Hi Everyone,

Any ideas on the number of times 30-06 brass for my M1 Garand can be safely reloaded ?

Thanks,

Joe39

Troy's right on the money. You might also want to take a good look at your first batch of brass after its initial firing as well to make sure the chamber doesn't have headspace issues. Case head separations aren't much fun.

You'll lose cases for two reasons. Case head seperations and neck splits. Neck splits, you can't do anything about on a SAAMI chamber that has lots of neck clearance. I usually lose brass because of this. I normally get about 6 or 7 loadings on brass used in a SAAMI chamber before the necks start splitting from overworking.

Case head seperations can be prevented IF you keep the headspace under control. Too much headspace on a resized case, and done repeatedly, is the reason for case head seperations.  

On a target rifle I bump the shoulder of a fired case back just far enough for it to chamber again easily. That's about .001" - .002" headspace. Any ammo that may get used in a fight gets .004" headspace. I think headspace greater than .004" is bad ju-ju.

The way I do it is real easy. Redding makes a Competition Shell Holder set. It has 5 shellholders in varying thicknesses, all thicker than a standard one. +.002", +.004", +.006", +.008", and +.010". I start with the +.010", resize the case, and try to chamber it. It usually won't.  Go progressively smaller until the case chambers easily. Stop there for target ammo or go .002" smaller for fighting ammo.

The best way to know exactly how much headspace you have on your loaded ammo is to have a headspace checking gauge that exactly matches your chamber(bolt just closes on), and a tool for measuring the cases. I use a Stoney Point tool and a good pair of dial calipers for that. You measure the headpace gauge with the Stoney Point tool and zero the dial calipers to the gauge. You can then compare your sized case to the gauge when you measure them.

Most reloaders do not realize just how much headspace some rifles have with ammo that has been resized with standard dies and shellholders. For example, I have an AR10 that came from Armalite with a .243 Win. barrel on it. When I started reloading for it I sized a case with the +.010" shelholder and the gun swallowed it. I did a check and found that if I had sized my cases with a standard shellholder (like most people do) that gun/ammo combination would have had .012" headspace. Way too much, and in my opinion, dangerous.

Before I started doing this I had seperations. I never had anything bad happen from it, but maybe I was lucky.

Now, you'll hear of some reloaders that simply back the die out of the press to achieve the same thing (less shoulder bumping), but that method is not as accurate.

Good luck.