The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

snayperskaya just go shoot I don't really care. Have fun.
I enjoy every range day. I don't use milsurps ammo any more. I gave it up at least ten year ago I have more respect for my milsurps I would never feed them crap milsurps ammo. I have a shed load of military rifles I treat them with respect. I feed them with hand loads and they return the favour with small groups. I hand load all my ammunition and it pays dividends. I'm sorry you find that strange.

It's horses for courses chaps. I handload for my 45 colt gallery gun but not for the Enfield that gets 40 a year through it on guest days.

Alpha1 wrote:snayperskaya just go shoot I don't really care. Have fun.
I enjoy every range day. I don't use milsurps ammo any more. I gave it up at least ten year ago I have more respect for my milsurps I would never feed them crap milsurps ammo. I have a shed load of military rifles I treat them with respect. I feed them with hand loads and they return the favour with small groups. I hand load all my ammunition and it pays dividends. I'm sorry you find that strange.

I didn't say I find the fact that you handload strange, your attitude to others that don't was what I found strange.....and despite me using milsurp I respect my rifles, I just clean them thoroughly and enjoy them with the ammunition they were designed to shoot.Anyway crack on and we'll say no more about it as its going nowhere.

If military surplus gets you shooting then that has to be a good thing.

Also if you collect military firearms then getting the opportunity to shoot these guns with ammunition that was intended for them is an education that also sets the bench mark for hand loading.

It is surprising how effective most military ammunition is at hitting man sized targets at the engagement ranges of the day.

Many hand loaders find it hard to better military surplus GP11 in their Swiss rifles.

Some interesting opinions for and against the milsurp ammo

My original train of thought (rightly or wrongly) when I started this thread was to buy some milsurp ammo cheap and blatt it away to get the feel of shooting centrefire rifles properly and then reload the cases (which is why I asked about Berdan primed milsurp)
My reasons to do this were:
I'm from Yorkshire and therefore tight (or careful as we like to term it)
I get a cheap bang first time ....Ooo err missus, and the reloading starts off cheap as new cases dont need to be bought.
I think my idea falls at the primer hurdle


Nick,

Is Hannams the place in Garforth that sells the reloading gear?

Gazza wrote:Some interesting opinions for and against the milsurp ammo

My original train of thought (rightly or wrongly) when I started this thread was to buy some milsurp ammo cheap and blatt it away to get the feel of shooting centrefire rifles properly and then reload the cases (which is why I asked about Berdan primed milsurp)
My reasons to do this were:
I'm from Yorkshire and therefore tight (or careful as we like to term it)
I get a cheap bang first time ....Ooo err missus, and the reloading starts off cheap as new cases dont need to be bought.
I think my idea falls at the primer hurdle


Nick,

Is Hannams the place in Garforth that sells the reloading gear?

You can reload with Berdan primed cases BUT - depriming them is a total faff. Berdan primers (smaller than Boxer) are hard to get & you need resizing die with no primer removal pin.

So yes your right use mil-surp as fun blatorama / training ammo & some will surprise you how go it actually is. Especially some 308 nato spec ammo.

When ready to play reloading, buy boxer cased ammo & use that or get some cases to use. Free cases some moderate gear makes ammo at ~45p & over 5-6 relaods you recover the cost of all the gear. But as said elsewhere in this thread, really you have ammo when you want (make) it vs mil-surp that is unreliable supply & you shoot more & possibly gain a whole new dimension to shooting or even another hobby!

Personally i am often too busy to reload, i reload to make std TR CIP ammo cheaper, so sometimes do case prep then hand them over to an authorized reloader (any RFD can reload for an individual) to do imho the boring bit for me (primer powder & head) my TR ammo is a CIP equivalent, its not tuned or optimized etc because if i did then when in some competitions where I use issued CIP i am at a disadvantage. Others reload for F-1 accuracy, some to develop a load, - each to their own.

shop about when you get good mil surp buy as much as you are allowed & can afford.

How many times can factory brass be reloaded if using the same load?
Does it depend on the brass?
Is there a point where you have to bin it even though it looks ok?

Depends on the brass, loading process and the loads as well as the cartridge. Straight walled cases tend to last longer than bottlenecks.

I have 303 cases that have been loaded 30+ times but then the have been shot only with 2000 fps cast bullet loads and neck sized only, haven't needed bumping back yet. Obviously they are dedicated to specific guns.

I do anneal every half dozen firings "whether they need it or not".

To get the best from the brass it would be best to anneal the necks, I do his manually about every 5 or 6 firing but I am looking into getting a machine to make it an easier process
However as long as you keep the brass to size for your chamber and trim the overall length from time to time it can be reloaded a lot of times until it starts to fail, necks splitting, heads seperating (look for a line in the brass above the head as you clean and prep and bin before they separate) primer pockets becoming too lose to hold the primers will be the main failures
If you don't anneal the necks will become inconsistent for tension to hold the bullet, it's usually at this point they start to split

I have in the past got 12 -15 reloads out of 308 cases before problems occurred
In one instance I got one reload out of 300winmag cases because the load was way too hot and blew the primer pockets

So lots of variables but should be able to reach double figures in most cases

Duey

Excellent, thanks for the quick replies lads