Been a while since we had a guns n' ammo discussion.
Some of you are AR shooters Im sure. Im looking at a Colt 6920. Will be my first AR. Picked up a Glock this fall and really enjoy shooting it. Any feedback on that weapon?
Anyone else been in a buy/sell/trade mood with hardware? [Reply]
I started reloading with my son because he really wants to reload. I started with .30/06 because it's extremely common and I figured that it would be a good place to start. I've also got several friends who reload and have been helping us and giving us advice. So far we've done pretty well and have reloaded some 6.5 Creedmore. One of these days I'll reload some .416 Rigby rounds but right now the powder cupboards at my local shop are really low and so getting powder has been a major issue.
I have deliberately started at the lowest amounts of powder listed in Lyman's book. I know it doesn't take but a few grains of extra powder to destroy a rifle and potentially cause a great deal of damage.
Reload that .416 Rigby traditionally like the Brits with cordite sticks:-) [Reply]
Originally Posted by Megatron96:
As a general rule, I would never advise anyone who is new to reloading to begin with a rifle round. Particularly if that rifle round required forming of cases in, in this case cutting down and then necking down a piece of brass.
Of course you could always try to just buy 300 blackout brass, but if I remember correctly, it runs around $.30 per piece. Which is a little pricey. However, it may be a relatively low pressure round, so you may get multiple reloads out of each piece. I wouldn’t know about that.
Just a few things to consider. Good luck with whatever you decide.
Im not following you here? Your die set will have a case resizer and bullet seater. You will need calipers and a case trimmer. A must have is a case tumbler and walnut shell media clean and shine up for good inspection of the case before resizing. Buy good brass once fired Rem or Win I never liked Federal brass as I swear they mix something in that brass makes it softer and dents when resizing. I cussed that stuff you had to very lightly case lube and sucks to have to remove a stuck case out of your resizer. Always mark each brass I reload the last number times it was reloaded. My rule of thumb was after the 5th reload it was tossed. Every time you reload you have thinned down brass in resizing then trimmed back to case length.
Now wildcat reloading I don't recommend. That's for professionals who have experience necking down a .243 case into a .22 or .17 caliber to get a hi velocity varmint round. Many of these type wildcat rounds later became popular over the counter manufactured loads. [Reply]
Originally Posted by srvy:
Im not following you here? Your die set will have a case resizer and bullet seater. You will need calipers and a case trimmer. A must have is a case tumbler and walnut shell media clean and shine up for good inspection of the case before resizing. Buy good brass once fired Rem or Win I never liked Federal brass as I swear they mix something in that brass makes it softer and dents when resizing. I cussed that stuff you had to very lightly case lube and sucks to have to remove a stuck case out of your resizer. Always mark each brass I reload the last number times it was reloaded. My rule of thumb was after the 5th reload it was tossed. Every time you reload you have thinned down brass in resizing then trimmed back to case length.
Now wildcat reloading I don't recommend. That's for professionals who have experience necking down a .243 case into a .22 or .17 caliber to get a hi velocity varmint round. Many of these type wildcat rounds later became popular over the counter manufactured loads.
As I understand it (again, I've never tried it before, so I'm just going by what I've been told by those that have and what I've read), first you need to use the correct brass; not any headstamp will do. Then you need to cut down the .223 case by nearly 0.4 inches; quite a bit to do with a crank trimmer. And it would be necessary to use multiple pilots to trim each piece of brass, as you'd start with a .22 cal pilot and eventually move up to something like a .334, I believe.
Your other option is to buy and use a cutting jig.
And the case wall must be a certain thickness, and I've been told a number of times that ordinary calipers won't do the job. You'll need something called a tube micrometer (think that's the right term).
After all of that, then you can neck down the case.
I read this article concerning rolling your own .300 BO brass years ago and decided I wasn't all that interested in owning a rifle chambered in .300 BO at the time: http://www.massreloading.com/300BLK.html [Reply]
You're talking about just buying .300BO cases. Which I already addressed earlier. The issue is cost.
I was addressing the idea of actually making your own .300BO cases from .223 rem cases to keep costs down, which requires multiple extra steps. Steps I wouldn't advise a relatively new reloader to attempt. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Megatron96:
You're taking about just buying .300BO cases. Which I already addressed earlier. The issue is cost.
I was addressing the idea of actually making your own .300BO cases from .223 rem cases to keep costs down, which requires multiple extra steps. Steps I wouldn't advise a relatively new reloader to attempt.
Yes you can buy 1 time fired pretty cheap about 20 bucks a hundred.
But if you wanna go the .223 to .300 acc black you micrometer calipers a trimming tool and saw. The video below is a beginner with some ecconomical solutions to the saw and trimmer. Get better dial calipers than his. Stay away from that win ball powder its dirty damn shit. Stick with Hodgdon or IMR.
Originally Posted by frozenchief:
Sig has an interesting pistol (MCX Canebrake) in that calibre that I'm seriously considering. Looks like it could be fun as a short of short-range plinker. Throw on a suppressor and a decent sight and I could easily practice in my yard without disturbing the neighbors.
.300AAC Blackout doesn't look like it's got the range of a typical .308 or 6.5CM so I figured it could be a good plinker as well as a good gun to keep in the truck. But the ammo just seems odd. I mean it just seems odd to consciously decide to slow bullets down that much.
I recently started reloading so your description makes it sound like this would be a good gun for reloading. While ammo doesn't seem super expensive, dialing in a good round is fun.
IIRC, the original idea was to create a round that performed much like a typical 7.62x39 (AK-47) round but in an AR-15 platform. Which it apparently does. I've never shot an animal with a 7.62x39 or a .300BO round so I can't be absolutely sure, but ballistically they seem very close.
And as a short-range plinker it probably would do just fine, so long as you're okay with the increased cost of ammo. As a truck gun it would probably be close to ideal. [Reply]
