true or false

Hey folks,

Most of my federal civil service was with the Department of Defense. During the mid 1970s, I worked for the Marines at the Quantico, VA Marine Corps Base. While working there at that time, I can personally attest to the reloading of ammunition by Marines for use by their competition rifle teams. I do not recall if I observed the reloading of handgun ammo, but I clearly recall the reloading of rifle ammo for competition rifles in several calibers.

I would guess that each competition shooter was supported by a half dozen or more marines who made that shooter's ammo. The shooters were simply shooters, and the reloaders did nothing nothing but reload. Both shooters and reloaders did their jobs well. Meticulous notes were kept for each shooter so that specific loadings could be made for specific purposes.

At that time, the reloaders all used RCBS RockChucker presses along with other RCBS equipment. I found it interesting that all reloaders and any visitors to the reloading rooms were required to wear grounding straps. I had been reloading for some years at that time, and I never used any grounding straps. I never did take up their use of grounding straps, but I did marvel at some of the more serious efforts they took to make the most consistant ammo possible. A few years later while working for the Army, I found the Army did things pretty much the same as the Marines for their competition rifle teams.

Based on what I saw during my time with the DOD, I would be surprised to find that service competition teams contract out to have their ammo made for them. I don't see how they could get better ammo for their shooters than they were getting from their own people.

Best wishes,
Dave Wile
 
In the '60's and '70's, the USN Small Arms Match Conditing Unit in San Diego handloaded lots of ammo for the 7.62 NATO Garands. Their most accurate handloads were two types. One was special lots of M80 ball ammo loaded with IMR4475 powder with their 147-gr. bullet replaced with a Sierra 168 HPMK. The other was M118 match ammo with its powder and bullet replaced with IMR4320 under a Sierra 190. Through 600 yards, Remington and Federal .308 Win. commercial match ammo shot good enough through 600 yards. They also handloaded new .338 Win. Mag. cases into .30-.338 Win. Mag. for their long range match rifles.

In talking with USMC and US Army Rifle Team members years ago, they both used and liked Federal commercial .308 Win. match ammo that equalled what their support units handloaded with new components.

Best accuracy all those top military teams got with handloads or commercial match ammo was about 4 inches at 600 yards and 10 inches at 1000 from both M14NM's and M1's.
 
Hey Bart,

The service competition shooters I saw certainly were not shooting rack grade rifles. They were shooting special competition rifles with heavy target barrels in the military rifles. Some of the shooters used bolt action rifles that ranged from commercial target rifles to fully custom built target rifles.

Yes, they sure were good. I was young then with better eyes than I now have, but my shooting skills did not come clost to theirs. In spite of that, I never had any desire to trade places with any of them. Both the shooters and the loaders were better than I at both shooting and loading. That was, however, all they did all day long. I was more content to both shoot and reload even if I could not do either as well as they.

Best wishes,
Dave Wile
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top