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Posted: 12/4/2015 10:26:34 AM EDT
| Finished reloading some rounds with 150 gr FMJ with 46.7 grains 4064. Is this load light for the cycling process? Fired some and rifle is short stroking. Op rod and gas cylinder all in spec. I seen on Masterpo reloading chart to start at 50 gr 4064. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks! |
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Finished reloading some rounds with 150 gr FMJ with 46.7 grains 4064. Is this load light for the cycling process? Fired some and rifle is short stroking. Op rod and gas cylinder all in spec. I seen on Masterpo reloading chart to start at 50 gr 4064. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks! My CMP special I built and test fired in maintenance class (so I know everything to spec) short stroked until I got to a mid range Varget load. So, if you are below min, I dont doubt it will short stroke. Pull back your op rod and compare the force needed to any modern weapon.. It's quite a bit... More than my 308 AR for example. |
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If you had looked on the Hodgdon/IMR web site, you would have found 47. gr to be the "Starting Load".
You are below the starting load, so trouble should not be unexpected. 51.0 is the max load, so you have plenty of room to increase powder charge. For example, Master Po recommends 50.0 gr of IMR 4064. Where did you get that 46.7 gr load data from? Did you research before loading and shooting? |
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The Garand is built to run M2 ammo. If your loads aren't close to the minimum power (gas pressure) of an M2 round, the rifle won't like it.
The 9th Edition of the Hornady loading manual has a section for loading .30-'06 specifically for Garands. Their minimum and maximum loads with H4895 aren't very far apart: 2.2 gr difference from min to max, and they don't even list 4064 in the Garand section. On the other hand, your 46.7 gr load is on the "mild" side in the regular .30-'06 section of the manual, with a listed MV in the 2600 FPS range. I think your load is too weak for the rifle to properly cycle. |
| I did research the load in my loading books. I have a couple Speer and a Lymans, and Sierra bullet reloading manuals. Reloading military cases, and thought to reduce load . Might have been a little stingy on the powder and was worried about working up to a higher load. I just got my rifle back from Deans and didn't want to load to high right off the bat. They mentioned the powder types 4895 and 4064 for M1 Garand but without grain amounts. Thanks to all of you I am a little wiser now and do thank you all |
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Quoted: The Garand is built to run M2 ammo. If your loads aren't close to the minimum power (gas pressure) of an M2 round, the rifle won't like it. The 9th Edition of the Hornady loading manual has a section for loading .30-'06 specifically for Garands. Their minimum and maximum loads with H4895 aren't very far apart: 2.2 gr difference from min to max, and they don't even list 4064 in the Garand section. On the other hand, your 46.7 gr load is on the "mild" side in the regular .30-'06 section of the manual, with a listed MV in the 2600 FPS range. I think your load is too weak for the rifle to properly cycle. M1 ball, actually (173gr FMJ). M2 was developed two years after the Garand had been adopted. |
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Check out the "tilt test" on YouTube, and do it with the lower stock on to make sure the OP rod is
Not binding slightly. Both of my Garands function 100% at or even a grain under start loads. Not to say there is a problem, but this is easy to check. One of mine was in fact binding on the CMP stock. |
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I did research the load in my loading books. I have a couple Speer and a Lymans, and Sierra bullet reloading manuals. Reloading military cases, and thought to reduce load . Might have been a little stingy on the powder and was worried about working up to a higher load. I just got my rifle back from Deans and didn't want to load to high right off the bat. They mentioned the powder types 4895 and 4064 for M1 Garand but without grain amounts. Thanks to all of you I am a little wiser now and do thank you all It's good to hear you did the research. Sometimes, I wonder about such things because we are all strangers. I had no idea how you got to where you were at. I thought I'd ask. Actually, I agree with your perspective, too - better safe than sorry. |
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That's odd reducing load for 30-06 military cases. I found my HXP and LC cases were actually lighter than my commerical Remington cases. I agree. I'm one of those goofy guys who weighs casings and I have found no significant difference in weight between my GI 06 brass and commercial brass and like the post quoted have found some commercial brass weights more. Interestingly enough I was weighing some .308Win brass last night and found some commercial brass as much as 15gr heavier than my LC-63 brass. So it seems that following the old "rule of thumb" even with 7.62x51 is not always accurate. It's probably better just to stick with the published start load and work up regardless of the brass type. Motor |
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Master Po says; 147 - 155 grain FMJ or HPBT bullets IMR 4064 - 50.0 grains I remember thinking some of the Po loads seemed hot for military brass. He may have used commercial brass. Yeah, I just checked it out. He did use commercial brass. Reduce by 2 grains for mil brass. |
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I just weighed some 30.06 brass. The brass was de-primed, sized and wet tumbled.
RP Commercial 194.3gr FA58 Match 194.5gr LC13 198.6gr FA58 Match 195.0gr RP Commercial 202.7gr LC13 194.3gr FA58 Match 196.2gr RP Commercial 197.9gr FA58 Match 195.4gr FC Commercial 202.8gr LC13 195.7gr FA58 Match 195.4gr FC Commercial 203.1gr WRA 183.0gr RP Commercial 196.1gr FA58 Match 195.5gr As you can see some of the commercial brass is heavier than the LC military brass and even heavier than the FA Match brass. I never load to max for my M1 and only follow published NRA load tables . Conclusion is unless you are loading close to max loads you will be OK. Vince |
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I think we've lost sight of the origns of that "military brass is heavier" provision. That applies to 308 brass and is not generally applicable to all military brass. Of course, it might pay to weigh some of the brass your using to know if your batch is on the lighter or heavier end of the spectrum.
What brass is OP using? |
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I think we've lost sight of the origns of that "military brass is heavier" provision. That applies to 308 brass and is not generally applicable to all military brass. Of course, it might pay to weigh some of the brass your using to know if your batch is on the lighter or heavier end of the spectrum. Could be. Vince |
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Could be. Vince Quoted:
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I think we've lost sight of the origns of that "military brass is heavier" provision. That applies to 308 brass and is not generally applicable to all military brass. Of course, it might pay to weigh some of the brass your using to know if your batch is on the lighter or heavier end of the spectrum. Could be. Vince I've heard from others that Lapua brass is very heavy, in many/all calibers. There are all sorts of variations in reloading, yes? That's why the general advice to work up your own load. |
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Oldie but a goodie... Still a very good reference for the Garand.
http://www.crossecreekrifleandpistolclub.com/Matches/VM_Pages/Information/ReloadingForTheM1Rifle_JohnRClarke.pdf The very end of the section shows some '06 loads too. http://www.radomski.us/njhp/cart_tech.htm |
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I just weighed some 30.06 brass. The brass was de-primed, sized and wet tumbled. RP Commercial 194.3gr FA58 Match 194.5gr LC13 198.6gr FA58 Match 195.0gr RP Commercial 202.7gr LC13 194.3gr FA58 Match 196.2gr RP Commercial 197.9gr FA58 Match 195.4gr FC Commercial 202.8gr LC13 195.7gr FA58 Match 195.4gr FC Commercial 203.1gr WRA 183.0gr RP Commercial 196.1gr FA58 Match 195.5gr As you can see some of the commercial brass is heavier than the LC military brass and even heavier than the FA Match brass. I never load to max for my M1 and only follow published NRA load tables . Conclusion is unless you are loading close to max loads you will be OK. Vince Thanks for posting this. Wow. |
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M1 ball, actually (173gr FMJ). M2 was developed two years after the Garand had been adopted. Quoted:
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The Garand is built to run M2 ammo. If your loads aren't close to the minimum power (gas pressure) of an M2 round, the rifle won't like it. The 9th Edition of the Hornady loading manual has a section for loading .30-'06 specifically for Garands. Their minimum and maximum loads with H4895 aren't very far apart: 2.2 gr difference from min to max, and they don't even list 4064 in the Garand section. On the other hand, your 46.7 gr load is on the "mild" side in the regular .30-'06 section of the manual, with a listed MV in the 2600 FPS range. I think your load is too weak for the rifle to properly cycle. M1 ball, actually (173gr FMJ). M2 was developed two years after the Garand had been adopted. Good point, but M2 was developed to produce the same (or very close) pressure curve at the port as M1 Ball. Essentially we're both saying the same thing: replicate the GI pressure curve by mimicking M2 (easier to find data for) or M1 Ball. |
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Not needed IMHO. Vince Quoted:
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get an adjustable gas plug and it will solve all your issue. you can adjust it for minimum stress on the op rod too which is the weak part of the garand Not needed IMHO. Vince Unless you are loading exact military m2 ball rounds you do need it, or else you are going to put too much or too little stress on the op rod. An adjustable plug is cheap and will do your op rod a world of good. |
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Unless you are loading exact military m2 ball rounds you do need it, or else you are going to put too much or too little stress on the op rod. An adjustable plug is cheap and will do your op rod a world of good. Quoted:
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get an adjustable gas plug and it will solve all your issue. you can adjust it for minimum stress on the op rod too which is the weak part of the garand Not needed IMHO. Vince Unless you are loading exact military m2 ball rounds you do need it, or else you are going to put too much or too little stress on the op rod. An adjustable plug is cheap and will do your op rod a world of good. if he doesn't have enough gas to work the action, how the hell would an adjustable gas plug that allows him to vent more gas make it work better? The rifle was designed to handle M1 and M2 ball fine, and using heavier bullets/slower powders than those combinations might warrant an adjustable gas valve. |
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Exactly. ^^^^^^^^^^
The only reason anyone would "need" an after market part would be to control an over pressure situation at the gas port. If you use any of the reliable published Garand specific data you won't have over pressure at the gas port. If people would only realize that this is a Garand and forget that it's a 30-06 and load it using proven Garand specific data there wouldn't be any op rod problems. Motor |
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Exactly. ^^^^^^^^^^ The only reason anyone would "need" an after market part would be to control an over pressure situation at the gas port. If you use any of the reliable published Garand specific data you won't have over pressure at the gas port. If people would only realize that this is a Garand and forget that it's a 30-06 and load it using proven Garand specific data there wouldn't be any op rod problems. Motor General rule of thumb for the M1 is keep the bullet weights between 125-180 grains and powder selection between IMR 3031 and IMR 4230 burn rates and you'll be fine. |
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I'm not a fan of downloading for the garand, it's a stout weapon and as long as you use the proper powders it will take full power loads all day long.
Something else a lot of folks don't realize is with GI ammo is that they never measured velocity at the muzzle like the industry does today, so when you see that GI M2 ball's spec. velocity was 2740 fps that wasn't muzzle velocity but measured 78 feet from the muzzle, or 25 meters. Do the math and that tells us muzzle velocity was actually around 2800 or better for these older loads. Federal's AE3006M1 is their CMP loading for the garand factory spec on that is 2740 at the muzzle, which by GI specs would be near 2650 with a 150 grain bullet. That's SLOW for a 150 grain loading by any .30/06 standard. Take the M72 match load, 173 grain bullet with a velocity of 2640 25 meters ahead of the muzzle. That's right around 2700 muzzle velocity. In order to get that velocity from IMR 4064/4895/etc. you're going to have to load it close to a full 50,000psi power load. Yeah that Master Po was a pretty smart sonofabitch. He posted up all that information to the web about 17 years ago when the internet was still a novelty and information about milspec ammo was scarce. YHMP was a new shooter to CMP highpower and was just starting to collect military rifles and wanted to share the information he had gathered for posterity. It's hard to believe it's still helping folks today. I'll thank him next time I see him 
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I'm not a fan of downloading for the garand, it's a stout weapon and as long as you use the proper powders it will take full power loads all day long. Something else a lot of folks don't realize is with GI ammo is that they never measured velocity at the muzzle like the industry does today, so when you see that GI M2 ball's spec. velocity was 2740 fps that wasn't muzzle velocity but measured 78 feet from the muzzle, or 25 meters. Do the math and that tells us muzzle velocity was actually around 2800 or better for these older loads. Federal's AE3006M1 is their CMP loading for the garand factory spec on that is 2740 at the muzzle, which by GI specs would be near 2650 with a 150 grain bullet. That's SLOW for a 150 grain loading by any .30/06 standard. Take the M72 match load, 173 grain bullet with a velocity of 2640 25 meters ahead of the muzzle. That's right around 2700 muzzle velocity. In order to get that velocity from IMR 4064/4895/etc. you're going to have to load it close to a full 50,000psi power load. Yeah that Master Po was a pretty smart sonofabitch. He posted up all that information to the web about 17 years ago when the internet was still a novelty and information about milspec ammo was scarce. YHMP was a new shooter to CMP highpower and was just starting to collect military rifles and wanted to share the information he had gathered for posterity. It's hard to believe it's still helping folks today. I'll thank him next time I see him
I used to purchase lots of U.S. G.I. M2 ball through the U.S. Army Director of Civilian Marksmanship. I would run it over my chronograph and it was almost always 2600 fps +/- when fired from my NM Garand. I know published data rarely matches real world results because too many variables are in play. My chronograph screens were 15 feet from the muzzle. Most of the .30-06 ammo we received was 15 to 20 years old in the mid-1980's. LC headstamps ranged from 1966 through 1969. Accuracy was mediocre. My handload using surplus 173 grain bullets was 44.5 grains of IMR-4895 which reached 2550 fps from my NM Garand. 46.0 grains of IMR-4895 would be very close to 2640 fps, which was the published velocity for M72 match ammo. |
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I know that many of you who are familiar with military ammo already know this but since it hasn't been mentioned yet I figured I would for those who don't know.
Although the 7.62x51 is much smaller than the 30-06 the M1 Garand and M14 had very similar ballistics with 147gr/150gr issue ammo. This is also why switching to the 7.62x51 was a win win decision. As mentioned by some of the others it dosn't have anything to do with action strength. The Garand has a strong action. It has everything to do with port pressure. The rifle is so sweet shooting with proper loads though that I don't see any reason to modify it just so I can use slower burning powder and obtain more velocity. I guess that is my opinion. Motor |
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