Reloading 5.56 LC

I didn't either but thats what it says on the bag. I didn't buy them. I'm reloading them for my cousin so I didn't buy anything, just working with what I got. I have a picture of the bag I'll post, see if that helps anyone.
bullets.jpg
 
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My local reloading supply guy, is messing with some of them right now. He's more into the full auto scene than the predator thing.
But he told me the military is driving those things at some pretty insane speeds and with good accuracy out of an M4.

I need to pick up some primers tomorrow, I'll see if he has any load info to pass on.
 
Finally seen my buddy today. He said the military is of course using some special loads. He was pretty sure they were using WCR 845 AP which is made by St.Marks which is owned by General Dynamics.

His best suggestion was to go with the best load you can find for a 63gr.and push it as hard as you can. He was playing with BL-C(2)

Wish I could tell you more
 
Originally Posted By: biggen0_8
His best suggestion was to go with the best load you can find for a 63gr.and push it as hard as you can. He was playing with BL-C(2)


Use caution with BL-C2, especially if pushing it to the max. That powder is very temperature sensitive. I personally wont use it again.
 
Alright, I'll tell why I asked the question. Like I said before, I am reloading for my cousin. I asked him what he wanted them loaded at and he said looks like 22-26 gr. of IMR-3031. So I said I'll load them at 24 to be safe and work up if we need to. First thing I noticed was that it looked like the case was real full, like full the powder will touch the bullet. Against my better judgement, I loaded them anyway. Went to test fire in a RRA ar and I had my cousin shoot just one so I could check for pressure signs. After he fired I picked up the brass and saw that the primer was pushed out a little, about flush with the bottom of the case. So I knew that that it was a little hot. No other pressure signs so I had him shoot 10 or so more and looked at the brass again. Same thing, all the primers were pushed out flush. He shot the rest and I picked up all the brass and looked at them. Out of 30, they all had the primers pushed out flush with the bottom of the case. One of them had the primer pushed out almost all the way, so far that when I brought them back inside the primer had fallen out somewhere. So my question is, what happened? I started in the middle powder wise and had excess pressure.
 
I know this is probably a silly question...You do know that some military brass has a smaller case capacity than civilian commercial brass??

If you are loading what sounds like to be a "compressed" load in military brass and getting extreme pressure signs at substantially less than max. load data, something is seriously wrong with your data...I would be seriously checking several different sources for that load data before ever dropping one grain of any powder...

Most reloading manuals that I've read will denote compressed loads and usually have a warning to use with caution, but I don't recall ever reading where there were a series of compressed loads for one piece of data in a small cartridge such as a .223 Rem..

Regardless of what your cousin, or anyone else for that matter, decides they want in a load, the ultimate responsibility for their welfare is up to you as the reloader..
 
The Hodgdon website lists 23.3 gr. of IMR3031 as a MAX load,for a 63 gr. bullet and it lists 22.5 as a MAX for a 60gr. So yes 24gr. would be a bit on the hot side.


BTW If your seeing signs of pressure, you really want to stop. I blew up a 17 Remington years ago, because I chose to ignore flattened primers, but when I left one in the chamber for a few minutes the next shot was the last.
 
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Originally Posted By: OldTurtleI know this is probably a silly question...You do know that some military brass has a smaller case capacity than civilian commercial brass??

If you are loading what sounds like to be a "compressed" load in military brass and getting extreme pressure signs at substantially less than max. load data, something is seriously wrong with your data...I would be seriously checking several different sources for that load data before ever dropping one grain of any powder...

Most reloading manuals that I've read will denote compressed loads and usually have a warning to use with caution, but I don't recall ever reading where there were a series of compressed loads for one piece of data in a small cartridge such as a .223 Rem..

Regardless of what your cousin, or anyone else for that matter, decides they want in a load, the ultimate responsibility for their welfare is up to you as the reloader..

Yes, I know that military brass has slightly smaller capacity. We are lucky that nothing serious happened. I told him we are stopping now until we figured something out. Thus the reason for my question. So another question is, how are people putting 24 gr. or more into a 5.56 case?
 
Where are you reading of putting 24.5+ of 3031 into a case?

I imagine it can be done using a drop tube.

This thread has gotten me interested in trying some of these, so I picked some up from my buddy today. But I'm going to load them with 4198 or TAC. I just don't see 3031 as a real good choice for 223

I've ran compressed loads before, but am not a big fan of them.
 
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