Three questions I have:

1) do you anneal right after you cut with the mini chop saw, or after the cases are fully formed into 300?


2) what is the method for "double striking" during the sizing of the case?  Do you just size the case partially by not screwing the sizing die all the way down,  then full length size it to the correct head space on the final step?  

3) what is the best/easiest lube to use during the sizing process?  I've got imperial sizing wax, one-stick from hornady, and dillon case lube.

It was close. Took a good shot to the upper lip but no blood. Ammo was the Armscor 147gr load.

I have also been burned in this, but have had good luck with members tlee20 and prebanpwact.

I noticed something while trimming some "processed" brass I purchased.  Much of the brass had very tight case mouths and would not fit over the 30 caliber pilot of my trim pro (I used a 28 pilot ).  Later I checked the cases against a Ballstic Tools case mouth gauge and was averaging between 0.299 and .302.

Also worthy of mentioning...  In a previous post I mentioned how I needed to resize some no go cases from the same lot of "processed" brass. Those now have a case mouth diameter of around .303 to .304ish on my mic (loose at the .302 line on my gauge I could possibly with minimal force push it over the line but obviously would rather not).

Should I run those tight cases through my die so the bullet will seat easily into the case and have a more consistent neck tension?

I learned a long time ago that it pays to always resize all new to me brass... that way I know it's right. I even resize brand new mfg brass. Since I started doing it I have had zero issues.
Better safe then sorry

Some of the 300 blk vendors trim on a Dillon that doesn't expand the mouth/neck.
So you should at least neck expand if not FL size.

Thanks.  Good to know.   What do you guys shoot for as far as case mouth diameter?

It is well worth it to me to pay about 5-7 cents more to buy from one of the vendors mentioned above. I also like to buy giraud trimmed brass. That way I know another die has hit it.

I trimmed my brass so it now ranges from 1.35 to 1.37 and then resized with a redding full length resizing die.  The diameter of the case mouths are now a fairly consistent .305. I loaded a few dummy rounds with 220gr SMK's (a COAL of 2.20) and then load it into a magazine and racked them into the chamber to see if the bullets would push back into the cases and was surprised to see the COAL had actually increased to from 2.20 to 2.21-22.

Is this normal?  Should I polish the expander to tighten the case mouth a little?  Crimp?  

Obviously, I'll be loading subs and using 4198. Can someone steer me towards a good starting load?  I read somewhere that with subsonic loads you work backwards (more powder to less powder and a failure to cycle).  This seems backwards to me but I am a total newb and these will be my first ever reloads.  Can someone explain why you wouldn't work upwards until the gun cycles and then omit the loads that didn't work?

Edit:

I also just noticed that my 4 dummy rounds actually vary in length.  2.189, 2.193, 2.20 and 2.203.  I know that bullets arent consistent in length but was surprised to see that much difference.  Is this worth worrying about?  Should I get an OAL gauge and comparator?

You use the high to low procedure when using a chronograph so you can find where your load goes from sonic to subsonic.  Once that is determined, you can work down to find the lowest powder charge that will cycle reliably.  Starting on the low end, you run the risk of a large amount of malfunctions which might include stick a bullet in the barrel.  Makes for a very short range day.

Ah. Got it.  Thanks.

Sorry for the dumb question but... What is the case wall thickness that is good to use for the blk out? I have a bunch or LC head stamp once fired brass I was going to try and form into 300's if it will work.
Again sorry for the dumb question . I know I've seen my answer somewhere on this forum but can't seem to find it when I need it. Thanks

Thanks!


What do you use when you aneal you 300 blackouts?



 

edit to my pics URL so it doesn't get stolen again. dryflash3

Read this thread.  Simple, easy, inexpensive, and effective.



 

edit to my pics URL so it doesn't get stolen again. dryflash3

I have a question about the bullet Remington uses in their 120 gr OTFB loading.  It appears that they have this stuff made for them by Barnes (Barnes' headstamp is on them, etc.), but I can't find that bullet anywhere.  In fact, I haven't been able to find a 120 gr .308 bullet anywhere. 115s, 125s, etc., but not 120s.  Any idea if this is a special bullet for this particular loading, or who else makes 120 gr open tip bullets?

I have been searching for this bullet as well.......

Not sold as a component. If you want an otm type bullet, I'd suggest the sierra smk and tmk for the blackout.

I suspected that it wasn't a component bullet.  Not that Sierra's SMK and TMKs are a bad choice...

thanks brother

 

didn't read through all 83 pages so I'm not sure if anyone else tried this. But heres how I've been cutting my cases. Its a $4 lowes 1/4" tubing cutter, I drilled and taped the side to make a stop.  Consistent size, clean cut. Not the fastest way but works for me.

That's awesome, but it also makes my hands hurt just looking at it. Great job.

Could use the lee trimmer base in a drill then all you have to do is tighten the cutter down and hold a trigger.

Can someone please help me decide on a COAL and maybe explain why Hodgdon has such a long COAL for the 220 SMK?  2.26 seems very long.  I have been looking up some loads others have posted for this same bullet and they seem to be shorter (2.89, 2.173, 2.20).

Also, I have yet to purchase an OAL gauge and comparator so I know my COAL is going to vary some.  My cases are 1.35 to 1.38.  I'll be using IMR4198 (working down from 11.5gr) in a 10.5" AR and 10rnd PMAGs.

Thanks for any help.  I'll admit I'm a bit nervous and apologize if this has been covered before. I just want to be as safe as possible and run this by you guys first.

9mmpm, Better to be safe than sorry. I have used this load with good results. 2.260 is the correct length according to the load data that I used from Hodgon. They loaded fine into my mags and shot fine. Longer bullets like the 220grs, take up more room and respond differently to how they close they are loaded to lands of the barrel. If you load them too long they may not fit in to the mag, could feed incorrectly, and too much space can cause pressure variations that could be bad. If there isn't enough neck tension on the bullet by loading too long,  you could get an incomplete burn which may result in a bullet stuck in the barrel. On the other hand, if you seat the bullets too deep you can get dangerous pressure spikes. Most companies will do research and experiment with different lengths to get the best results safely. The 300 AAC was designed to fit into ar15 mags, the max ar15 mag length is 2.260 this is why you will see a lot of 300AAC rounds with c.o.l. of 2.260 hope this answers your questions.

As always proceed with caution and follow the recommended safety guide lines.

Edited for spelling and to add clarification

Thanks OmegaOmnitron.  I also ran across this response to pretty much my same question in another thread on another forum.  Really cleared things up.

I wanted to come back and post something else on this topic.

darr3239 brings up an excellent point about using a comparator for seating depth. This is great and will result in very consistent ammo, provided you are loading for a gun that you are trying to seat .00x of the lands to minimize jump(which is another topic for discussion another time). In cases like this a comparator will always seat your bullet so that the OGIVE is your chosen distance from the lands(which is what you want), BUT if you measure the real OAL of the round you will have the variations, which dont matter, because in this case you are going for seating the OGIVE to .00x off the lands.

HOWEVER in guns like these(or other magazine fed guns) unless you have a chamber cut to your spec, you will NEVER(I wont say never, but almost never) get close to the lands and stay inside the magazine. In AR15 magazines you are limited to 2.260, which in reality is 2.255 or maybe even 2.250. In a rack standard AR15 you will NEVER be able to get out to the lands and stay in the magazine, I say this pretty confidently. I have loaded some 80g and 90g .223 bullets and while I had to single load, they didnt even get into the lands and these suckers were long. With 300BLK the same is true. I load for a couple .308's as well and there is NO WAY I can get to the lands and stay in the magazine(LMT MWS with LR PMags and an R700 AAC-SD fed from AI mags). So in MOST cases if magazine fed guns, a comparator, to me, is worthless because we cant do squat about bullet jump so why do we care where the OGIVE is. Make sure your longest round fits the magazine and run everything else through the seating die again to seat to the exact same depth and deal with the "short" ones. You need to make sure you run all your rounds back through the seating die if you adjust for the long one because if you dont you will have different seating depths and thus varying pressures. You want to keep the pressures equal(or as equal as possible). So it might not make sense to make "short" rounds even shorter, but in reality you are simply making sure the base of the bullet is always seated to the same depth regardless of tip length.

Another HOWEVER with the 300blk is that if you can measure your magazine from the back wall to the center of the rib, you can then seat your rounds so that the OGIVE rides the rib, which in 300 BLK is EXACTLY what we want. This, IMO, is where a comparator comes in handy with the 300 BLK round. Not so much for figuring out bullet jump(which you cant seat long enough to minimize anyway so we dont worry about it), but to seat every bullet so that it rides on the rib in the magazine. Using a comparator to do this is stupid simple.

Ordered a Hornady case comparator from Amazon today.  At $26.00 it was dumb for me not to own one.

Anybody care to share a 147 gr load that uses either W296/H110 or AA1680? I bought 500 of these to load up as plinkers. My data show 150's of various sorts, but w/o bullet lengths, it'd be a tedious work up. I'd rather no invent the wheel if I don't have to. I'm not looking for max velocity and I'll be using once fired LC 5.56 brass I've converted.

Thanks!

Answered my own question. Via web (semi-risky) research and comparing published reloading data, I loaded up five rounds with 17.0 gr of W296, C.O.A.L. of 2.14". Average muzzle velocity 2010 fps with a standard deviation of 6.0 fps.  17.2 gr bought me 30 fps, but stdev tripled to 18 fps. I'll stick with 17.0 for a nice plinking load.

ETA: 12.5" CMMG barrel

Does anyone from the collective have a good load with H110 for use with the Lehigh Defense 110 grain controlled chaos round?  I bought a box to experiment with and wanted to start at 17 grains and work up.  I was going to see if anyone else had already encountered a sweet spot for this bullet in terms of velocity to squeeze every bit of accuracy out of my Rem 700.

Got a Chrony Beta Master chronograph for my birthday and finally got a chance to put some velocity numbers with some loads.

Firearm:  SBR with a Core15 9.5" barrel and a YHM Phantom can hanging off the end of it.


First load:

8.5 grains of Lil'Gun in .223/5.56 re-formed and annealed, but not yet fired brass
Missouri Bullet Company 245 grain coated lead bullets
2.05" OAL
Light crimp with Lee FCD... didn't end up being enough because I found one that didn't load correctly was setback about 1/8" from where it should have been.

Low: 1044
High: 1103
Av: 1081
ES:  58.78
SD: 19.31

Shots:

1.   1056
2.   1074
3.   1085
4.   1103
5.   1071
6.   1097
7.   1098
8.   1088
9.   1092
10. 1044 (thought that was odd)



Next up, I only shot 5 of the Barnes black tips because I don't have that many left of them and they're darn expensive to simply shoot through a chronograph for velocity's sake

20.0 grains of W296 (H110) in .223/5.56 re-formed, annealed, and multiple-fired brass.
Barnes 110 grain TAC-TSX bullets
2.25" OAL
Light crimp on a Lee FCD, and they don't ever setback thanks to the profile.

Low:  2033
High:  2172
Av:  2128
ES:  138.6
SD:  54.48


1.  2033  (first shot after the string of lead subs)
2.  2145
3.  2140
4.  2150
5.  2172

Other than the oddball first one, they were all pretty tight velocity-wise, so the first one *really* screwed up my ES and SD.  I know I should have done another 5 rounds to get a better overall velocity picture, but money doesn't grow on trees around here and I've got a few mouths to feed with what I do have.

Why did you use h110 on the Barnes black tips instead of the lil gun you ran on the others? I use 20 grns of lil gun with the Barnes 110's and it works great. What advantage do you believe you will see with the H110?

I have had some issues with accuracy using lil'gun on anything but subs. When I tried it with the TAC-tsx, t-tsx, and also some hornady 150 grain ballistic tips, the accuracy was awful out of my sbr. Several folks suggested I try h110/w296 to see if things improved and they did substantially. So now for the lighter bullets I use w296/h110.

I'll still use lil'gun for plinking 150 grain loads since I still have probably 7 1/2 lbs of it, but not for ones that are going to matter a lot accuracy-wise (deer hunting, for example)

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Out of my 16" AAC upper I was getting fantastic accuracy using Lil'Gun and 110 VMAX and 125 SMK. Have not tried H110.

It sounds like your gun likes the slightly different burn rate of H110 compared to Lil' Gun.  They're close, really close, but Lil' Gun seems to be less sensitive to small changes in volume, while H110 is one of those "don't reduce minimum loads more than 3%" powders - it's finicky, but it works for a lot of people.  Remember, sometimes small changes in handloading work BFM - it's still sometimes more art than science.

I've thought about getting another upper/barrel and testing to see if it would like the Lil'gun loads better, but at this point I haven't yet. I'd probably go with a Noveske or Rainer if I did, though.

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I have found that mine likes the 20 grns of lil gun and the 110 Barnes better out of the 16" bbl with the 1x8 twist. With H110 it was to inconsistent and had greater SD when shot through a chronograph.

I cannot find any info regarding 178gr Vmax subsonic loads with lilgun. I have this in stock, and was trying to see if anyone had a recipe. I can't find much info on them supersonic either. If this has been addressed, point me in the right direction. Thanks.
FWIW, I have a 12 inch barrel, pistol length gas.

I did about 200 like this before I went and bought a blade for my band saw.

are we allowed to post deals on 300blk related powders & gear or is that still strictly in the components tacked thread?

On Tuesday I finally got to test out my 8" barreled 300 Blackout upper, and to test a bunch of loads.  It was fun until my Bushnell scope's reticle decided to lean to the right, but that's a different story.

I tested 4 different bullet/powder combinations, and chronographed all of the shots.  Though I only had a 25 yard range to work with, I think I got useful accuracy data, though I'm not happy with my technique or the "bench" (a plastic picnic table) I had to work with.  All rounds fed and the bolt locked on all four of the different combinations, as well as the factory Remington (Barnes) 120 gr OTFB loads I used to verify the gun worked.

First was .308" 110 gr round nose bullets intended for .30 Carbine, loaded with H110 to an OAL of 1.930".  I loaded up 5 shots each at charges from 18.8 to 19.4 gr.  I got my best groups and smallest variations in velocity at 19.2 gr, with an average velocity of 2122 fps (15' from muzzle).  No feeding problems whatsoever.  I hope this isn't a fluke with just my gun, but these bullets were loaded to the length indicated by the .250 diameter meeting the magazine rib...  Maybe others can try it out and see if it works for them.

Next was Sierra's 110 gr HP Varminter bullets.  I loaded a batch of these with H110, and another batch with Lil' Gun, to Sierra's recommended OAL of 1.970".  Best loads with H110 were with 19.8 gr with an average MV of 2113, and the best Lil' Gun loads were with 17 gr giving an average MV of 2024 fps.  The slightly slower Lil' Gun load made a MUCH smaller pattern on the target than the H110 load.  I have a favorite for this bullet now.  

Finally I tested loads with Hornady's 150gr FMJ bullet and IMR 4227.  I have another set with that bullet loaded over Lil' Gun, but my scope failure kept me from testing those.  My lowest SD with this combination was 2fps with a powder charge of 17.5 gr, but with 17.2 gr I had only an SD of 4fps, and possibly smaller groups.  It's hard to tell because my groups changed as the scope reticle shifted.

Conclusions: With MY GUN and the right OAL, I can shoot .30 Carbine bullets.  I like Sierra's 110 gr Varminter bullet, which seems to do nicely with nicely efficient powder charges.  150 gr FMJs work fine, but I'm not sure which load to use with them - I need to mount my (arrived Tuesday AFTER I got home from the range) Nikon P-300 scope and try these loads at a longer distance.  Gee, more "need" to spend a day at the range...

thanks for the info, I am looking into the 150 & 110's you loaded as well. keep us updated when you get back out.

They were Hornady's carbine bullets, in case that makes a difference.  I haven't compared my surplus carbine bullets to theirs yet, so maybe it's just "Hornady's bullets worked."...

Your post helped me decide to try out those palmetto projos and buy a sampler pack from them.  Shipping was quick! I tried your recipe and im very happy on the results!  My AR pistol set-up consists of an 8.3 Ballistic advantage Hanson Profile Premium Stainless barrel (pistol gas), Nitride Aim BCG and and H2 buffer.  My suppressor is a SiCo Specwar 762.  It shoots and sounds great!  Only thing is im not getting bolt-hold open on last shot.  I may switch to a standard carbine buffer or kick-up the powder a bit. I also noticed unburnt powder in the chamber area.  Im not too concerned with BHO since this a range fun gun for me.  Furthest I shot was 25 yards but grouped decently. Thank you for sharing your 300 blackout load.