, so I simply left the RCBS water soluble on and shot the stuff the next day.
This is the best rack grade target I have shot. I found a rack grade that would finally hold the ten ring, mostly. The others I have shot, they would mostly hold the black, always leaking an eight.