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Reloading M2

2577 Views 13 Replies 9 Participants Last post by  PAPA G, 
BattleRifleG3
I have a variety of military .30-06 brass, all of which I've found to be boxer primed. How should I prepare it for reloading, specifically, what, if anything, is different from newly manufactured commercial ammo?
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V
You may need to knock the crimp out of the primer pocket, depending on whose military loaded the ammunition. This can be done with a primer pocket swager (I have an extra one from RCBS, BTW) You knock out the primer crimp and then use a primer pocket deburring tool. There are tools for doing this available from reloading companies. I bought an RCBS case prepping station, I must say, it works very well, a bit pricey (120 bucks) plus accessories, but a real good tool with a lot time saved. I also always recommend checking the brass for overall length.. especially if this is stuff you didn't shoot yourself. There are a lot of rifles out there that will stretch brass to the point where you need to trim it, but you will find that military brass generally tends to be a lot more robust than commercial stuff.
If I couldn't get Lake City M2, I'd rate Remington, Winchester and then Federal in the order of preferrence. Federal seems to be the most accurate (especially the Gold Medal) but oddly enough, the brass isn't that great when it comes to reloading!

Be safe!
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C
The olny thing I can add is measure the brass for length after resizing. If too long, trim to minimum length, then chamfer the inside and the outside of the neck end of the casing, but not to the point it is sharp!

IHTH
Chris
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W
Originally posted by vodkazombie
You may need to knock the crimp out of the primer pocket, depending on whose military loaded the ammunition. This can be done with a primer pocket swager (I have an extra one from RCBS, BTW) You knock out the primer crimp and then use a primer pocket deburring tool. There are tools for doing this available from reloading companies. I bought an RCBS case prepping station, I must say, it works very well, a bit pricey (120 bucks) plus accessories, but a real good tool with a lot time saved. I also always recommend checking the brass for overall length.. especially if this is stuff you didn't shoot yourself. There are a lot of rifles out there that will stretch brass to the point where you need to trim it, but you will find that military brass generally tends to be a lot more robust than commercial stuff.
If I couldn't get Lake City M2, I'd rate Remington, Winchester and then Federal in the order of preferrence. Federal seems to be the most accurate (especially the Gold Medal) but oddly enough, the brass isn't that great when it comes to reloading!

Be safe!
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You can ream the crimp out with the little Lee tool , best I remember , it is less than $ 10.00 . It is a little slow .

I use a Unibit , cone shaped with " steps " for different hole sizes . I have a RCBS primer pocket swagger die , but still have to ream out the burr , where the crimp was , so the new primer will start straight .

It is a good idea to use a primer pocket trueing tool to cut the primer pockets to consistant debth & the bottom square with the sides .

On any semi-auto , be sure to seat the primer well below flush , to help avoid slam fires .

Wyr
God Bless
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F
`

In decapping the 06 primers past the crimp most reloading dies with the exception of the C-H dies have weak center shafts and decapping pins. The C-H shaft and punch is the strongest and the steel lasts longer than any orher brand. C-H also has a hand operated very heavy duty punch and base for that and then I just use a standard deburring tool in a electric drill in my bench vise to just zip the crimp off.

I have a lifetime collection of 06 brass I am selling off now as I am too old to shoot anymore. Ask for my lists of thousands in many sizes of brass collected by my scout troop that helped me teach Hunter Safety courses and policed the ranges we used. They cleaned, sorted and packed the brass up fpr sale including mine.

Paul Jones [email protected]:D
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`

In decapping the 06 primers past the crimp most reloading dies with the exception of the C-H dies have weak center shafts and decapping pins. The C-H shaft and punch is the strongest and the steel lasts longer than any orher brand. C-H also has a hand operated very heavy duty punch and base for that and then I just use a standard deburring tool in a electric drill in my bench vise to just zip the crimp off.

I have a lifetime collection of 06 brass I am selling off now as I am too old to shoot anymore. Ask for my lists of thousands in many sizes of brass collected by my scout troop that helped me teach Hunter Safety courses and policed the ranges we used. They cleaned, sorted and packed the brass up fpr sale including mine.

Paul Jones [email protected]
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C
military cases will need to be decrimped, but all military cases except for match have reduced internal volume capacity, if you weight them you will see they have varying thicknesses. do not assume that the same chage in a commercial case is safe in a military.redusce yoru loads not by much but enough as to not cause over pressure
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Military brass

30-06, 308, 45acp and 30 M1 carbine were invented as military calibers. Their GI casings are all made to MILSPEC -military specifications because lives depend on their reliability. If you get a batch of GI brass of the same manufacturer and year they are more identical than any lot of civilian brass unless you buy a thousand with the same lot number by special order from a very large dealer. Civilian brass is thinner because of cutting costs and Remington brass is the thinnest and the cheapest and has the least reloading life.

Military brass has the longest reloading life and many competitors prefer lots of a thousand GI brass to be loaded at the same time on a progressive reloader with all components identical to give them identical points of impact with the same sight picture for the entire lot of ammo.

The primer pocket crimp is to prevent primers from moving in automatic weapons and to also help in waterproofing with lacquer so that it will still be reliable when wet.

I have collected GI brass all my life and used it exclusively in competition and resized it down to any other calibers that I needed successfully.

Because of my age and retirement I am selling off my lifetime collection of GI and Civilian brass now.

[email protected]


Nuff Said

John Paul
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oneastrix
Where'd they all go?
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PAPA G
GOOD QUESTION.....

and what happened to BRG3??? what a wild and crazy guy!!!
wonder if he ever reloaded that GI brass:rolleyes: :D
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Shaun
BRG3 one major issue with using Military brass case thickness is not uniform and if you at using quality LC it will be a thicker brass resulting in higher pressures so I would recommend that you reduce all max loads by 5% since those loads are based on commercial brass.
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BattleRifleG3
That's great to know, thanks! As long as it cycles and hits where I'm shooting, I'm happy. Haven't yet gotten into reloading it, as my M1 isn't my most used gun and I have quite a bit of surp ammo to shoot before reloading becomes really desireable.
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Shaun
You can get a basic beginners level kit which I would recommend you start with - The Lee Anniversary Kit is about 69 bucks and comes with everything you need except dies. dies will run 19 bucks for a basic set rcbs are about 30 and considered top line
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PAPA G
i feel that one day BRG3 will reinvent machine loaders and pump out hundreds of thousands of rounds a minute, just to keep up with his needs:D
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