semi autos that are good for reloading brass

K

Kirkpatrick

New member
I'm looking to buy a semi auto center fire rifle. It will be used at the range, mostly at 50 to 100 yard distances. I would like one that is mostly out of the box ready to go. My main concern is that, as i will be reloading my rounds, I don't want to be chasing and looking for my brass all day long. Also, i don't want a rifle that will beat the brass up too much. And of course I would prefer a rifle that isn't too picky about what it will fire.

I"m going to be pretty budget minded with this, a mini 14 chambered in .223 looks nice as it is easy to get and cheap to reload.

What should I be on the look out for and what considerations should i keep in mind?

Thanks
 
I had an early Mini 14 that threw the brass in a neat little pile. Have hand loaded for that Mini 14, M1 Garand, Colt AR-15 HB... Did not have any issues with damaged brass with any of them. Did discover however, that one must full-length size for the M1 or the unsized body of the cases results in a loaded enblock clip too large to insert into the M1 despite the individual cartridges working through the action alright.
 
AR's throw them in a nice little pile
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I would disagree with this. Some AR's do, some don't. Some fling them all over the place, some put them in an "area", and some do put them into a nice pile. Generally though, AR's do fling the brass into a more-or-less small "area", making pickup easier. There are simply too many different AR's with slight differences to make blanket statements.

"Ranch" style Mini's throw them to the next county
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True for factory mini's. This has more to do with the gas bushing on the Ruger being oversized. While this means it will cycle anything it also means that the gun flings brass all over the place. It also hurts accuracy and contributes for the Mini's reputation for eating scopes.

All those problems can be solved with a simple gas bushing replacement. Accuracy systems has the best ones. Under $20 and you can tune where your Mini flings brass.

Ruger%20Mini-14%20Gas%20Bushings.jpg


My 580 series Mini has a .045" Bushing and high power recoil spring. It will cycle wolf reliability, but full power ammo still flings a bit. I could perhaps get away with a .040" bushing, but then probably could not shoot wolf. My other two Mini's have .050" bushings and cycle just fine.

What you could also do is make a brass catcher. Get a large cardboard box, weigh it down with some lead ingots or such and set it on the right so it will catch the brass ejected from the gun. I do it all the time and it minimizes the bending over one has to do to collect their brass.
 
Thanks for the input. It seems that a mini 14 modified with the proper gas bushing and recoil spring will make the ejection problem minimal. Maybe with further experimentation with the loading of less than hot loads, I should be able to make the ejection predictable.

Like I said, this will be a range gun and i really can't imagine shooting it under less than ideal conditions.

I did think about an ar platform but there are so many choices and variables out there, that i really wouldn't know where to begin ( and plus, the non conformist in me kind of likes the idea of not being the one on the line a the range using one).

Any more advice would be greatly appreciated, especially if you have noticed a difference in the ejection pattern based on what kind of ammo you are firing.
 
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