Basic 308 Winchester Reloading for TR Training - Part I
Project Scope
If you are a www.bisleyvshop.co.uk customer you have probably suffered through at least one of my rants about my brass problem. Brass is heavy and it hurts when you accidentally kick it, which is a common occurrence in a small shop like mine.
We are looking at some neck sized only Lapua cases that have been loaded many times and were carefully paired with barrels we wore out long ago. We kept RWS cases from back in the RUAG days, thinking that one rainy day we would do something with them. That was fine until my father-in-law gave me his RWS brass and literally added a couple of gallons to the problem. Then there is the GGG. For years all of those practice shoots trying to get sight settings for the current flavour of GGG, as well as all of the empties that ended up in the bottom of your shooting bag when it started to rain as you were leaving the point. It all adds up.
Please note that some load data will appear in article below. Take this data with a grain of salt. It is based on particular lots of powder and primers. Powder burning rates change over time, and at the time of this writing the powder used was already from and old lot. Do not blindly copy any load you see here, as this article is really meant to get the reader thinking about how to improve their loading process.
The Goal
My wife and I have brass set aside for matches that is weighed, assigned to individual TR rifles and generally well treated. What we need is ammunition to just ‘go shooting’ at electronic targets when the weather is good. For Target Rifle training, we need ammunition that is ‘not bad’, or even ‘pretty good’ at times. It would be great if the ammunition could perform similar to NRA issued 308 Winchester. We need ammunition for barrel break in. We need ammunition that will fit any of our 308’s, not necessarily tuned for any individual gun. We need a decent amount of it. Most of the shooting done would be at 600 yards or less. It would be added bonus if it were economical. Why not start with this brass? I feel it could be time to update my old loading process, and this exercise may yield some insight as to what the new process will look like. It is also an opportunity to try out some new tools and test out some ideas for an updated reloading process.
I am not going to weigh and sort these cases. I am not going to measure the neck thicknesses or neck turn them. I am going to do the minimum to the existing primer pockets to reliably seat a primer. I am not planning to shoot a match with this ammo. I am going to train and have fun with this ammo, while resting up my better brass.
Where to Start?
Let’s start with the RWS brass. It looks to be mostly once or twice fired. Some of the primers have already been knocked out and some of the brass seems to be tumbled already. Most of it has sat in a damp clubhouse at Bisley Camp for years and is lightly tarnished. I can’t tell if any of it has been resized. There is a decent amount of it (too many cases to count easily) and although I have no experience with RWS brass, I have heard generally good things about it. No primer pocket crimps to remove.
Out with the old primers...
I have three single stage presses set in in different areas to form independent work stations. A lightly used Redding Big Boss with a really tight ram is in the general shop work area. Here it is shown with a Lee Universal Decapping Die. I must admit that this is the first time I have used one of these. My first impression is why have I not used this before? First off, you are not exposing an expensive die to dirt. You get the advantage of being able to de-prime a case while it’s dirty, and in this case, I wanted to tumble the brass without primers in order to remove some of the dirt from the primer pockets. With a bin under the press, I watched as the spent primers accumulated along with all of fine black primer fouling. When you next upgrade your single stage press, your old press would be put to good use as a de-capping station.
Take a Tumble
Cases were tossed into the tumbler as they were de-primed. The Lyman Tumbler 1200 is perfect for small batches but really struggled with more than around 200 cases. In Canada I had a big Dillon Tumbler which I left there when I came to the UK because of the voltage issue. In hindsight I should have brought it with me as it had at least double the capacity of this Lyman. The media I am using is Lyman Turbo Tumbler Media Corncob Plus , which is aggressive and fast. It works consistently and is relatively inexpensive so you can change it when you notice a sharp increase in the time it takes to tumble cases clean. Again, my usual average batch size is 50 cases, so this Lyman Tumbler is great for that. The Lyman Turbo Tumbler 1200 Auto Flo is a good alternative for average batches. Without the Auto-Flo feature, you will need something like a Lyman Media Separator to seperate the media from the cases once the tumbling operation is complete.
Time to Re-Size
I chose a bog standard RCBS Full Length Re-Size die for this job. I have Redding S Dies and bushings on order, but I want to get a load together before they arrive. I didn’t want to risk one of my better dies on this brass as I just wasn’t very sure about what I would run into. I would run a few cases through and check the run-out at the neck. If everything seemed OK, I would keep going.
I thoroughly cleaned the old lube off my press ram with WD40, then put on a thin coating of white lithium grease before proceeding any further. Everyone is talking about run out these days and people are thinking their expensive dies are defective, but a lot of their problem could probably be caused by a worn press. They actually don’t last forever as they are not designed to. I think spending an extra minute on keeping the moving parts of the press as clean as possible could greatly contribute to press longevity. The Redding press is really quite tight and I think I will test slideway oil as a lubricant. I use it on my lathe and mills as it ‘sticks’ to vertical surfaces.
I am a regular user of Hornady One-Shot. Before One-Shot, I used Dillon lube. I have had good and bad experiences with both, but the real problems were encountered when you switch back and forth from one to another due to chemical incompatibility. I learned the hard way to completely clean a die before introducing a different case lube into the mix. Heavily lube the clean die with the new lube and let it dry, let it dry, let it dry.
For these large batches I wanted to test mixing liquid lanolin with isopropyl alcohol at 1 to 10 in the interest of economy. I used an old spray bottle that used to hold an industrial grade disinfectant cleaner (the pink stuff) and mixed a small amount. I placed around 30 cases in an old baking sheet, sprayed lightly and let dry for about 10 minutes. The results were really very good and I was impressed. The cases ran very smoothly through the full length die with absolutely no problems. I needed to be really careful to handle the brass with one hand and keep the other hand lube free. The lanolin does tend to get everywhere and get on everything so you really need discipline around the resizing process; one hand operates the press and the other gets covered in lanolin.
I re-sized 10 cases in the standard RCBS FL die with the expander ball in place, then checked each one for run-out in the neck on a Sinclair jig. The run-out in the 10 cases was between 0.002″ to 0.003″. The die was screwed all the way in as I had no base line information on the once fired brass and I did not want to measure the chambers in each of the five rifles ammo was destined for. The brass fit in my rifle with the tightest chamber with the bolt dropping closed effortlessly. Good enough for practice ammunition. The only downside that I could see is that my old die was scratching the necks of the cases slightly. The neck portion of the die was probably damaged earlier, but there are no visual signs of scratches on the metal surface. Time to clean the die… Sweets? A little careful polishing with some JB Bore Compound seemed to help a lot.
I tossed each case into the tumbler as I resized it to remove the case lube. Before I started, I switched to fine untreated walnut shell media in order not to contaminate my treated corncob media with lanolin.
The resizing process was not going to be as difficult as I first thought. I could let a batch of lubricated cases dry while I sized an earlier batch and just tumble them in walnut shell just long enough to get the lube off. An added surprise was that the fine walnut shell media cleaned the primer pockets slightly better than the corncob media. They pockets will still need some attention, but most of the dirt will stay where it lies and not be moved to the next step in the process.
The Big Trim
Did I mention that I hate case trimming? I hate it enough to have delayed this job for years. After using an RCBS case trimmer back in my Service Rifle days and testing a Lee Trimmer, a new improved Lee Trimmer and finally a Dillon Power Trimmer, I decided to remain a staunch ‘Neck Size Guy’. After being shamed by all of the new videos out there showing ‘current’ reloading best practise which encourages ‘shoulder bump’ and minimal full length sizing I just felt like the last dinosaur (neck sizing probably hastened their extinction).
I thought I would turn this aversion into a positive. I watched about 40 hours of video on Youtube of shooters trimming brass (yawn fest as my oldest kid would say) and happened upon the Giraud Case Trimmer. I counted all of the machines that I had in the shop with ‘spindles’ and came up with 6 stationary and 12 portable devices. The last thing I needed to add was another electric motor as I already had plenty of them so I decided to purchase a few Tri-Way Trimmers from Doug Giraud and test one as part of this article.
Please have a look at my Giraud Tri Way Trimmer Demonstration video when you have time. I am running the Tri-Way Trimmer on the Big Mill and also test it with an ancient Dewalt Cordless drill. I have to admit that using the Tri-Way in a Cordless Drill is actually kind of fun. I think that without this device I would have had to farm out this quantity of brass to my friend who has a Dillon Powered Trimmer.
I had a Dillon Powered Trimmer when I lived in Canada and shot a lot of Service Rifle. I was running through brass like there was no tomorrow and needed the Dillon to keep up. I disliked using the Dillon Trimmer a lot as it was very, very loud and threw brass shavings all over. I had to connect my shop-vac to it which made it even more unpleasant to use but it captured some of the shavings. It did do the job of trimming well, but nothing else. You still had to deburr and chamfer the cases.
The best thing about the Giraud Tri-Way is that it trims, chamfers and deburrs all in one operation, which the Dillon did not do. So far, after the cases are run through the Tri-Way, they are all within 0.001″ in length of each other and ready for to prime and load. No burrs, just a nice inside and nice outside chamfer.
My cases had never been trimmed before and running them through the RCBS die stretched them a bit. I needed to remove about 0.012″ to 0.015″ from each one. With really long brass, the Tri-Way tends to grab the case and try and spin it. To get around this I decided to ‘chuck’ each case in my Sinclair Hand Priming Tool, lock it and then insert it into the trimmer. This method turned out to be much faster than gently trimming the case while holding it with my fingers. I think that this is a ‘one time only’ problem and will go away after the first trim.
Prime Time
Priming is my favourite part of the reloading process. In Canada, the range that I used to do most of my load testing was frequented by a small but dedicated group of Bench Rest Shooters. They were friendly and curious and always wanted to find out what other shooters were doing. I watched them set up their reloading equipment behind the point and load the same small batches of cases over and over again until they ‘tuned’ a load for the current atmospheric conditions.
They were very careful when it came to priming. After watching them, I switched to a Sinclair Bench Rest Hand Priming Tool for all of my priming (except pistol cartridges). The tool has no feed mechanism, so each primer has to be inserted into the tool using your fingers, one at a time. I have used this tool for so long, I can run it purely from muscle memory and can prime without actually looking at the tool. When I encounter a case with a loose primer pocket, I mark the case with a felt tip so I can dispose of it after firing.
Usually I would use a Primer Pocket Uniformer on each case before priming. This would remove the carbon from the primer pocket and perhaps a small amount of brass from cases with shallow pockets. I will leave out this step as the primer pockets look quite good after the second tumbling.
I think at a later point, I will double back and test primer pocket uniforming after this stage, but first I want to define the rest of the key steps in the reloading process. In keeping with the economical theme in the project, I am going to use some old Federal Match Primers I purchased from a friend at the Kempton Park Classic Arms Fair. I only have 600, but that would be a perfect quantity for my first practise batch. I as a staunch Federal 210M guy until I purchased a ‘bad’ batch of 5,000 and had to suffer through them. I switched to rate CCI BR2 but my stash is running out so it will be Fed for this practise ammunition.
I have been shooting Lapua brass for so long now that I forgot what it was like to work with ‘ordinary’ brass. I am used to smoothly seating CCI primers in my Lapua brass. The experience with RWS brass and Federal primers was anything but smooth. Some of the primers would simply hang and refuse to go into the pockets. I don’t know if the chamfer on the RWS primer pocket was the issue or not. I will not use this primer/case combination again.
Powder and Bullet Plan
The bullet was going to be the Sierra 2155. In the interest of duplicating GGG performance this was the bullet. In my mind I had already decided on powder.
Back in the 1990’s I switched from using IMR Series to VV140 for 308 Winchester with 155’s. I was really quite comfortable with my loads back then. There was a hiccup in the supply chain and one day VV Powders were unavailable in Canada. I switched to Varget, which was really quite good if you could accept the huge variation between lots. I found a bulk supplier and would regularly purchase my legal limit. I also found this powder worked well in most of the other calibres I was shooting and was quite satisfied. Upon moving to the UK, I discovered that Varget was too dangerous to meet EU Industrial Regulations so it was banned from importation. In an effort to keep good relations with the EU, the UK has decided to continue the ban post Brexit. Thus the return to VV powders. I also load for MR, so had some slower single base and double base powders of various lots kicking around in small quantities. I was not getting good results with any of them with the Sierra 2155. I was approached by a very well respected UK Gunsmith who told me to go back to basics and try a light VV140 load.
I looked at my notes and test groups from 25 years ago when the VV140 burning rate was slower (or liability was less of a concern) and came up with a starting load. My intention is to come as close to GGG (2900 fps and change from my barrel) velocity as was safe. The main reason for this was to stay close to GGG sight settings and overall performance in the wind. If I noticed any real differences in accuracy on my way to the velocity goal, I would keep this in mind. Initially I would perform load development using a single rifle, then back test in the four others this ammunition was intended loading for. If there were any real problems with accuracy in the other rifles I would have to come up with a different approach.
I will load 22 ‘A’ portion test cases, starting with 2 rounds at 44.0 grains as suggested in the Sierra Reloading Manual and increase the powder charge in 0.2 grain increments for each of the 10 remaining batches of 2 rounds. This will allow me to cover the range between 44.0 and 46.0 grains. I will test fire the rounds, starting with the lightest load, watching velocity and pressure signs on the way up. Since I have shot quite a bit of VV N140 recently I feel comfortable with this approach and believe I can come close to my desired velocity target. I do not however know what results I will experience with this case/primer combination.
I will seat the Sierra 2155 seated for an Overall Length of 2.80, which will more or less duplicate GGG 155 specs. The GGG rounds I have measured tend to average out at 2.7995.
Hopefully, this initial powder test should identify a possible ‘node’, at least in the test rifle, close to my velocity requirement. I will not be testing for accuracy in the initial test, only gathering velocity data. Any little scrap of range time will suffice. In hindsight, I should probably load 3 extra rounds at 44.0 for fouling purposes and shoot the test starting with a clean barrel. Once the I get an idea of what velocities are being produced, I will load the remaining cases from the ‘A’ batch to try and tune a little bit. This second test would be for group size, done from a bench with a scope at 100 yards. I decided to prep a ‘B’ batch of cases at this point as I new there would be more testing to do very soon.
Interpretation of Results
A large part of my old job was to present data in graphical format to support management decisions that were not based on that data, or any data at all for that matter. A graph can tell you anything you would like to hear. Let’s see what the first 22 test rounds have to tell us.
Do you remember the olden days when you had to guess the velocity of your load? Groups of shooters would gather and speculate on how many fps your load was producing, eventually reaching a consensus. It was little like celestial navigation in that you would use figures based on an observation, and from different references, then apply various factors based on where you thought you were and arrive at a probable location. Velocities for the test were measured with a MagnetoSpeed V3 Ballistic Chronograph. The velocity graph for the initial test showed that even 0.2 grain increments were not small enough to show the whole story in developing this load, and 2 rounds per powder charge were insufficient to yield enough data to draw any reliable conclusions. The test did show that the velocity goal could be reached. All of the fired cases showed no serious signs of any pressure related problems. The primers started to flatten out a little when charges were approaching 46.0 grains. The temperature was 8 degrees C at the time but the rifle and ammunition were at 18 degrees C.
The load of 44.4 grains produced 2 rounds with identical velocity. This is of interest as the chances of this happening are quite low, and for that matter these figures were not too far off the velocities produced from 44.6 grains. The graph hints that a load of around 44.5 grains as being worthwhile testing again in this rifle. Unfortunately, these figures were lower than what I had hoped, but should not be dismissed. After all, there would be nothing wrong with a consistent, safe load for short range practise that was on the lighter side. Case life would be extended as an extra benefit. Remember what the well respected UK Gunsmith said. ‘Go back to basics and use a light VV140 load’. Perhaps he was right after all.
Looking at the upper end of the plot, there is an gap at 45.5 grains as we have a big jump in velocities between 45.4 grains and 45.6 grains. At this point, we are off the chart of the published Vihta Vuori Data and should have broken our rifle by now. If you look at a 10 year old VV printed manual, both starting and maximum charges were much higher then. This could be due to powder burning rates changing over time. The Sierra Loading App goes higher than these charges, but does caution the reader that they are ‘hot’.
A few days ago, I was speaking with a gunsmith who spoke of competitors in some disciplines shooting loads at what he called ‘Proof Pressure’. We both agreed that this was unnecessary to achieve high scores and would eventually result in an unfortunate ‘event’ which would cause the NRA to have to step in and put safety rules in place around hand loads. None of us want to see this happen.
The plot shows velocity spreads settle down a little at 45.6 grains and upwards. These intuitively feel like ‘warm’ loads with VV140, but might be OK with this lot of powder. I would also like to know what is happening at 45.5 grains. When does the velocity increase to above 2940 fps? I feel Test Number 2 looming ever closer. The 45.4 grain load was around the correct velocity, but the difference between the two shoots was not encouraging. I want to perform a second test with 45.4, 45.5 and 45.6 grains of powder to try and determine what is happening in this range. I would also like to know if the velocity spread at 45.5 was an anomaly or if there really are dragons there. The velocities in this range would meet my goal and come close to duplicating GGG performance. They are also within my comfort zone with this lot of powder.
I have to admit that I asked a serious re-loader for help with the interpretation at this stage. I needed an unbiased opinion to look at the graph and make recommendations without even knowing what powder or bullets were involved. I received some very good advice with regards to conducting chronograph work in general and some suggestions on the next steps. My friend claimed that 2 data points for each load were not enough. There should be at least 3 and probably 5. He also suggested that one should always start with a clean barrel and fouling shots before any data is collected. He also suggested that for final testing 10 shots would be appropriate. As far as the load development went, my friend suggested further exploration of the range from 45.5 grains through 46.0 grains was warranted as based on the data, their seemed to be a node (flat spot) with the centre around 45.8 grains. At the time of this writing, it was November 2021 and the outdoor temperature was below 10 degrees C. so my friend also cautioned me that my load would have to be adjusted as temperatures warmed in the Spring. The other factor that I should divulge is that the test rifle barrel has under 200 rounds through it and is not completely broken in. It can be expected that the velocities will increase after another 200 or so rounds.
Sanity Check
Time to do a sanity check. Although I have not experienced any signs of excess pressure during my testing thus far, I am loading well above the maximum load quoted in the current Vihta Vuori data for N140 powder. There is a conflict between the Sierra data and the VV data whereby the Sierra data shows a much higher maximum load. Consulting a current version of the Lyman Long Range Precision Rifle Reloading Handbook, indicates a maximum of 45.0 grains of VV140. This reference quotes a pressure of 60,900 PSI with a Berger 155.5, but does not mention what brass or primer was used. Vihta Vouri is using Lapua brass for their testing. GGG velocity runs about 2960 fps through my rifles, and sometimes a little more. I cannot duplicate this velocity with the brass/primer/powder combination that I am using without going way over the Vihta Vouri maximum load recommendation.
All Is Not Lost
After some deliberation I decided to call Sierra Technical Support and confirm what the necessary muzzle velocity was to maintain supersonic velocity at 1,000 yards with the Sierra 2155 with some extra room to insure against negative environmental factors. To my surprise the minimum was 2700 fps. To add a little insurance, 2750 fps was recommended. That is a lot less than the number I was told by a fellow shooter many years ago. The Support Team at Sierra is really helpful. They cannot really understand why the discipline of Match Rifle exists, as to them it seems a cruel way to kill off otherwise perfectly good brass. Other than that they are great to deal with and extremely helpful.
There just so happens to be a ‘low node’ on the test velocity chart that seems to warrant further testing that is well above what Sierra is claiming to be the minimum velocity. Although I failed to achieve GGG duplication with this component combination, I do think I have the basis for a good, safe load that may yield excellent results without being tough on the brass. I will just have to add a little elevation.
The gunsmith knew what he was talking about….
Learning Points
Adding the separate step of de-priming turned out to be a good idea. The a lot of debris was contained in this step and did not make it further down the loading process. Another advantage of doing this first was that the primer pockets were cleaned to a degree during the first tumble.
The lanolin/alcohol mixture of case lube worked well. In fact it probably was more effective than one-shot. I full length resized 755 cases without any problems at all. Only a minimal amount of lube was used and the overall cost was basically nothing, as I still have enough lanolin and alcohol to lube another 10,000 cases or so.
Technical Support at Sierra cleared up a misunderstanding that I had for the last 20 years by giving me proper data. It is free and easily available to all.
The basic RCBS Full Length Die, with expander ball in place produced cases with surprisingly straight necks. The run-out was far less than I thought it would be.
The slideway oil worked well for lubricating the Single Stage Press stem.
A powered case trimmer was necessary to process a large batch of brass in a reasonable time frame.
I am starting to think that it would be reasonable to process batches of 500 cases at a time using these simple techniques.
Next Steps
Test Wet Tumbling
Switch primers to make seating easier
Test a different powder to try and achieve higher velocity safely
Test this ammunition in different rifles