M1A Reloading Problem - need help

[TexasTea]

Well, you all know how proud I was when I finished my first batch of .308 and 30-06. Well, I took the .308 batch to the range to meet my M1A today. But before I went, I dropped by a friend house to swap by new trigger group for his 4.5lbs trigger group. I decided to ask a buddy of mine along, introduce him to my fine rifle.

The problem is my friend had double fire three times. None happened to me. That is a significant percentage of double fire, 3 out of 50 rounds. Is it the way he shoot, pulling the trigger, etc? or is it my new load? or is it the trigger. I shot commercial ammo and surplus ammo on the gun before and never had this problem.

I loaded the batch with WLR primer, IMR 4895, 150 gr Hornady. All case was FL resized and trimmed.

Any help would be greatly appreciate.

 

[Sunray]

"...introduce him to my fine rifle..." That was decent of you.
How much IMR4895? My manual gives 40.0 to 45.0 of IMR4895 for a 150 grain jacketed bullet.
Shooting off a bench? M1A's are known to double, off a bench, when the shooter doesn't follow through properly. There's nothing wrong with your rifle or ammo. What happened is that your buddy pulled the trigger and released it too soon and the recoil caused his finger to hit the trigger again. A 4.5 lb trigger is a relatively light trigger and it's easy to trip if you're not used to it.
Is it the way he shot? Yep. Operator failure. You had no problem.

 

[TexasTea]

I have 45.5 grain on mine. That is what I loaded. I felt the gun kick less with this load than with the surplus ammo.

I will talk to my friend and see how he oulled the trigger. But this is pretty disturbing to me. I want to be in total control of my firearms.

Anyway, I did a search on this forum. I saw a lot of recommendations on CCI primer. I will switch primer and see if we still see the same problem.

Thank for your input.

 

[ATAShooter]

One thing DO make sure, that your primers are fully seated to avoid a slam fire... I had this happen on my Garand ( double fire ).

 

[TexasTea]

I just loaded a new batch with CCI 200 primer. I did make sure that the primer seat slight deeper that the brass head. I will try them soon.

 

[Doug b]

45.5 grain/150 gr. bullet is a pretty crisp load.1/2 gr. over max by 2 of my manuals and 1.5 gr. over by 5 others.I wonder are you loading these in military cases?If so you have to reduce even more.

 

[TexasTea]

You are right. It is my mistake. I should not have looked at H4895 number for IMR 4895 powder. I did examine the casing and did not see anything alarming. I did notice the primer was kinda pushed-out. But it was not flat. The casing was not hard to resized. But anyway, I should have 43.6 grain for this cartridge.

I am using commercial brass. I did not want to waste my time deprime the surplus brass. I just don't want to deal with multiple type of brass.

Thank you very much for your comments.

 

[30Cal]

Doubling is usually shooter induced. If you give the gun room to rattle around and use a slow benchrester's squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze, it'll do it almost every time, especially with a match trigger. Firing from the bench tends to encourage a limp grip and a tedius trigger pull. Grasp the rifle firmly and concentrate on your trigger squeeze (notice the difference between "squeeze" and "squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze"). Keep in mind that the rifle wasn't designed for benchrest shooting.

Check for mechanical issues by holding the trigger to the rear (with the rifle empty) and cycle the action several times. Make sure the hammer is not following the bolt forward.

A true slamfire is a very rare occurance and usually results in the stock being reduced to splinters and the magazine being blown out the bottom of the rifle (best case).

 

[Owen]

Recoil is not an indicator of an overcharge. Recoil is strictly a function of bullet weight and velocity, and velocity is related to the area under the pressure curve.

If you have a high spike, you can end up with the same velocity, despite much much higher pressures.

Unless you have strain gages to make sure that you aren't overstressing your barrel, reduce your load.