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Comercial to Military Brass
- Thread starter bungiex88
- Start date
Your thread inspired me to do some brass checking, as I also have a supply of Lake City 7.62 / 308 brass. First for safety any time you change components you should start your load development process from scratch. This eliminates bad things to happen.
My findings on brass I use.
Lake City 06 head stamp. This head stamp will vary 1.5gr low to 1.5gr over, or as much as a 3 gr variance.
Hornady Match weighs 1.0 gr low to 1.0 gr over, or a 2 grain variance.
I do not mix my brass from commercial to military as there is a 5 gr difference between them.
I also at random weighed my 30 caliber bullets 10 of each.
Sierra 155 gr Palma had 0 variance as did the 168 gr Match Kings
Hornady 155 gr match and 168 gr HPBT were 0 variance minus and only .01gr on the plus side.
Just a note to add, in the past any time I spent extra effort to weight, mick necks, spin bullets etc. my groups seem to get larger. LOL
It will be interesting to see what my groups look like Wed. at the range.
My findings on brass I use.
Lake City 06 head stamp. This head stamp will vary 1.5gr low to 1.5gr over, or as much as a 3 gr variance.
Hornady Match weighs 1.0 gr low to 1.0 gr over, or a 2 grain variance.
I do not mix my brass from commercial to military as there is a 5 gr difference between them.
I also at random weighed my 30 caliber bullets 10 of each.
Sierra 155 gr Palma had 0 variance as did the 168 gr Match Kings
Hornady 155 gr match and 168 gr HPBT were 0 variance minus and only .01gr on the plus side.
Just a note to add, in the past any time I spent extra effort to weight, mick necks, spin bullets etc. my groups seem to get larger. LOL
It will be interesting to see what my groups look like Wed. at the range.
The PMP that weighs 104.5gr @ 29.9gr of volume and the Federal weighs 96.3gr @ 30.2gr of volume . That's over 8gr in weight with only a .3gr difference in volume . That will not be noticed when loading .
"That will not be noticed when loading" by almost all reloaders because they do not know what to look for. Most reloaders breakout into a routine that goes something like: "Military cases are thicker therefore they weigh more etc..".
F. Guffey
Brass is an alloy. Not all brass is the same alloy. If the alloy uses different mixes of components, it can be heavier(or lighter) per unit of volume(of the brass not the the case volume). It's possible(?) that a thicker case with less internal volume could be the same weight (or lighter) than a thinner case (with correspondingly more internal volume). I'm an engineer not a metallurgist but I'm pretty sure the "hardness" of some types of brass is due to different alloys of the base elements.
Brass is an alloy. Not all brass is the same alloy. If the alloy uses different mixes of components, it can be heavier(or lighter) per unit of volume(of the brass not the the case volume).
There is another cute little saying reloaders use: "Military cases are heavier because the cases are thicker". I also have a saying: "If that is true it is only half true".
And then? There are all the RCBS primer swage parts and pieces that are bent.
If only reloaders had micrometers and scales.
F. Guffey