Reloading for a Service Rifle

D

DEWHighpower

Inactive
I am a service rifle shooter (AR style rifle) and am at the point where I am looking for ways to increase the accuracy of my handloads. I have spoken with a number of more experienced shooters as well as researching blogs and forums, and made a list of processes in the reloading process and their benefits/reasons. I was wondering if anyone could add their thoughts as to the items on this list, how helpful they really are for service rifle reloading, and if there is anything missing.

Up to now, I have trimmed my brass once it gets past 1.760 down to 1.745-1.750 using a Gracey trimmer with a Giraud carbide cutter, which is about every three firings. I use a small base die as I had feeding issues with a full length die. I use a Dillon powder dispenser with Varget and Reloader 15, which seems to consistently throw charges within 1% (.2 grains). I use Hornady 75 grain HPBT at 200 and 300 and 80 grain A Max at 600 yds. My 600 yard loads have an average muzzle velocity of 2615 FPS, for the 75 grain bullets the average is around 2750 FPS. For the A max I use a RCBS precision mic to seat the bullets .005 off the lands. I do not crimp my brass.

Right now I plan to begin sorting my brass by weight and trimming after every firing in addition to what I already do. Will any of the other processes be worthwhile given the fact that I am shooting a service rifle at no more than 600 yards?


Case Weight Sorting: Sorting cases by weight helps to ensure uniformity in wall thickness and chamber volume, which leads to uniform chamber pressures throughout a given batch of brass. Batches which are all within .5% of each other is a good benchmark.

Case Length Trimming: Trimming cases to length ensures proper SAAMI specifications, as well as providing uniformity in neck tension. This is increased if using a trimmer that chamfers the cases during the trimming process.

Primer Pocket Uniforming : Uniforming the primer pocket ensures two items, prevention from slam fires in service rifles, and uniformity of anvil to cup distance of seated primers

Primer Pocket Reaming: Reaming primer pockets removes the swage from military brass and is only necessary for reloading crimped brass

Flash Hole Deburring: Deburring flash holes is necessary for brass with punched flash holes to ensure even combustion of powder. Mil Spec brass is drilled, not punched, so deburring is not necessary on this type of brass (IE Lake City brass)

Case Neck Turning: This process ensures a uniform neck thickness for uniform neck tension.

Case Cleaning: Vibratory tumblers utilize corn cob media for regular cleaning, crushed walnut hull for more intensive polishing.

Annealing: Annealing restores work hardened brass to a softer crystalline structure, which improves uniform neck tension and extends case life. Annealing is also very easy to get wrong, which can result is dangerously soft brass.


Neck Resizing: Neck resizing allows a fire formed fit of brass to the chamber. It is only useful for bolt action rifles

Full Length Resizing: Full length resizing restores brass to SAAMI specifications, but may not allow for consistent feeding in semi-automatic firearms

Small Base Sizing: Small base dies are preferable for reloading brass for use in semi-automatic firearms.

Resizing Die Setup: For full length and small base dies, use an instrument such as the RCBS precision mic to check the headspace dimension of a fire formed case, and set the resizing die to slightly less than the measured headspace or to SAAMI specifications

Powder Selection: Various loads of increasing charge for each powder and bullet are developed and chronographed. Select the combination which provides the best combination of group size and standard deviation of velocity.

Crimping: It seems the consensus of opinion is that crimping deforms bullets and is not recommended for match rifle ammunition.
 
I'm sorta learning the ropes on service rifles, too (Garand & M1A), but it sounds like you've been very thorough in considering factors that will shrink or enlarge groups. What size groups ARE you shooting at various ranges?

At some point, you'll hit diminishing returns on time spent with ammo prep vs. group size, so prioritize steps in terms of "mandatory", "helpful" "probably helpful", "maybe helpful", etc.

If you have acceptably small groups at desired ranges, but have the time and initiative to do more to shrink those groups, you might inquire of some benchr-est shooters to see what THEY do to maximize accuracy. Not everything they do will generalize to service-rifle competition, but you might pick up some pearls of wisdom from them.

Beyond that, I'D bet that many sessions of trigger time will do as much for you as anything you can do at the bench.
 
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I typically am shooting scores in the mid 470s for the 50 shot matches on our reduced course and the 750s on the full course 80 shot matches. I am not perfect by any means, but I typically can call my shots accurately, and I seem to get at least a couple shots a match in where the impact is quite off from where I call the shot. My barrel is fairly worn (nearly .100 throat runout from where I mic it when I first got it), and I have ordered a new one (Krieger 1-7.7), so that may be contributing to it, but it got me thinking about my reloading process. At 600 yards I tend to get some elevation changes that I feel very confident are not related to my sight picture or to 6 oclock/ 12 o'clock wind, so the next culprit would be the ammo.
 
I still debur the flash holes in all brass
For 600yards use cases that weigh exactly the same
I also weigh bullets and check bearing surface length
for 600
For 600 powder is weighed for each cartage twice,
any variance will show up on the target at that range
600 ammo is kept separate from the rest
The idea is to eliminate any and all differences in cartages
All cases and bullets that are not the same as others will only be used
as practice rounds
Competition sizing dies work better for me, size cases 2 thou. shorter
than your chamber
If you can, purchase cases, bullets and powder in bulk, so you get them
from the same manufacturing lot ( more consistent ),
I buy 2,000 at a time and powder I get 2 or 3, 8 lbs. jugs
( specially Varget, it is known to vary )
Use a hard primer, to avoid a slam fire ( I have seen ARs trashed
from a slam fire )
 
Let me reiterate that I'M just starting into this process, and my service rifles are in different calibers than yours. So, when someone comes by and says that I don't know what I'm talking about, I CALLED IT FIRST! :D

I kinda suspect that, once you get that new barrel installed and broken in, your un-called flyers will become infrequent. I SUPPOSE that, with less money and a lot more time at the reloading bench, you might eventually minimize those flyers with the current barrel, but probably only for a short period of time.

Based on my admittedly small amount of expertise in this pursuit, it sure sounds like you're doing everything you SHOULD be doing to turn in better scores. If you're overlooking something, I am, too.
 
firewrench,

for the competition sizing dies, the only ones I am seeing are full length dies. Do you shoot an AR? Have you had feeding issues with them? I see Redding and RCBS competition dies on google, neither of them seem to have substantial amounts of reviews to base an opinion off of. Do you have one you would recommend? Do you use the competition bullet seater? if so, did you have a custom insert made for the bullets you use?

I use CCI 400 primers, I bought about 20,000 a while back and still have a bunch left. are those relatively hard? is there a hardness chart for comparison, similar to a powder burn rate chart? How do you know if they are hard?

I heard some powders can be temperature sensitive. Do you do anything to keep your ammo at the same temperature, or does it not matter for these powders?

Thank you for the input!
 
If your handloads are consistently under 1.25 MOA and your scores aren't going up, it's not the ammo that's the problem.

High Power has a generous 10 ring, sometimes we just need more practice.

Jimro
 
Most FL dies will overwork the neck area. Invest in a Redding Type S FL bushing die. Brass will last a lot longer. Plus you have full control of neck tension. A good read from Sierra > http://www.exteriorballistics.com/reloadbasics/gasgunreload.cfm
th_Redding_1.jpg
[/URL][/IMG] Same type as my 243 win. die.
CCI 400 primers
Click to expand...
For me, they seem soft and flow at mid-range pressure. This may change from lot to lot. A magunm primer will have a thicker cup. The Reminging 7 1/2 works well. Never use the Rem 6 1/2 in 223/5.56.
 
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Trimming after every firing is a waste of your time. All the benchrest loading techniques on the planet will do nothing if your barrel isn't a match grade barrel.
Small base dies are not preferred for loading anything. Full length resizing is required every time for any semi-auto, but it does not have to be SB.
Suggest you quit the 75 grain HPBT at 200 and 300 and 80 grain A Max at 600 stuff and work up a load using one bullet weight. Even 5 grains can change the POI at long range. You may want to think 80 or 90 grain Matchkings if your barrel twist is up to 'em.
Like Jimro says, if your groups are small, it's most likely the trigger/bench interface. Far more likely to be a wind/mirage reading issue than ammo.
 
Competition sizing dies work better for me, size cases 2 thou. shorter
than your chamber
Click to expand...

Small base dies are not preferred for loading anything. Full length resizing is required every time for any semi-auto, but it does not have to be SB.
Click to expand...

Invest in a Redding Type S FL bushing die.
Click to expand...

sounds like a competition grade full length resizing die is the most obvious alteration I should make to my reloading process
 
DEWHighpower--

I use RCBS Competition Die set and the RCBS Precision Mic set
used in an AR 15 and M1 Garand
No custom seater
They have worked very good but I have been told that there are better
Quality Dies Redding, Forester and others

Have been through 3 barrels in both rifles and never had any feeding problems
I use Sierras-- 175gr MK in Garand and 77gr in AR 15 with 80gr
for 600 line
I use CCI # 34 and 41 primers ( Mil. Spec. )
ARs have a floating firing pin so be carful what primer you use
( magnum primers also have a harder cup )

Yes some powders are more temp. sensitive than others
Varget is less temp. sensitive and its good that it is what gives the
best patterns in my gun (AR )
Garand gets IMR 4064

I keep ammo in a cooler in the shade until I go onto the firing line
then I keep a towel over it to keep hot sun from heating it
I live and shoot in South Florida and it can get to 110F in the shade
in the summer
 
Speaking from experience loading for my BOLT rifles..
The process/step that pretty much eliminated fliers was just sorting brass by neck wall thickness. I do not have a outside case neck trimmer, (someday maybe) but just culling out the brass with neck wall thickness variation corralled my groups. Heck, my 243 was a 2MOA gun with factory ammo. Handloads w/o checking neck wall thickness it was no better than 1-1/4MOA. Once I started culling brass with neck thickness variation it became a 3/4MOA (sometimes better) gun with 95gr SST's.
Now, at 600 a lot more is going to come into play. What makes the biggest difference is up to you to find out. All the little steps are all good practice (deburring flash holes, weighing cases, etc) and can/will make a difference at 600.
 
I am looking for ways to increase the accuracy of my handloads.
Click to expand...


Service Rifle?? Not exactly what I would use for pin point accuracy in a 223/5.56. Bushmaster (before Rem bought them out) made a supper accurate 223 rifle with a 26 inch fluted bull barrel free floated and 2 stage match trigger. I had one and it was the cat's meow for accuracy. Big and heavy and not your normal "Service Rifle". So if accuracy is you passion, I would try to find one of them (yes it needed the small base resizing die for reloads) or you could re-barrel your current rifle and put in a match trigger to make it better.

Jim

 
I'm a .223 SR rifle shooter as well so I'll share my thoughts on what does and does not work and what I do to get my loads together. This is everything I've picked up since I got into SR shooting, it is what has worked well for me.

I use the Hornady headspace gauge to measure how much I need to adjust the die when full length resizing. Ideally you want to bump the shoulder back .002-.003, this gauge allows me to see where my fired cases are at sizewise and where they are at after resizing. You don't need the whole kit, just the red part with the thumbscrew and the .330 body along with your calipers. Its pretty much been a set it and check occasionally deal for me.

http://www.hornady.com/store/Lock-N-Load-Headspace-Kit-With-Body-1-Each/


I have the Giraud trimmer and trim every time. It may not be taking off much lengthwise but it does freshen up the chamfer every time.

You can sort cases by weight if you wish, but at 200/300 yards it isn't going to have any significant benefit. 600 is a different story, it will have a bigger impact on your load consistency. With that said there are those who shoot quite well at 600 that don't bother.

Primer pocket uniforming is a good thing. You only need to do it once and it lets your primers seat to the same uniform depth every time. Do this to 10-20 pieces of brass and you'll be amazed at the pile of brass shavings left behind. I went with the Redding uniformer because it was carbide and most likely won't wear out anytime soon.

Primer pocket reaming/swage removal. A necessary evil if you are using once fired Lake City or other military brass that has the primer crimped/staked into place. It only needs to be done to the brass once. I prefer to swage as opposed to chamfering out the pocket, both ways work. There is a gauge I use to set my swage tool and check the primer pockets to make sure they aren't too loose. If you over swage a pocket and its too loose, when you fire you will have gas escaping through the primer pocket and eroding your bolt.

http://ballistictools.com/store/exclusive/swage-gage-small-primer-pocket

Flash hole deburring is another good thing, depending on the quality of brass you are starting out with. Only needs to be done once. Some higher dollar brass like Lapua usually doesn't need it, lower dollar brass will sometimes have a burr on the inside of the case right next to the flash hole. I do them all just so every case is the same as the one before it. Its probably not as necessary as some will make it out to be but if you are going for maximum accuracy it can't hurt.

Case neck turning. In the SR rifle world nobody is doing it that I know of. Seems to be more of a benchrest thing where they are running custom barrels.

Case cleaning. Lots of different ways to do it, dry tumble, wet tumble, ultrasonic, soak in a bucket overnight, run under the kitchen faucet, spit polish, etc. Some folks like shiny cases while others like truly clean inside and out. I like the truly clean method, no carbon buildup inside the case to me equals consistency. Ultimately as long as the brass is cleaned up when it comes to resizing I think that will be the biggest thing.

Annealing. There is alot of debate about what it does and does not do and even the "correct" way to do it. My take is that it helps prolong case life and adds to a consistent process, meaning when you resize, that cases resize the same and neck tension remains consistent.

Leave the neck resizing only to the bolt guns, semi autos need full length.

Powder and bullet selection. Seems everybody is using 75/77 grain for 200/300. You can use these at 600 and some have been quite successful with them. 600 is single shot loading so we can get away with using bullets that lead to an OAL that far exceeds what will fit in a mag. 80 grainers seem to the the norm on 600 but there are some other one out there like an 80.5 and a 82 that some folks use. Slightly better BC on those 80 and up bullets. Finding what is most accurate in your gun can sometimes be the source of a great headache or a breeze. Hornady, Sierra , Nosler, and Berger seem to be what everybody is running bulletwise. Some of the more popular powders in the service rifle world are Varget, RL-15, H4895, XBR 8208, TAC, AR Comp.

None of the match bullets have a cannalure that I know of except the Sierra Match King 77's that actually do have one, however I think they may be discontinuted as they are no longer listed on Sierras site. No need to crimp any of these loads, they do just fine without.
 
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The process/step that pretty much eliminated fliers was just sorting brass by neck wall thickness.
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Brasscollector, I have a ball micrometer and it seems like the LC 11 cases I am using (purchased new, not once fired) are between ~.0108-.0115 neck thickness. This seems like a pretty small variation. What thickness range do you sort by? (How much variation do you allow for in a sorted batch?)

Primer pocket uniforming is a good thing.
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cryogenic419, How long does it take to uniform a batch of brass? do you do it for all brass or 600 brass only?
 
DEWHighpower said:
I typically am shooting scores in the mid 470s for the 50 shot matches on our reduced course and the 750s on the full course 80 shot matches. I am not perfect by any means, but I typically can call my shots accurately, and I seem to get at least a couple shots a match in where the impact is quite off from where I call the shot.
Click to expand...

I think your first step, before you spend any time trying to improve your handloads is to determine if there really is a problem with your current ammo. To do that you need to take yourself out of the picture. Do you have a scope mount? Slap a scope on it, put it in sand bags and shoot a few groups, like 10 round groups. See how it is actually performing before you start changing things that may not make any difference.

When I was competing, I was at the top of expert/bottom of Master before my aging eyes made if so it wasn't fun any more, and the rifle/loads were not holding me back at all. My case prep was nonexistant, in fact, I didn't prep them at all. I purchased processed surplus brass from either Scarch or RVOW back when they had it. All I did was run them through a neck sizer to fix anything that got dinged during shipping and seated a Remington BR primer.

I did sort by headstamp though, and tried to stick to one headstamp per batch of loaded ammo. I used Varget because it metered reasonably well, and is tolerant of temp changes. I used a Forster Micrometer Seater Die, and no crimp.

Jim243 said:
Service Rifle?? Not exactly what I would use for pin point accuracy in a 223/5.56. Bushmaster (before Rem bought them out) made a supper accurate 223 rifle with a 26 inch fluted bull barrel free floated and 2 stage match trigger. I had one and it was the cat's meow for accuracy. Big and heavy and not your normal "Service Rifle". So if accuracy is you passion, I would try to find one of them (yes it needed the small base resizing die for reloads) or you could re-barrel your current rifle and put in a match trigger to make it better.
Click to expand...

I don't think you know what he is talking about when he says "Service Rifle". He is not talking about a M4 pulled off the rack, but a custom match rifle. Externally a AR15 NRA/CMP Service rifle looks like a normal A2 rifle. It is inside that matters. The match quality barrel is floated under the hand guards (and in the OP's case, Krieger is as good as there is). Match triggers are allowed, with a minimum pull weight of 4.5 lbs. My Jewell NM AR trigger is a work of art.

I used a off the shelf Armalite NM upper, which has a 20" floated stainless steel barrel. I don't know who made the barrel, I remember hearing it is a Douglas, but don't know for sure, but not a top of the line barrel though.

Here is how it shot Sierra 80gr Matchkings at 100 yards:
armalite_80smk.jpg


That is using a carry handle scope mount. This is using the iron sights, prone and slung at 100 yards on the 100 yard reduced slow fire target (and 69gr SMK):

prone.jpg


The scoped groups were 7 shots, the prone group was 10. I just wish it was a match, never got close to a 6X clean in competition. The X-ring is .75", and the 10 ring is 1.75"

A match prepared, Krieger barreled Service Rifle will certainly outshoot any factory rifle, even a factory service rifle like mine.
 
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