heypete
Member
What is the maximum gas pressure that a Garand can safely handle?
My friend gave me some old 1940's issue .30-06 M2 Armor Piercing rounds that he didn't trust -- the brass was corroded, the primer corrosive, and the state of the powder was unknown. I pulled the bullets, and plan to put them in some of the Korean mil-surp Poon Sang .30-06 casings we shot at the last range session. The brass is being tumbled now.
My Lee manual states that a maximum charge of 47.5 grains of IMR 4064 pushing the 165-grain bullet will generate 57,000psi, while the original M2 AP specs call for 54,000psi. Will this harm anything?
Oddly enough, IMR's website says that the STARTING load for that bullet weight would be 49 grains of 4064, which would generate 50,400psi. This is odd, as their minimum load is higher than Lee's maximum and the pressure differences are great. IMRs maximum load would generate 58,900psi with 52.5gr of 4064.
As this is AP ammo, kinetic energy is important. I'd like to load it as closely to mil-spec as possible in terms of pressure, velocity, etc. but this is a large discrepancy that I cannot account for. Thus, I'm doing a "sanity check" by asking here.
Any information or assistance would be most welcome. For reference, the .30-06 AP is a 165gr flat-base bullet that is significantly longer than the standard ball ammo due to the lighter steel core. See
this site for more information.
Cheers!
My friend gave me some old 1940's issue .30-06 M2 Armor Piercing rounds that he didn't trust -- the brass was corroded, the primer corrosive, and the state of the powder was unknown. I pulled the bullets, and plan to put them in some of the Korean mil-surp Poon Sang .30-06 casings we shot at the last range session. The brass is being tumbled now.
My Lee manual states that a maximum charge of 47.5 grains of IMR 4064 pushing the 165-grain bullet will generate 57,000psi, while the original M2 AP specs call for 54,000psi. Will this harm anything?
Oddly enough, IMR's website says that the STARTING load for that bullet weight would be 49 grains of 4064, which would generate 50,400psi. This is odd, as their minimum load is higher than Lee's maximum and the pressure differences are great. IMRs maximum load would generate 58,900psi with 52.5gr of 4064.
As this is AP ammo, kinetic energy is important. I'd like to load it as closely to mil-spec as possible in terms of pressure, velocity, etc. but this is a large discrepancy that I cannot account for. Thus, I'm doing a "sanity check" by asking here.
Any information or assistance would be most welcome. For reference, the .30-06 AP is a 165gr flat-base bullet that is significantly longer than the standard ball ammo due to the lighter steel core. See
this site for more information.
Cheers!